On Fri, 9 Feb 2001 19:19:25 +0100, Danny Lawrence wrote:

>How does Sony stamina lithium-ion battery performance compare to the
>Panasonic equivalent?
>My experience of NiCad batteries with both Sony and Canon Hi8
>camcorders has been exasperating despite taking all the necessary
>precautions to conserve battery use and maintain the batteries in good
>condition. For that reason the new Sony DV and D8 machines are
>attractive to me - but I don't want to write off Panasonic models
>unless there is a significant difference.
>A related question is whether Panasonic cameras, like Sony's, provide
>information on estimated battery life remaining.

First, the "information" is, ah, rather optimistic...;-)
Most camcorders use a variation on a bar-graph for
indicating battery condition - this works well enough.
Second, the batteries generally are stamped with
MA or "watts" rating, and since these lithium-ion
batteries appear to be all made by Panasonic, I
suspect there are no real differences (except for
case details, to make them not fit cross-brand,
darn!) among the different "brands" of batteries.
The differences lie in the current drain of the
camcorders (this can vary a lot from model to
model), and the sizes available for a particular
model. and, lithium-ion batteries are FAR more
dependable than NiCads, though! (They are also
more expensive, and go bad in time...)