Canon NB 1LH Lithium Ion

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I purchased a Canon Ixus 330 about a year and a half ago and as part of the package, you are supplied with one re-chargeable battery, a Canon NB-1LH.

It is a Lithium Ion Battery, which are ideal for mobile devices, much lighter than earlier made batteries, more environmentally friendly for disposal and they do not forget they are charged...(yes I didnt realise batteries were forgetful either!!!)

A lot of the ...
...about £10 cheaper than the Canon battery. I then made it my rule of thumb that whenever I used the camera, at the end of the day
I would take the battery currently in the camera out and re-charge it, and then replace it with the spare one.

At first I didnt notice much of a difference between the quality of the two batteries but recently the Jessops battery will only run the camera for a few photos before running out of power. ... more

If you have a digital camera you might find this battery information helpful.

I purchased a Canon Ixus 330 about a year and a half ago and as part of the package, you are supplied with one re-chargeable battery, a Canon NB-1LH.

It is a Lithium Ion Battery, which are ideal for mobile devices, much lighter than earlier made batteries, more environmentally friendly for disposal and they do not forget they are charged...(yes I didnt realise batteries were forgetful either!!!)

A lot of the digital Canon range (including my camera) doesnt have a battery indicator so it is highly recommended that you carry a spare battery with you. Therefore before I went on my jolly holidays I popped into Jessops and bought a Jessops branded NB-1LH. This I think cost me £15, about £10 cheaper than the Canon battery. I then made it my rule of thumb that whenever I used the camera, at the end of the day
I would take the battery currently in the camera out and re-charge it, and then replace it with the spare one.

At first I didnt notice much of a difference between the quality of the two batteries but recently the Jessops battery will only run the camera for a few photos before running out of power. I have taken approximately 1300 photos on my camera with a majority of them using the Canon battery so I was pretty miffed about why my Jessops battery needed replacing so soon. I therefore decided to go into Jessops to buy a new Canon battery which gave me the opportunity to seek an explanation as to why my Jessops battery failed so soon.

Its all to do with mAh

In Jessops I was told that my Canon battery is about 840 mAh and the Jessops was about 700 mAh. What does that mean? I never really noticed or cared about the mAh, I just thought that battery fits my camera so it must be ok.
Well apparently mAh is an abbreviation for milliamp hour, a technical term that shows how long a given power source (like a battery) can give off power. Therefore the higher the number, the more charge a battery can hold and usually, the longer a battery will last. For example, a battery rated at 1500 mAh can power a device drawing 100 mAh for 15 hours.

Summary

In summary it appears that even though the Jessops battery only had 140 mAh less than the Canon, a combination of its lesser mAh and infererior quality will mean it will fail a lot sooner than you think. My Canon NB-1LH however, appears to want to run forever and I would highly recommend that if you need a spare or to replace a battery, only buy the Canon NB-1LH because it is a star amongst batteries.

Appendix

The NB1-LH currently powers the following digital cameras:

Digital IXUS Series:
Digital IXUS 300, Digital IXUS 330,
Digital IXUS 400, Digital IXUS 500
Digital IXUS V, Digital IXUS VII, Digital IXUS V2

PowerShot S Series:
PowerShot S100, PowerShot S110,
PowerShot S200, PowerShot S230,
PowerShot S400, PowerShot S410,
PowerShot S500

Cost: Wide variations of between £13 to £26.
Ease of Use: Very easy to use and recharging only takes a couple of hours.
 

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