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I know for most people 2-300 shots and half a day's battery life would be enough.
But not for me, and perhaps not for many others here.
With the early adopters getting an offer for a free HLD-6 grip which takes an extra battery, they will all be out looking for a second battery to actually use the extra power.
So that makes it even harder to find a battery.
It is almost impossible to get hold of a genuine BLN-1.
So much so that someone is selling 10 on ebay "buy it now" at twice the list price.
Olympus are losing out on battery sales obviously, but more worrying for them must be the cheap batteries available from China.
I ordered a BLN-1 from the Olympus UK website, but then after two weeks had my paypal payment refunded with no explanation. I'm glad I have my money back but I'd rather have another battery.
With the cheap clones on the market, they are obviously not quite compatible.
They won't charge in the Olympus charger, only their own.
Some claim 1450mAH and on the case, but are built with 1020mAH cells.
Some claim Sanyo cells in the advert, but are actually Zhongshan Tianmao Battery Company cells.
The resulting capacity is about 15% less than the genuine Olympus batteries.
Although they report charge state back to the camera, the charge drops off a cliff near the end of their life, and some users have had corrupted memory cards as a result. They are savvy users who know the risk, and know how to recover corrupted memory cards.
So buyer beware, you get what you pay for; 3 batteries of less capacity (and reliability) than the genuine Olympus battery and a charger, for less than the cost of one real BLN-1 (which you can't get anyway).
Right now there are potential time bombs of unreliable cheap batteries shutting down the camera mid-write, or just low voltage near end of charge corrupting the memory cards. Then who will get the blame?
From the beginners, probably Olympus, because the batteries were sold as compatible and it can't just be the battery causing all these problems :mad2:
I don't remember anything this bad before, even as an early buyer of the EP-1 (you'd think I would learn, eh?) when the EP-1 launched there was a battery shortage but at least there were reputable batteries from Hahnel as a second source.
And when I bought my GH-1 they had spare batteries on the shelf in the shop.
Seems Olympus have messed up this time
Oh there seem to be honest suppliers out there.
Wasabi Power Battery says "Note: Batteries are NOT decoded. Your camera will not display the battery's run time and must be charged with the Wasabi Power charger." They are also on back-order until 22/06/2012.
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Originally Posted by Greg McCary
