Generic batteries for GF1, GH1 & G1

[jerryk]

Yeah, piss off the users with more and more firmware upgrades to disable the non "special" batteries.:thumbdown:

One more such stunt, all my "Lumix"/"Panasonic" branded gear goes out for good.

But where do you go? Canon does and I heard Nikon is going to.

 

[jerryk]

At least with the Apple internal notebook batteries there is a point- significantly better battery life than the previous revisions with removable batteries, as well as much longer lifetime (1000 charge cycles instead of 500.) I think for many people that is a worthwhile tradeoff (though I understand not for everyone.)

The new MacBook Pro's get up to 7 hours on a single charge.

There is no reason they could not make a removable batteries with the same performance characteristics.

Also, that 7 hours can only be achieved when the battery (not the computer) is brand new. As the batteries age their ability to hold charge diminished. The other downside is you cannot carry a spare battery for your laptop.

The upside for Apple is that in a year or two when battery life starts to get shorter you might consider just upgrading to the next model versus sending your old model in for a battery swap.

 

[Vivek]

But where do you go? Canon does and I heard Nikon is going to.

Whatever Canon does has no bearing on me.

Sure Nikon can do it as well.

Whenever there is a block, there will be a hack. That is the reality.

If they want to piss users off, let them come up with something (as in Mac) that is really special (price and performance).

Olympus has no such problems within the m4/3rds, btw.

FWIW, an universal charger is agreed upon for cell phones. This is environmentally friendly as well.

Making the batteries to conform to a standard size/output would be the way to go. Too many of the Lithium, etc batteries are very harmful for the environment.

 

[madmaxmedia]

There is no reason they could not make a removable batteries with the same performance characteristics.

Also, that 7 hours can only be achieved when the battery (not the computer) is brand new. As the batteries age their ability to hold charge diminished. The other downside is you cannot carry a spare battery for your laptop.

The upside for Apple is that in a year or two when battery life starts to get shorter you might consider just upgrading to the next model versus sending your old model in for a battery swap.

I don't think anyone offers a real notebook with the form factor of the MBP, with 7 hours of battery life.

The battery life will decline over time, but that is the same for all batteries. The rated lifetime of Apple's batteries is 1000 charges, 2x of regular (of course we will see how well they really hold up.) I understand that there are only minor form factor improvements by making the battery internal, but whatever the difference the battery life of my MBP is really, really good.

The battery is actually easy to access, and it's only a matter of time before 3rd party batteries are available. The main inconvenience is not being able to easily swap in a fresh battery when no power plug is available. But I've never even owned a backup battery for my notebooks, so given the existing choices out there, the new MBP is my personal preference (given that I will be able to replace the battery myself when the time comes.)

If you don't want to swap it yourself, Apple charges $129 for the service. Definitely a bit steep, but I think the regular removable batteries for older batteries were not much cheaper (I never bought retail so don't remember exactly.) Apple's and Panasonic's margins on batteries is probably similar.

 

[madmaxmedia]

Time will tell I guess how accurately they reverse engineered the thing and whether Panasonic will be able to lock them out in a future firmware.

Yeah, hopefully it has been reverse-engineered well enough that Panasonic can't block these batteries without blocking out their own.

This is the first time this has happened, so time will tell. In the original 'lockout', no OEM batteries had the authorization firmware or whatever the right term is.

Apple has similar hardware lockout for many iPod accessories, but 3rd parties have bypassed those as well.