I can't speak for JC, but I've personally seen third party batteries that are absolute junk and nowhere near the Apple battery quality. Including third party batteries that literally didn't even fit properly in their slot because the dimensions were wrong. Even their colour was off so especially in white MacBooks, the battery on the underside looked off. To each their own, but those factors alone to me are deal breakers.
Some of my customers come in with these batteries and buy a genuine Apple one after expressing regret on cheeping out in the first place for all the reasons I mentioned above - not to mention other issues such as poor run time and poor performance just months after purchase.
That echoes my experience exactly.
I'm not saying the Apple batteries aren't overpriced. I'm just saying the third party ones are lousy.
Also, you can't compare the batteries with components like hard drives and RAM.
Both RAM and hard drives are industry standards, and have no proprietary components, design, connectors, or shape. The Apple batteries have all 4.
The Chinese are notoriously good at replicating (stealing) proprietary technology and mass producing it....
To each their own as Lars says. I have been using 3rd party batteries since the early 90's going back to my video production days in video cameras, still cameras and laptops.
So long as you buy from a reputable 3rd party provider who provides at least a 1 year guarantee (often you can get 3 years) and you are buying the correct part (one must make sure that it is in fact an equivalent part) my experience is that you are fundamentally getting the same battery minus the branding. I have never had any issues in 20 years of using 3rd party batteries and the savings are unreal in some cases.
Case in point, a branded replacement battery for my Canon S95 $50. Third party replacement that I bought before going to Mexico in February $7. So I bought 3 for less than half the price of one branded battery and they hold their power every bit as long as the branded battery and look exactly the same in every way minus the Canon name being on the label.
