Canon - NB-2LH Li-Ion Battery Review

Overall 4.00 of 5 (by 1 user)

bkovacs
Annandale, VA

Does its job... for a price.

a Canon digital camera owner, looking for a bargain, wary of cheap batteries

Pros

small, lightweight, charges quickly, has surprising power

Cons

expensive

SEP

2007

I have a Canon PowerShot G7 digital camera, which I review elsewhere on Viewpoints. The camera came with a Canon NB-2LH rechargeable battery and I bought a spare so that I will not be without a charged battery. I bought mine for about $50, although Amazon now sells it for $43. That's still expensive for such a small battery.

What it is

The Canon NB-2LH is a small rechargeable lithium-ion battery designed for and supplied with Canon's PowerShot G7 camera. For a compact camera, the G7 is fairly large and heavy, so a small light battery is a good idea to make the G7 as consumer-friendly as possible. How small is the NB-2LH battery? About 1.75 inches long, 1.25 inches wide and a bit more than 1/2-inch thick, and it weighs about 1.5 ounces. The NB-2LH is recharged using Canon's CB-2LW, a small and lightweight charger that is also supplied with the Canon PowerShot G7 camera.

The Canon NB-2LH is rated at 7.4 Volts and 720 mA-h, which is a pretty good rating for such a small battery. It is made from featureless gray plastic, with three metal terminals at one end, and it slips easily into (and out of) the G7 camera.

Using it

Charging a dead NB-2LH takes about 90 minutes using the CB-2LW charger supplied with the G7 camera. The charger is very small and has a folding plug that makes it easy to carry in a pocket or camera bag. Likewise, the NB-2LH battery is so small that it rides easily in my tiny accessories pouch in my camera case. I always keep a charged spare with me in the event the battery in the camera fails. You can swap batteries in perhaps 10 seconds.

A fresh battery is good for about 350 shots with the G7, and that's with frequent use of the flash and LCD monitor on the camera. I think that's pretty good endurance for such a small battery.

Summary

Since my camera came with the Canon NB-2LH battery, I didn't have any choice in what I would use. I did choose to get a second NB-2LH battery so that I wouldn't lose any shooting time when a battery died. I hated to pay the price but love the light weight and convenience of the second battery. The Canon NB-2LH is a good battery... I just wish it was $30 instead of $50.

Last edited on Sep 07, 2007