Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/08/10
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]As a follow up to all the v1.196 battery hysteria, I performed the following "tests"... I have had V1.176 installed on my M9. I have several aftermarket batteries and 2 OEM batteries. They were in various stages of charge or discharge. The highest aftermarket battery measured 75%. The lowest measured under 5%. I put all the batteries through the camera, turned it on and measured the LCD display of the % of battery life left. Results: at about 10-15% of battery life left, the LCD said that I did not have enough battery life left, and to turn the camera off. ( I guess it wanted me to charge the batteries???) (DUH!) Down to less than 5%, I got the same message. Between 15% and 75% ( or more), the camera did not complain. It was good to go. I then downloaded V1.196 to a memory card and updated the M9 to this level of FW. I put the batteries back in the camera with the following results..... Absolutely the same. Nothing different. NADA. None. Non Pas. Nici una. Keine. Nincs. Niets. OEM batteries: Same Aftermarket batteries: Same. I then proceeded to test the backwards FW upgrade path.... I downgraded my M9 with v1.176 FW, successfully. Finally, I upgraded again to V1.196. The bottom line...... V1.196 will NOT disallow your aftermarket batteries. Upgrade if you wish, go ahead and be paranoid if you wish. Do nothing and have no opinion is you wish. M9 FW V1.196 allows you go backwards on an M9 FW update, to an earlier revision. The lesson I learned... It is cheaper to scare the customer into buying $15 batteries for $175 than it is to put in a chip and alter the FW to make sure he can not use $15 batteries. And it can be as successful. But I knew this to begin with..... Frank Filippone Red735i at earthlink.net