XA20 Third Party Battery

[Stephen Dey]

Thanx Alan for your experience of those batteries - thats good to know.

[Gary Burlingame]

I think there's finally a 3rd party battery (manufactured in China) for sale on ebay that will work with the XA20 (at least, they advertise that it will). I've ordered 2 and will post my results when it arrives.

Li ion BP 828 BP828 Decoding Battery Charger for Canon HF G30 XA20 XA25 BP 820 | eBay

2XLI ion BP 828 BP828 Decoding Battery Charger for Canon HF G30 XA20 XA25 BP 820 | eBay

[Stephen Dey]

Thanks for that Gary,
In the meantime I have been advised by Blue Nook, the distributors for Wasabi batteries, that the new model to fit the Canon HG30/XA20/XA25 should be available around November 6th

[Don Palomaki]

From the photos of the charger, it look similar to the stuff now at BestBatt in the related thread, but perhaps a slightly lower price for battery and charger..

[Tom Kilgore]

Originally Posted by Tom Kilgore

B-9679H is the one I got

UPDATE:
I recently tried this battery from ebatts.com in my G30 and the camera reported it as incompatible. It's weird, because the battery worked ok when I initially tried it????
I had a critical moment lost due to only having that battery as a spare. My other batteries were flat at that time. I will use Canon batteries now.
I also replied to the other battery thread on this forum as to the problem. Steer clear of this battery.

[Stephen Dey]

Hmm - seems Gary may have wasted his money then, or has he ?
because its an Ebay purchase, I know that here in the UK you can get your money back if the item you purchased is "not fit for purpose" eg incorrectly described in this case.

I find it strange Tom, that the battery originally worked and now doesn't, I presume the battery had held a charge since the last time you used it.

[Tom Kilgore]

Yes, I found it very strange also that all of a sudden it would not work. I don't know the exact status of the charge, because it produced the compatibility message and powered down automatically before getting to the point of indicating the charge status . Degree of charge may have something to do with it, but I didn't try recharging it and retrying it..............I angrily threw it as far as I could. (The green people will be on my case for that). A more rational person would probably have tested the battery in some way, but that lost photo opportunity erased any rational thoughts I might have formed.

[Don Palomaki]

At least the ebatt web page does not claim the B-9679H supports the XA20/25 or G30, but the BP820 listing for it may be an error.

If it worked once, it may have been an early failure that would have been covered under warranty.

[Tim Akin]

I reported this in the other thread but will also do it here. I tried the battery from ebatts that stated on the web site it was compatible with the XA20 but was not. The battery from Bestbatt BP-828 does work. I have charged it in camera with it showing 225 min fully charged and used it several times swapping out the original battery and the 828 with no problems.....yet!!

[Jeff Harper]

Thanks for re-posting Tim, that's important information.

[Don Palomaki]

FWIW: I posted my initial observations with the BestBatt BP-828 eqivalent and their charger in the other current running battery thread.
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-xa...e-xa-20-a.html
Have yet to use them beyond charging and checking for power-up.

[Gary Burlingame]

Good news, everyone. The 3rd party batteries from ebay that I posted about earlier arrived yesterday and I tried one of them out with my XA20 at a football game tonight. It performed flawlessly without any error messages and I'm very happy with the purchase. After a full charge, the display showed 180 minutes (compared to 120 minutes from the Canon supplied battery that came with the XA20) and it still had 60 minutes left after recording the 2 hour game. I discovered that these batteries will also work with the XA10 but, as many have already noted, the XA10 batteries will not work with the XA20. The charger performed flawlessly as well and I discovered that it can also be used to charge XA10 batteries. You can also charge the battery by attaching it to the XA20 and plugging it in.

Li ion BP 828 BP828 Decoding Battery Charger for Canon HF G30 XA20 XA25 BP 820 | eBay

New Li ion BP 828 BP828 Decoding Battery for Canon HF G30 XA20 XA25 BP 820 | eBay

Based on my experience so far, I would highly recommend these batteries for use in the XA20 as they appear to be completely compatible for a lot less money than the Canon BP 828s..

[Jeff Harper]

Remember folks, that typical issues with 3rd party batteries often will not show up for awhile. At best they normally will not last as long and within relatively short number of cycles they will discharge much faster then they should.

I bought one of these, so I'm not knocking them. I really do love the low price, but as they say, we get what we pay for.

[Tim Akin]

Knock on wood.....I have some that I bought for the Sony VX-2100's that I'm still using in LED lamps. I always try to stay with some of the more common name brands though. I guess I'll keep using them until I get burnt... (no pun intended)

[Jeff Harper]

I still have the Sony generics also for lights. Those were exceptional.