Batteries are something we all take for granted, most of us don't give a second thought to the brand we are buying, we only consider price, usually going for the cheapest ones possible? Wrong. Although the performance of batteries is quite difficult to gauge, there are huge differences between different brands. You might think that established brands like Duracell and Energizer with their expensive TV adverts and flashy packaging are all style and no substance, at least no additional substance over less well-known brands; but the premium price that these premium brands attract is indeed justified.
I discovered this to my detriment last week when I was on the hunt for a cheap set of batteries to go in my new camera as well as for a few other tacky gadgets I had recently purchased. The camera was a gift from my partner, found on the gifts for him section of a technology website, located right next to the gifts for her page. I was incredibly excited about using my new piece of kit, being the photography geek that I am and set of for the countryside to get some scenic shots on my new Nikon machine equipped with a set of incredibly low priced batteries I picked up from the pound shop.
Envisage how angry I was then when I realised that despite by best efforts, the camera would just not turn on. I did everything to trying and coax it life, shaking it, turning it upside down and taking the batteries out and putting back in again countless times. Defeated and downtrodden, I returned home dejected. The following day I went straight to the electronics retailer where I purchased the camera from and demand that they look at it. They immediately took the back off, checked the batteries and laughed in my face. Apparently the batteries I brought were nowhere near the spec that the camera required. This taught me an important lesson, you get what you pay for.
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