[time-nuts] OT Gel Cell question

[Charles Steinmetz]

Paul wrote:

>Stay away from hamfest/flea market batteries. They are almost always 
>bad and nothing really revives them. Pay the money and make sure you 
>get a recent build date.

Also, know that there is a huge range of quality represented by the 
batteries available on the market.  Unfortunately, almost all 
batteries these days come out of just a few factories in 
China.  These manufacturers are capable of designing and constructing 
first-quality products, but the batteries that are commonly available 
in the US are made for brands that ask for the cheapest batteries 
possible.  So you need to find a brand that aims higher and actually 
does its own quality control.

And do not be misled by what has become an almost universal 
bait-and-switch technique:  You find a link that says "GENUINE 
[brand] battery!!" and when you follow the link the page says 
"[BRAND] battery" prominently at the top but when you scroll down you 
find in tiny print that the battery for sale is "compatible with 
GENUINE [BRAND] battery" or is a "GENUINE [BRAND] replacement 
battery" and is actually the cheapest, most awful POS battery made.

Panasonic SLAs are by far the best I've used (even the ones made in 
China), but I haven't found any for sale in the US for a few years 
now.  If anybody knows of a source, please share.

Best regards,

Charles