Customer Reviews

Zeikos ZE-BP819 Rechargeable Replacement Lithium Battery for Canon BP-809 & BP-819

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

First of all it does what it says. It will power your camcorder, I have the Canon HF10. When I received this battery the first thing I did was push the button on the battery on the battery to see the charge level. It lit up 2 lights, the 100 and the 75. The display is missed labeled, when fully charged all led's will light. It appears that the label is backwards, it starts at teh 100 mark (full). Second thing I did was to insert it inot the Canon factory external charger (CG800), it failed to charge. I then used the power adapter that came with camera and charged the battery over night. The next day I connected the battery to the camcorder, as stated, the camera did not see the battery. Select YES keep using the battery. I then start to record with the camcorder. The factory battery (BP-809, 890mAh) lasts about 90 minutes. With this battery I came back at 2 hours (120 minutes) and checked the battery meter, it displayed only one light, at 100% full (the red light, remeber it is backwards, it was actually on empty.) I do not know if the battery running out of juice and shutting down with out notice is harmfull to the camera or the process of recording and saving. But seeing it at one light at 120 minutes I would not use it any longer than 2 hours. I do not beleive the battery will last much longer then 2 hours safely. Using this information I do not beleive the battery is actaully 2700 mAh, However it does last longer the the factory 890 mAh battery. And it is cheaper the the factory BP-819 Canon battery. Over all it is a good trade off. If you wish to the limits of the battry and drain every bit out of it then stick with factory batteries.

I bought 2 which worked great. I get about 3 hours non-stop recording. I bought 2 more for my cruise so I can charge 2 while having 2 out with me. The 2nd batch were both bad. One wouldn't power the camera at all and the other would cut off after 5 minutes presumably overheating or shorting out. I RMA'd them and ordered 2 more. Hoping the 3rd set which I am currently testing works OK.

**Update** After fully charging and discharging the replacement batteries a few times I am convinced it was just a bad batch of batteries on my 2nd order.

I have the same problem as J.Niedermier. It is labeled backward. (No quality control and that makes me wonder about the unit as a whole). Each time the camera is powered ON and not recognizing the battery is a hassle because you'd have to keep responding "continue".
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I just ordered the CG-800 and will see if that will charge this battery.

Wow! This battery does exactly what it says. I would have given it 5 stars but had to knock one off only because you have to charge it separately and the camera does not read the batteries life.

I have the Canon HF10 and there was no way I was going to spend $90 plus dollars on the 819 unless I had to. The battery comes by itself with no charger and almost worthless instructions. Example, one part says you cannot use the camera to charge nor the Canon power cord and suggests using one of theirs (Zeikos)purchased separately yet another section says to only use the original powercord. So, just as a goof I unplugged the Canon power cord from the camera and plugged it into the battery. Voila! It started charging. I gave it a good 3 hour charge before using.

Next, I snapped it into my HF10 and it fits perfectly. I turned on the camera expecting a the "battery not compatible" error message everyone else has been talking about. But it didn't happen... the camera just powered on like normal. The only difference being the onscreen battery indicator is red and has a "?" inside the symbol. It cannot read the remaining battery life but happily uses it's battery juice as power anyway. The LED indicators on the side are great. Just one push and you know how much power you have left in 25% increments (25,50,75,100).

Next I wanted to see how long the battery lasted on record. I set the camera to record in SP mode (7Mb/s), set the camera down and just let it go. I came back a few hours later and it had powered itself off. So I swapped the original batter in and turned it on. The Zeikos battery recorded for 2h:23m. Granted there was no starting and stopping nor zooming. I performed the same test again and got almost the same numbers. So I would say the battery lasts anywhere from 90 to 140 minutes depending on use (possibly longer in playback mode-but haven't tested that yet).

All in all an awesome battery for the price. In fact you could buy 4 of these for about the same price as one Canon. Perhaps Zeikos has addressed those complaints from others about LED indicators backwards and onscreen message errors. Unless you are filthy rich I would highly recommend this as an alternative.

I went on a long vacation recently and needed more battery life than canon provides (don't we all). So I picked this up for my Vixia HG20 and it works completely as advertised. It has about double the life of the standard battery while being only marginally larger, and the extra mass makes the camera easier to hold stable. Don't get scared when the camera says "can't communicate" that's okay, just press yes to continue and use the led's on the battery body. My only quarrel is that the led power indicator will bounce from one level to another depending on how hard you push the button. So just be careful not to press your luck and keep the original battery around when this one gets low.

Found that in-stock battery, BF-809 came with Canon HF200 can only last about 90 mins, I started looking for one that has bigger capacity. But genuine BF819 is a way expensive ~ more than $90. But there are alternative batteries for BF809. After read reviews here, I finally decided to get this model of battery and I'm satisfied by now.

Unlike other reviews, my ZE-BP819 battery does have battery remaining indicator label correctly. First I got it, and it has about 50%. After charged about 3 hours, I was able to shot a movieclip with SP mode more than two hours.

When this battery is in the camcorder, it will give you an error popup : "Cannot communicate with the battery pack. Continue using this battery pack?" You can ignore that popup by pressing 'yes.' It will not show you battery remaining indicator on the camcorder LCD, but you can check it manually by pressing 'push' button on the battery. The popup won't be appeared again until you turn the camcorder off - if the camcorder goes to stand-by mode, you don't have to bother pressing 'yes' button.

The package and manual of the battery was cheesy, but it works ok and that's all about I care :)

This battery includes 2 workarounds that many other after market batteries do not have 1) It includes a time remaining meter on the battery and 2) you can charge it with your original canon equipment. I have the canon vixia hf200 and I have no problem charging this battery using the charging cord that was supplied with the camera (plugged into the dc outlet of the zeikos battery). Even the canon battery requires that it be in the camera to charge. With the zeikos battery I can charge it with power cord while using my camera with the original battery. No down time. You could buy another after market battery and a charger or an insanely expensive canon battery and charger......or you can just get this battery and use your supplied canon power cord. No extra charger needed. Neato.

This battery didn't charge while in my vixia hfs100 or while directly plugged into a charger. The video camera didn't show how much time was remaining, and the battery soon ran out of juice. I did return it and got a full refund, that was nice. I then ordered this BP-827 for $39.26 including shipping and it works great. Some people have not had the best experience with that battery either though...

When I got it, I charged it for a few hours until it said it was full. Then I put it in the camcorder (Canon Vixia HF200) and pushed record in a mid quality (XP+ (I think)) mode. I just left it sitting there and came back later when the battery ran out. It recorded for 2.5 hours. The button to check the power remaining is hard to push correctly. Sometimes I will push it a few times before it will show how much battery life is left. That isn't a big deal to me though. I recommend buying one.

Definitely a great alternative selection for the expensive Canon BP819 battery.
Eevn though my Canon HF200 does not recognize it and can not report the battery status, the ZE-BP819 itself provides indicator to tell me how much juice is still left in the battery.

Also, I don't need to pack additional charger in my bag, just plug in the original Canon charging cord to charge it.

I do experience similar battery duration as mentioned in other reviews.
In summary, with this low price and decent battery duration, there is a great value.