Original Equipment Manufacturer's (OEM) accessories are usually sold at a premium, but the price of this particular battery is verging on the excessive!
Battery technology has improved almost beyond recognition, largely as a result of the mobile telephone industry demanding greater capacity cells in a smaller format - the knock on effect is that smaller volume products have been able to cash in on the research.
Olympus have adopted the BLM-1 package as it's format of choice for it's latest range of mid to high priced cameras.
With a nominal capacity of 1,500 mAh, using rechargeable lithium ion technology, this cell packs a considerable punch in a moderately small unit.
Lithium Ion has distinct advantages over 'traditional' Nickel cadmium cells, being free of the dreaded 'memory effect' - where to maintain optimum capacity, a cell needs to be completely discharged before recharging.
The downside is that over time, a fully charged cell will gradually fade away to eventually nothing, however this is mitigated by the fact you can 'top up' the charge without penalty.
All of this comes at a price, the technology is newer, more expensive, and requires special chargers (it may not mind being topped up, but it DOES get fussy if you don't have a current regulated charger)
So much for the science, what really makes my blood boil is the 'manufacturer's premium' of the genuine Olympus product.
I daresay, if I ware to write to Olympus complaining, they would offer some feeble excuse that only Olympus batteries carry their endorsement, and that in the event of a malfunction which could be traced back to the use of a third party product, they wouldn't support a warranty claim. - however I may be doing them an injustice!
I recently bought a Camedia C-8080 Wide Angle camera (which I've reviewed previously in Ciao)
I also bought a 1 gigabyte memory card which was my most recent review prior to this - in this I noted that the maximum number of pictures I could take was 9999 - or three and a half hours of video footage, but that the batteries were likely to fail long before this!
The C-8080 DOES come with an external power jack, but the standard charger doesn't come with the appropriate conector, so for all practical purposes, this could really be considered a 'mainly battery' camera.
The real solution, then, is to carry a 'spare'.
Checking the Jessop's web site (alright - not the cheapest, but reflective of high street prices in general), I noticed the standard cost of one such battery, bearing the Olympus brand was a hefty £68! (and another six quid postage!)
- previous Olumpus digital cameras I've owned have had the capability of using standard AA Alkaline cells - if you think you're likely to run out, then a quick trip to a supermarket or filling station was all you needed to finish a shoot.
The BLM-1 is quite a different animal - it doesn't remotely resemble any 'standard' battery, and just to make sure, has a funny terminal arrangement!
A brief trawl through Ebay revealed that many vendors are offering third party batteries at a fraction of the cost, and that's why I bought one, with a combined item and price and postage at £6.80 - yes - a tenth of the 'official' product! - ok, so it only offered 1400 mAh, but that hardly justifies the price difference.
I realise I've committed 'Olympus Heresy' - and were I ever on their Christmas card list, I'd certainly be off it by now.
Even assuming the third party battery only lasted six months, I'd still have to wait five years before the equivalent cost was recovered by getting the 'branded' product!
No
For once, this dyed in the wool Olympus fanatic will not be paying £61 for the sake of a sticky label declaring 'Official Olympus product'
Overall - a perfectly reasonable product at a completely unreasonable price.
Pictures of Olympus BLM-1 Lithium Ion
Which one would you rather pay for?
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