Lithium polymer batteries are no joke. They can explode and mess you up if you happen to be too close to them when they do. Panasonic is only trying to protect the consumers of their products.
Panasonic Now Forces You To Use Their Batteries
21–25 of 25 posts
Re: Panasonic Now Forces You To Use Their Batteries
#22Panasonic should have a certification process to allow 3rd party batteries that meet their safety standards.
What makes you think they can afford to do that? And enforce it. There are already numerous international standards (ISO, etc) on things like Li-ion batteries, which of-label manufacturers are happy to ignore, lie about, or just implement incompetently.
Panasonic wouldn't have to pay for it. The 3rd party manufacturer would go to a testing lab (recognized by Panasonic) and pay for certification.
Once they receive certification, they could be added to the approved vendor list.
Re: Panasonic Now Forces You To Use Their Batteries
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
"This isn't unlike Apple's insistence on Apple-branded RAM being used in their machines; if you're having Mac problems, and you have third-party RAM installed, AppleCare will tell you to take a hike." Not true. Twice I've had Macs have issues and both had Crucial RAM. Each time I was asked to remove the RAM and re-verify the problem. Each time the problem persisted and was fixed by Apple.
So in other words, Apple wouldn't deal with your problem while you were using non-Apple RAM. I think we agree here.
That's a kind of unfair spin. A much fairer summary would be "Apple had him check whether it was an issue with his third-party memory before sending it in."
Re: Panasonic Now Forces You To Use Their Batteries
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
"This isn't unlike Apple's insistence on Apple-branded RAM being used in their machines; if you're having Mac problems, and you have third-party RAM installed, AppleCare will tell you to take a hike." Not true. Twice I've had Macs have issues and both had Crucial RAM. Each time I was asked to remove the RAM and re-verify the problem. Each time the problem persisted and was fixed by Apple.
So in other words, Apple wouldn't deal with your problem while you were using non-Apple RAM. I think we agree here.
Verifing that the problem is something that they can help you with is part of helping deal with the problem. It's not the same as telling you to "take a hike".
Re: Panasonic Now Forces You To Use Their Batteries
#25Based on the comments I think Panasonic is within their rights here, but still I would probably not buy from them. I'll stick with cameras using rechargeable AAs.
Possibly somebody will figure out how to make a knock-off battery that the camera recognizes as genuine Panasonic, putting us back at square 1 again.