Somewhat Satisfied
Reviewer: cooljw (1)
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8/21/07 10:54 PM
Link to Product Purchased:
https://www.all-battery.com/in...n=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1350
I recently became a father and found myself in need of several rechargeable AA batteries to power various baby toys and devices around the house. I set out on a hunt to find a good deal and found the battery/charger deal of 20 Pcs of AA 2600 mAh High Capacity NiMH Rechargeable Batteries with Compact Travel Charger from All-Battery.com. Shipping was free so with the charger we?re talking less than $1 per AA battery after figuring in some nominal cost for the charger.
After shopping around I found this price to be unbeatable ? it was at least half the price of any comparably rated AA Ni-MH batteries. For example: Energizer 2500 mAh ($3.18 each at Amazon.com), Sony 2500 mAh ($2.60 each at Amazon.com), and Delkin 2500 mAh ($2.25 each at Thomas Distributing).
At such a low price I decided I couldn?t lose as long as the Tenergy batteries didn't turn out to be total clunkers. And I intended to test them to find out!
I placed my order online, paid with a credit card, and received the product via US Mail a few days later. Being a new customer to All-Battery.com, I experienced some kind of website glitch that prevented me from being able to track my order online. I think this occurred because I created my account after placing the order. In any case this was only a minor inconvenience.
I didn't need the charger although it appeared to be a battery-friendly slow charger. The focus of this review is on the batteries themselves.
I chose 12 of the 20 AA batteries at random and labeled them from 1-12 so that I could keep track of them. My goal was to test them out to see how they perform.
See image:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albu...76/cooljw/DSC00083.jpg
I tested the capacity of the batteries using three of the modes on the the popular La Crosse BC-900 charger:
See image:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albu...76/cooljw/DSC00085.jpg
Charge Mode: Battery is charged up. The mAh that went into charging the battery is estimated.
Discharge Mode: Batteries and discharged and then charged up. The mAh that went into charging the battery is measured.
Test Mode: Batteries are charged, discharged and then charged up. The mAh capacity of the battery is estimated.
Charge Mode Results
I ran batteries 1-4 through Charge Mode. The results were 1: 1791mAh, 2: 2160mAh, 3: 1737mAh, 4: 2170mAh for an Average of 1965mAh. If the batteries do hold 2600 mAh the results imply that the batteries had varying levels of charge out of the box.
Discharge Mode Results
The next four batteries went through Discharge Mode. The results were 5: 2180mAh, 6: 2470mAh, 7: 2310mAh, 8: 2370mAh for an Average of 2332mAh.We should have seen at least 2600 mAh if not more of charge going into the batteries to charge them up but we didn't. A bad sign.
Test Mode Results
The last four batteries went through Test Mode. This mode should give the best indication as to the true capacity of the batteries. The results were 9: 2080mAh, 10: 2020mAh, 11: 2060mAh, 12: 2040mAh for an Average of 2050mAh. The Test Mode results are very disappointing as the batteries show an average of just 2050 mAh capacity as opposed to the 2600 mAh advertised capacity!
I was wondering if maybe the charger wasn't accurate so I also ran four new La Crosse 2400 mAh rated AA batteries through the Test Mode as a cross check and got the following results: L1: 2350mAh, L2: 2400mAh, L3: 2360mAh, L4: 2370mAh for an Average of 2370mAh. The La Crosse batteries measured just about spot on to the advertised capacity.
Conclusions
It's important to note that these are initial results with new batteries and the capacity of rechargeables is supposed to increase after 4-5 charge/discharge cycles. So, it's possible that the Tenergy batteries have not yet hit their prime. Still, it's disappointing that the Tenergy batteries did not test well straight out of the box like the La Crosse batteries did.
So, what if the Tenergy 2600 mAh batteries perform only like 2000 mAh batteries? Well, I would be a little upset that the product is of such poor quality compared to what is advertised. However, comparing the cost of these batteries to available 2000 mAh rated batteries I'm wondering if I have much to complain about. For example: Digital Concepts 2000 mAh AA ($2.17 each at Amazon.com), DGZoom 2000 mAh AA ($1.65 each at Google checkout), and Lenmar 2000 mAh AA ($1.25 each at Thomas Distributing).
So the Tenergy batteries may or may not have a capacity of 2600 mAh but they sure are darned cheap even when compared to lesser rated 2000 mAh batteries.
I will try to post a follow up to this review after I've had some more time to use the Tenergy batteries to see if their capacity has improved.
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