G12 extra battery question

Thinking of getting an extra battery for my G12. Looking at a non Canon vs the Canon battery...leaning towards the more expensive Canon battery.

Opinions please.

Using a 3rd party battery is fine. Many will recommend the Sterlingtek brand to you.

The batteries are made with two cylindrical lithium cells inside and some monitoring and protection circuitry. The only difference between brands will be the quality of the paste in the cells; the basic chemistry is all the same and there are few manufacturing plants that supply many thousands of brands worldwide.

Large OEMs like Canon will specify a battery quality and capacity and the specification will stay the same for the life of the product.
3rd party brands are living on skinnier margins and copy the original shape a few months later, at which time they can provide a higher capacity for a lower price. Canon has done all the initial R&D and design work that they're just copying now.

You'll see batteries specified at 7.2v or 7.4v, they're both fine.
You'll see batteries that might have 30% more capacity (mAhr rating) than the Canon battery... I wouldn't necessarily believe it's that much higher, but you'll surely get at least the same capacity as the original and probably noticeably more, so it's still great value.

Investigate if your battery is 'chipped', as some batteries don't talk to the camera with a serial number so some advanced battery monitoring features might not work. I'm not sure if these features are in the G12, the 5Dii/7D/60D have it.

sterlingtek battery was the first thing I bought for my G12....had 3 for my g5 all worked as well as factory

I got a 3rd party battery called MaximalPower from Amazon for 6.99.
Used it and charged it 3 or 4 times so far.
Worked fine.

I get around 500 shots out of a battery, I have the original and a 3rd party – no difference between them. Save your money…

I have used
http://sterlingtek.com​/
batteties @ chargers since I bougt the G3 when it came out. No leaks, no bad batteries, no over-voltage, NO problems at all. I trust them.
GilBean

Gil Bean wrote in post #12354124
I have used
http://sterlingtek.com​/
batteties @ chargers since I bougt the G3 when it came out. No leaks, no bad batteries, no over-voltage, NO problems at all. I trust them.
GilBean

since the G5 for me. Had one crap out in less than a year and they replaced it free.

I grabbed 2 seemingly unbranded spares off of Amazon at around $4.00 each. They've worked like a charm thus far. They've each been through 2-3 charges each.