I've got something called a Mustek MDC830Z digital camera, and the Lithium-ion battery (02491-0045-00 aka DLRP8300) seems to have died. I need to purchase one or two more to replace it.

Reading about Li-ion batteries I see that they begin to go downhill immediately after manufacture. So an older battery will have less capacity, and reach the end of its life, sooner than a newer battery will.

I'm seeing a number of different vendors sell these things and the price range is pretty dynamic, going from about $12+ to about $40 each.

Has anyone had experience buying these sorts of batteries, and can you recommend a vendor? I'm wondering if some of the smaller vendors, some of which I suspect of being "one man bands," might be selling old stock. Which is all right with fountain pens but not so good with these Li-ion batteries .

Thanks for any help on this.

A factory-fresh battery indeed works best -- found that out when replacing the Li-Ion in my Windows PDA. Bought mine at BatterysPlus <ww.batterysplus.com>. Had much longer life and charged faster than the old one did. Only cost 40 % of what a new PDA would have.