Most helpful customer reviews
139 of 144 people found the following review helpful.
It's the original, and now for a fair price
By ubat
The bottom line about the BCG10PP: It's identical to the one that ships with the Panasonic ZS3 and behaves just like it.
On buying the BCG10PP: In mid-June, when I needed a spare battery for my Panny ZS3 (because the camera's battery life is so-so and I didn't want to run out of juice with no backup at hand), the BCG10PP was nearly impossible to find. Panasonic.com didn't sell them, and none of the resellers the site recommended had them in stock. I ended up finding it on Amazon, via one third-party reseller. Since he seemed to be the only one on the planet to carry the battery, I was charged (no pun intended) an arm and a leg for it. Supply and demand, they call this phenomenon.
I'm happy to see more resellers now have this battery in stock and the price has come down significantly. I hope it continues like this and that soon it'll be very easy to find.
One word of advice: If you're planning to get a cheaper third-party battery (a BCG10PP compatible model, but not manufactured by Panasonic), do not update the ZS3's firmware. The update addresses original vs. not original batteries and you'll only be able to use the Panasonic battery after installing it.
70 of 73 people found the following review helpful.
Like others, I was sent the wrong battery!
By MomOf2Toddlers
As you will see from several other reviews, the battery that ships is not the one featured on the page. I instead received the DMW-BCG10 from the outside merchant, Inspiretech / Clear AV. It has to be returned to the merchant, not Amazon, and the merchant claims they will not refund shipping. I am assuming Amazon will refund my shipping, then, because I am certainly not paying for their error, and may I add an error that CONTINUES to exist after others have experienced the same fraud. This is an unnecessary hassle I have to deal with now, because Amazon didn't handle it after the first person experienced the screw-up. Thanks a lot.
34 of 34 people found the following review helpful.
Alert vendor canceled this transaction
By TennWriter
As others have noted, Panasonic is updating the firmware for many of its cameras to prevent the use of non-Panasonic batteries. Even though the description and photo for this item indicate that it's a genuine Panasonic product, it isn't. It's a generic battery, and the vendor emailed to inform me of this before shipping. After exchanging a few more emails with me, the vendor decided he didn't want to take the chance of shipping me a product that might not work, so he unilaterally canceled the order and refunded my money.
At first, I was annoyed ... but in retrospect I appreciated the vendor's initiative in canceling an order that most customers would have ultimately had to return.
Use caution when buying batteries for recent Panasonic products, not just the ZS3. Verify that the firmware you have (or are willing to downgrade to) allows the use of generic batteries. Annoyingly enough, genuine Panasonic batteries are in very short supply. In fact, I haven't been able to find them in stock anywhere.
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