Generic batteries....

So you bought this fancy camera or camcorder or a laptop PC. Spent quite a bundle. Now the question is whether Nikon, Canon, Panasonic, Dell, HP or other manufacturer designed the equipment that expects their brand of batteries or you can purchase a 3rd party one. We clearly know from the Dell and other problems a few years back that the batteries sold under many brand names come from one or two sources across many manufacturers. In the laptop scare it was SONY that was the culprit, if I remember right. So now, what is the difference to you? Well obviously the 3rd party batteries cost less in some cases quite a bit less. So is it worth it? In theory all batteries follow the same path in that they look inside like this (courtesy of Panasonic):



In practice perhaps a manufacturer of the equipment tweaks the schematics just a bit, or allows for tolerances different than the 3rd party supplier. In my mind the bottom line is that use of 3rd party batteries makes sense provided that: (1) you do your homework on the manufacturers of the batteries (2) you don't buy the lowest price ones from the 3rd party list. I personally will go with the Nikon supplied ones into my D300. Saving $20 is not worth it for me to do the research in (1) and (2) earlier.