Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony NPFH100 H Series Actiforce Hybrid InfoLithium Battery for most Sony Camcorders

I bought this battery to power my Sony DCR-DVD308 handycam. The battery that comes with the camcorder (the NPFH40) will allow you to record for less than an hour, making it entirely inadequate for anything but home use. With this battery I had enough power to record a day at a wild animal park and a couple of days at Disneyland, with enough left to show my recordings to my parents at their house, my brother at his house, and to various hapless friends who just dropped by our house to say 'hi' and who ended up watching my daughter fly around and around and around on Dumbo (Heaven help me - I'm turning into my father). There's still enough power left from that initial charge to record our trip to the beach next week - at least a couple of hours of my kids frolicking in the sand.

Okay, you get about ten hours of recording time, more playback time. The battery takes overnight to charge in a charger (it takes longer in the camera, so plan on spending another bit of change on a charger). It can be charged for shorter periods, of course, but I don't know whether I believe the claim that this results in no degradation of its ability to hold a charge. With a full charge it's ideal for travel, since only a Japanese tourist would spend more than a couple of hours a day videorecording a vacation. (Why do they videotape cathedrals and the Mona Lisa? Are they expecting Mona to suddenly grin, the cathedral suddenly to fall down?) A normal tourist could easily go a week on a single charge.

My only gripes are the size and the price of this battery. The list price is almost half the price of a decent camcorder. Absurd. Amazon's price is much better, but still high relative to the camera price. I think that battery pricing is a scam, I really do. One wonders whether cameras/camcorders are loss leaders for the profitable business of selling batteries and chargers. The battery is so big that it sticks out like a huge blocky growth from the back of the camcorder. It sticks out far enough that the view finder is hard to use - you'll have to use the screen. With all that power, no problem unless you're in a darkened venue where you'd rather not draw attention to the glow of your screen. I don't take off anything for the size of the battery, since that's a function of the current technology, not bad design. For the price I take away a star.

Ok, I gave this battery 5 stars, but it's actually TOO good for that. It lasted for a week long trip taking videos every day. It holds a charge and recharges faster than it takes to discharge it. It does tend to stick out from the camera a good bit, but it doesn't interfere with the camera operation while being used. Only get this battery if you want really extended video times. The stock battery is good for several hours of video, so this one is overkill.

I just received this battery that's going in my Sony HDR-SR11 and so far it seems consistent with what others have been saying about this battery... When I initially popped it into the camcorder as soon as it arrived, it showed 2 bars and 75 mins remaining so I left it in the unit and plugged the DC adapter in, to check and see how long it would take until full charge. I was expecting all day but surprisingly it only took around 3 hours until the charge indicator turned off, signaling a full charge. I turned on the camcorder again after unplugging the power and bam! "351 mins remaining" which put a huge grin on my face :D

I have NOT tested the battery to see if it'll really last ~6 hours but the stock battery was pretty accurate so I have no reason to believe this one's any different, hence a 5 star rating. Granted, the battery is a little heavier and does stick out a little more in the back but this doesn't bother me so it's not a negative for me. Amazon shipped it fast (and free!) and it arrived a day early which was a nice surprise!

Note: I see that it also went down in price to just under $100 (it was $5 more when i bought it.) I'd definitely recommend this battery to anyone who wants to just charge it and forget it!

I got this battery as a Christmas gift for my Sony HD-SR7 camcorder. Good timing since I was heading off to Europe two weeks later. I was in Europe for a week and I only had to charge this behemonth of a battery once after the inital charge. I leave my camera on constantly since it takes a considerable amount of time to start up this camcorder (approximately 10 secs or so). By the time it starts, I might have missed my shot. If I turned off the camera after every photo or video "shoot", I would not have charged it once! Also, once you use the battery more, you're suppose to get more time out of it as the battery conditions. I probably got 7-8 hrs out of the initial charge.

Once I got back, I had the camera connected to my laptop for about two hours downloading the data off it. After downloading the pics/video, I still had over two hours of charge left on the camera.

This is the battery that (arguably) PROBABLY should have been included with the camera. Yes, this battery is large, but it should be no surprise since someone uploaded a picture of it compared to their stock battery. Yes, it sticks out about 1.5 inches or so from the camera. Sometimes I use it to butt it against my face to stabilize the camera :).

I consider taking a star off because it's big, but it really doesn't bother me. It's not a deal breaker if I was buying it. I also checked this battery out at the Sony Style store at the Metreon in SF so I knew how big it was before I got it as I was going to buy this myself. I guess someone overheard that I wanted this battery :).

The battery that comes with the Sony HD camcorders (or at least with my SR7) is the FH60. The FH100 is at least 4-5x longer lasting... So disproportinately good battery and so far so good - no complaints. Films for ever.