tusker

My Fuji X100F got fried when I charged an off-brand battery abroad. Cost me $500 to repair.

chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand

Lots of questions need to be asked/answered before deciding whether this is even relevant -
1. Was the battery being charged through the camera ?
2. Had this battery been used/charged before in originating country ?
3. Was the battery being charged with an original charger or a non oem charger ?
4. Was the charger being used in a 230v country but was only a 110v charger (as opposed to a universal charger) ? This is important because some manufacturers may say the charger is universal but they use components which don't handle 230v so the universal bit is marginal.
5. Was the battery purchased overseas ?
6. Was this the FIRST time you had used the battery ?
7. Did this happen this century or last century ?
And I am sure there are others.
Nothing exists in a vacuum. Your statement has so many provisos that it is not clear at all whether the two are even related.

duane klipping Loc: Bristow iowa

Bingo. This comes up far too often here. Use what you want. Me I will save the money to buy gas for my car. You others that will use nothing but name brand come off a little uppity about it as if to justify you have been duped out of 30 bucks.

JDG3

I agree completely. I worked as an electronics manufacturing engineer for a company and many, if not most, of our parts came from China. However, the quality of these parts could vary widely if not monitored. High quality parts are readily available but you must have purchasers or agents that track and follow these parts from start to finish. Once we learned how best to do this we had few problems with our China sourced parts.

We learned that very large plants will often manufacture different grades of the same item, all on the same assembly line. The higher graded (higher quality parts) may go to a more expensive name brand and the lower grade products will sell as discounted or generic named products. Many of these are identical and may carry only a slightly different part number or date code. These parts may be graded by testing methods and/or inspection criteria. Those that pass the most stringent tests and inspections will be the higher graded items. Those that fall into lower or wider specs will be sold under different names or part numbers. High end purchasers of these parts (Canon, Nikon, etc) will have agents/inspectors working in the plants to ensure they are receiving the quality level they want and need. That is what you are paying for when you buy the brand name item.

Another thing that happens is that the company will change ownership with little or no notice. The new owners, hoping to improve their profits, will not put in the efforts to maintain the quality of their products and defective product will start to show up. It just shows that quality takes constant work to maintain.

topcat Loc: Alameda, CA

I have used third party batteries for years, with no problems. Some of the cheaper ones may not hold a charge as long, but I find that there is very little difference between them.
I don't buy a battery based on price but rather based on recommendations. I have used Wasabi for years as well as Vivitar. The Vivitar is the only battery that has failed me. It started to not hold a charge for as many shots. I really don't think that you will ever have a problem with any battery.

Do you really think that the camera mfg make their own batteries? Or chargers?

MDI Mainer

Third party batteries from reputable manufacturers have always worked fine in all my Fuji, Olympus and Sony cameras. My favorites right now for price and reliability are Kastar bought through Amazon.

MDI Mainer

Third party batteries from reputable manufacturers have always worked fine in all my Fuji, Olympus and Sony cameras. My favorites right now for price and reliability are Kastar bought through Amazon.

But I have also bought genuine Sony batteries, albeit made for sale in the European market, direct from China, at 50%+ savings over the US price.

chinners

I always buy cheap third party batteries, but then I generally buy cheap third part accessories many no different to the camera manufacturers items, same quality, same fit, same function, without the extortionate price.

ronpier Loc: Poland Ohio

If that works for you that’s great. That’s all that matters.

pand101

Hi I don't know about batteries. But I bought ink from amazon that was not made by Hp., and every time I got to print something it says this is not a hp product and it might not work in this printer. But I print anyway and it's been printing. I will use this until the ink runs out.