Nikon's genuine battery or third party's

[dalex100]

Hi everyone,
I searched on the forum and didnt find what I was searching for. So I would like to know if the third party batteries are as good as the one from Nikon. Is there a reason why Nikon's are so expensive (better battery life)?

 

[jrizal]

Reason for that is for branding. Compatibles may or may not match battery life compared to originals. But the price difference is a solid reason why people buy them.

 

[KmH]

No, the 3rd party batteries are not as good as Nikon batteries, but they may be good enough for many Nikon users.

Nikon batteries have proprietary electronics on them that can communicate with the camera and provide information about battery condition to the user that 3rd party batteries don't have, or have reverse engineered.

 

[jrizal]

Do note that compatibles do not necessarily work on Nikon cameras. Like what KmH mentioned originals have special circuitry that communicate with the camera and they not only indicate the condition but will also identify third party batteries and will not work and give you an error message. But there are now "coded" third party batteries that are compatible with Nikon. I just found about them last week and are being sold in Amazon. These were practically non-existent six months ago. Prior to this, the only way compatibles will work on a Nikon is to use a battery grip. And even that needs a "special trick" mainly requiring you to still use an original. Again these new "coded" batteries may or may not perform as well even though they claim to have the same rating capacity. It still remains a "buyer beware" scenario. So if you want to have a piece of mind about performance, you may opt to use originals albeit pricey.

 

[Derrel]

I bought my Nikon D2x on May 3, 2005 (my brother's 40th birthday...an easy day to remember!). The original battery that came with it is the only one I have ever used in that camera. The newer, better Nikons that I am personally familiar with all have VERY sophisticated battery monitoring information, which tells the state of charge, the number of shots written to card, and the life of the battery, in this manner:

NEW 0----1----2----3----4 REPLACE.

My original Nikon battery is now at 3 in its life journey. It has fired up to 1,800 frames in a day on one,single charge on a few occasions. it has fired a total of around 68,000 frames. The battery has never, ever, not even once, failed to last me an entire day.

This is the absolute best camera battery I have ever seen. Period. It is a genuine Nikon brand EN-EL4 Lithium-ion battery, rated at 11.1 volts, 1,900 milliampere-hours.

This battery is seven and a half years old.