3rd Party BLM-1 batteries test for Olympus Digital SLR Camera

I found that the original Olympus BLM-1 is highly overpriced in Malaysia. The suggested retail price for Olympus BLM-1 is RM428 and the best deal which the shops offered is RM420 (~ USD $125). According to them, it is a controlled price item.

After checking with some Olympus digital SLR users in Malaysia, I found that most of them are using 3rd parties BLM-1 as the spare battery. Some do willing to spend more money to get the original Olympus BLM-1 because of the battery explosion concern.

There are so many third party BLM-1 batteries around. You can find it in most of the famous online store or auction site such as ebay, Amazon, yahoo auctions etc. The prices are ranging from RM 30 to RM 150 (USD 8 – USD 45). It is very hard for people like us to differentiate the quality of batteries especially if you like to purchase online.

One of the Olympus DSLR owners told me that it is safer to get the battery which the cell is made in Japan. But yet, there are a lot of fake label which providing wrong info. It could be the wrong capacity, voltage, origin country etc. The worst is the fake “original” Olympus BLM-1 with lousy cells and minimal safety factor.

A comprehensive BLM-1 clone test was done by James Attfield to help the Olympus digital SLR owners when buying BLM-1 battery. Below is the summary from the test:

http://t5r.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/e1/clonetests.htm