Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
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Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
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Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
#2Let me leap in here to ding Duracell. They used to be my goto battery, but over the past few years (there was a hedge fund takeover, which IME rarely results in improvements to long-standing quality products) they've turned into liabilities - specifically, they are extremely prone to leaking once even a little bit discharged. To this day I open old kit and there can be duracells in there with "use by 2010" or even earlier dates which are fine, yet far newer batteries (e.g. bought in 2016 with expiries in 2022) leak like there's no tomorrow for the buyout team.
Interested to hear of others experiences, or I've just been amazingly unlucky.
Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
#3I have had the same issues with Duracell leakage. I won't buy them any more, for exactly that reason.
Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
#4Let me leap in here to ding Duracell. They used to be my goto battery, but over the past few years (there was a hedge fund takeover, which IME rarely results in improvements to long-standing quality products) they've turned into liabilities - specifically, they are extremely prone to leaking once even a little bit discharged. To this day I open old kit and there can be duracells in there with "use by 2010" or even ea…
Happened for me too. They were very reliable batteries, now even new batteries leak if unused for a few years. They have ruined several remotes that I use sparingly, they should change their name to Ephemeralcell.
Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
#5Also see this impressive test: https://anrieff.net/batterytest/index_en.html (European market)
Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
#6Apologies for the slightly off topic question but can anyone point me to the best test/comparison of Alkaline batteries vs. the new Lithium rechargeable ones? Older rechargeable AA and AAA batteries were terribly short lived and so mostly useless but I assume Lithium ones are much better?
Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
#7Duracell used to be really good about replacing devices if their batteries leaked. They screwed me a couple years ago and refused to replace something (a $50 apple keyboard, I think they gave me $10 for it?). I went from buying exclusively Duracell for alkaline to now just buying Energizer Lithium for everything where it isn't specifically contraindicated (very rare).
Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
#8Check out 'Project Farm' on YouTube for a couple more in-depth tests of AA batteries
TLDR:
Made in Japan = GOOD Made in China = BAD
Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
#9I think the main issue with AA Alkaline is the proliferation of cheap low-self-discharge NiMH cells (aka: Eneloop, but also Energizer and other brands have good LSD NiMH available).
A huge number of appliances seem to be designed for the 1.35V NiMH chemistry now. Perhaps a random TV-remote still prefers Alkaline but most seem to work fine with NiMH.
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Buying a pack of 20 NiMH cells and rotating your collection between charging / discharging states is cheap enough and effective. Its like you have "infinite" AAs since you can just keep recharging them.
EDIT: A few years ago, Alkaline was still needed for TV remotes. But most Low-self-discharge NiMH now lasts for over a year without self-discharging away. Sure, not as good as Alkaline's 10-year life span but surely 1+ year lifespans is good enough for your TV remote? Its not that big of a hassle to reach recharge your NiMH once a year is it?
Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
#10Let me leap in here to ding Duracell. They used to be my goto battery, but over the past few years (there was a hedge fund takeover, which IME rarely results in improvements to long-standing quality products) they've turned into liabilities - specifically, they are extremely prone to leaking once even a little bit discharged. To this day I open old kit and there can be duracells in there with "use by 2010" or even ea…
Anecdata, I recently had to replace batteries in several smoke alarms. 3 were Duracells and 2 were Rayovacs. All Duracells were from 2016/2017, i.e. assuming they were installed right away they lasted around 5 years. Rayovacs were from 2010 and 2011, despite both brands being rated for 5 years. It is possible that old Rayovacs were installed around same time as new Duracells and both lasted around same time, still makes for an interesting datapoint.