StirlingTEK NP-BX1 Batteries

Because the first pair of Wasabi NP-BX1 batteries for the Sony HDR-AS30V camera faded to the point where they weren’t useful for a typical bike ride, I bought a pair of SterlingTEK (a.k.a. STK) NP-BX1 batteries that, like the Wasabi batteries, claimed to have a 1600 mA·h capacity. These are “second tier” batteries, not the cheap eBay crap I’ve already dismissed, and run a bit under $10 apiece.

Here’s the picture from their product description:

Here’s what arrived:

Huh.

That’s  a red flag, right there. It’s remarkably tempting to ship a good product for a while, then swap in much cheaper junk that can ride on the good reviews. Not saying that’s what happened, but it’s a possibility.

Here’s how they performed:

The red and blue curves show that the STK batteries produced less than 1000 mA·h in their first two charges, with the blue battery (I labeled it B) showing considerable variation that suggests it’ll suffer early failure. The green curve shows one of those Wasabi batteries and the purple curve is the OEM Sony battery, both in as-received condition.

SterlingTEK will send two more batteries, in the belief that I received two sub-standard samples. We shall see…