Quote Originally Posted by brettania
These stories about exploding 3rd party batteries AFAIK have not concerned their use in KM dSLRs. I have read some 60,000 posts in various forums (not just about batteries) and never seen one report from a user about an exploding battery..
What I have seen, however, are some test results and pics which show that the quality from some makers is less than desirable. From memory, they were done by someone in the Oly DPR forum who tested the output, then cut them open to show the circuitry.
well - i actually have one of the third party batteries, $10 on ebay! couldnt even find one anywhere else and the one place i did they wanted like $50 for it, probably should have just gotten that but i thought it was a waste for a backup - saved $40 put that towards a much nicer camera case instead (one of those hard cases). the real difference ive seen with the third party and the minolta ones is that the minolta was a higher capacity (1500 mah vs 1000), that really didnt matter to me though - they both charge VERY quickly, and minolta's VERY good with battery life. the thing that really concerned me was the connectors - the minolta had 2 gold ones, while the third party had 2 silver ones - naturally gold being a better conductor then silver - you would get a better stream of juice so to speak from that.

any thoughts?