Panasonic CGA-S007A/1B Rechargeable Lithium Ion Battery for Panasonic DMC-TZ1-Series Digital Cameras - Retail Packaging

I spent the extra money for this battery, instead of a $9 knock-off, because these batteries can be volatile and have been known to overheat and then even catch fire.I figured it was a small investment to buy a genuine Lumix battery and then not have to worry about it!The peace of mind is worth the price.And--this battery lasts a LONG time. I needed to shoot video and shot 6GB, almost three hours, and the battery still had juice. It also held up for hundreds of high-res stills.The battery also comes with a small plastic case to ensure that the contacts are protected.A worthwhile investment for your TZ5 (which is a great camera!)

Generalizations are suspect. But I'm just fine with this one: when buying rechargeable gadget batteries, I will get a better long-term result from the original manufacturer's product - or a major well-known battery brand - than from a "no name" battery. "No name" batteries generally cost less than the alternatives. But in this case you get what you pay for in the long run.My generalizing comes from experience. A few years ago I bought two "no name" rechargeable batteries to supplement the OEM battery for a Nikon digital camera (Coolpix 7900). The "no names" performed OK at first. But over a couple of years they aged much faster than the OEM battery. Finally one of them couldn't hold a charge at all and the other one held its charge about half as long as the OEM battery.(Rechargeable batteries lose their ability to hold a charge after a certain amount of use - i.e., a number of "charge-and-discharge" cycles. The Nikon OEM battery didn't "age" as fast as the no-names did over two years of heavy use, although it too finally lost a lot of its ability to hold a charge.)That's why I ordered two of these Panasonic brand batteries to use in my Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3K 7.2MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black) - in addition to the OEM battery that came with it. I'm happy so far with the performance of all the batteries. Because they are all Panasonics I don't really know by now which is the original and which are the supplementals.Maybe buying *two* extra batteries for my Lumix was a little more than needed, but once burned, twice shy. I don't want to be out all day shooting a lot of pictures, and get stuck with a dead battery and no replacement. That happened to me on a foreign vacation - and I vowed, never again.

I copied the following from another reviewer 'cause I could not have said it better. I, however, could not rate the distributer as highly. All I can say is, beware; you are not going to get what is described or pictured."The way I see it - the distributer has two problems:1. The distributer lists "Retail Packaging". This is not true - there was no "Retail Packaging". NOTE: My original battery from the OEM came with a plastic storage case/box. The distributer should remove the phrase "Retail Packaging" from their description/title. It is flat out deceptive and misleading to the customer. I was expecting this to arrive in a retail package, with the storage case.2. Even though the Milli Amp Hour (mAh) rating is not listed in the descriptive text - the distributer's photo shows a 1000mAh battery, which matches my original 1000mAh battery. As stated by other customers, this product is 970mAh. The -30mAh difference to my original is negligible. However, it is a little odd that other than the mAh rating everything else is marked the same and is physically identical to my original. Based on the mAh rating I would expect at least a model/pn difference. But, the model/pn CGA-S007A is the same as advertised, (except for the "/1B" and that's not printed on the battery) and it matches what I was looking for. So I don't think I could fault the distributer for this."

I purchased these batteries from 'Triplenet Pricing'.On the batteries, it said 970mAh instead of the 1000mAh I expected. Triplenet Pricing investigated this for me.The reason for the change from 1000mAH to 970mAH was explained as follows from the factory:This is because of world wide regulation change. Instead of Typical capacity, "Minimum Capacity Ratings will be indicated on battery body based on the IEC standard(IEC61960) which issued by international Electrotechnical Commission."So there was actually no change in the battery. Instead of listing the normal capacity, they list the minimum capacity per IEC standards.These batteries work as expected, and I am happy with the responsiveness of Triplenet Pricing.