Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

When I bought my KODAK camera,
I also bought the ( pricey ) nimh battery pack,
and the KODAK Easy-Share Rapid Charger.

Later, I bought additional Duracell nimh batterys.
OOPS !!
You can only fit the KODAK battery-pak in the charger.
You'll play hell squeezing a "regular" nimh AA cell
into the charger opening.

Here's one case where you can skip the KODAK acessory,
and go right to a second party charger/batterys.
You'll get a lot more flexibility of choice.
<rj>

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

<RJ> wrote:
> When I bought my KODAK camera,
> I also bought the ( pricey ) nimh battery pack,
> and the KODAK Easy-Share Rapid Charger.
>
> Later, I bought additional Duracell nimh batterys.
> OOPS !!
> You can only fit the KODAK battery-pak in the charger.
> You'll play hell squeezing a "regular" nimh AA cell
> into the charger opening.
>
> Here's one case where you can skip the KODAK acessory,
> and go right to a second party charger/batterys.
> You'll get a lot more flexibility of choice.
> <rj>

True, but the charger works, with the battery packs designed for it,
right? Since they can't sell you film, they try to get you locked in to
their battery packs. Helps them stay in business.


--
Ron Hunter rphunter@charter.net

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

On 12 Sep 2005 07:01:36 -0700, Ron Baird wrote:

>> When I bought my KODAK camera,
>> I also bought the ( pricey ) nimh battery pack,
>> and the KODAK Easy-Share Rapid Charger.
>>
>> Later, I bought additional Duracell nimh batterys.
>> OOPS !!
>> You can only fit the KODAK battery-pak in the charger.
>> You'll play hell squeezing a "regular" nimh AA cell
>> into the charger opening.
>
> Actually, the configuration of the batteries for the EasyShare camera
> and charger are to make things 'easier' for you. The batteries are made
> that way so when inserted into camera and the camera placed on the
> camera dock or printer dock, the batteries will charge and the camera
> be ready for use within a relatively short time.

Actually, that slight ease of use could have been maintained in a
charger requiring no increase in size, and which would also have
been able to accommodate standard NiMH AA batteries. The Kodak
camera is able to do this. There are several possible reasons why
the charger can't. One might be that the cost to manufacture each
charger could have been shaved by a few pennies. A more likely
reason (already proposed by another Kodak fan) would be a misguided
attempt to encourage the owner to purchase only the more expensive,
proprietary Kodak batteries. Had the charger been designed to also
accept standard NiMH AA batteries, there would have been no need to
make any design changes to the proprietary battery pack, and so it
still would have been able to be charged while in the in the
EasyShare camera., whether placed on the camera dock or on the
printer dock.

There's one additional reason to provide proprietary battery
packs, but as you didn't state it, I'm confident that it played
little or no part in Kodak's design. In any case, it wouldn't have
provided a good reason to limit the flexibility of the charger. And
with a more flexible charger, the EasyShare owner would have had the
same 'ease of use' whenever using the proprietary battery packs.
Then the user would be able to determine whether the cost of paying
for that 'ease of use' was justifiable.