New batteries - which last longer?

[Cirruslvr]

Now that Energizer has their e^2 batteries out and Duracell has had their Ultras out for a while, does anyone know from experience which ones last longer? Or is it close like it was with the normal version? Any review sites?

 

[wjones]

Get NiMH for long term investment

 

[Mday]

on with high drain devices and rechargeable... in other words, not really a good idea to get nimh for your remote control ;-) batteries do die, no matter what they are... so...

get nimh if you want high drain usage (camera flashes, cameras, walkman, CD man, mini disc, whatever ;-)

those new batteries are meant for high drain devices that require A LOT of power... re, if you use regular batteries for a camera's flash, when the batteries are out of power, the voltage output by the batteries go WAY down, so the flashes at the end would be worthless. with those new high tech batteries, they are meant to keep their output high (relatively) when they are near their death.

this is what they say anyway...

battery technology is getting better. LITHIUM still rocks! nimh is a close second ;-)

i plan on getting nimh for my flash ;-)

 

[kami]

aren't those new energizers that cost a wad of money Lithium?

 

[Double Trouble]

In a big article by consumer reports a few months ago, they tested a bunch of different batteries, and concluded that there is no significant difference between the so called "premium" batteries and the 'generic' regular ones. Their advice was to buy the cheapest batteries you can find that fit your device.

 

[geoff2k]

Did the article in consumer reports talk about rechargeables? Or did it only deal with the single use type?

 

[StageLeft]

tagej

The people who wrote that article must have been smoking up.

Take for instance this experience I had: I had a crappy old discman and with a fresh set of duracells it would get about 2-3 hours play. One time I had brand new bottom-of-the-line crap batteries in there and you know how long it went? 15 bloody minutes. I also had a radio control car which I once filled with generic garbage batteries and after about 4-5 minutes its power was already falling down the drain compared to the regular 15-20 minutes of hard use I could get out of better batteries.

Unless I'm buying for something like a remote for the TV (something that uses very very little power) I buy the best. Same with my digital camera: duracells vs. grocery store brand makes a major difference!

 

[Double Trouble]

skoorb: your single uncontrolled experiment means absolutely nothing. They did a statistically significant set of tests that measured the performance of the batteries in a series of devices, and it quickly became clear that there was no systematic difference in longjevity or performance.

Not only that, but they also pointed out that the majority of those 'generic' or store-brand batteries are actually made by the major makers (like Duracell and Energizer). In fact, odds are that if you buy a 'rayovac' or something like that, you're actually buying something made by Energizer or Duracell, just rebadged by another company.

geoff2k: There was also a section in there on rechargeables, but I didn't read it..... Check out their website, you might be able to access that article from there because it's more than 2 months old.

 

[StageLeft]

tagej

I understand the statistics behind my cases, but for me the anecdotal evidence was overwhelming. I trust statistics above that, always will - but everyone I know swears by expensive batteries as well.

What you said is interesting (re-badging by larger companies) and that may be the case for many batteries that you buy, but did the article test duracell/energizer against the other big name brand ones only? Because nobody can possibly tell me the cheap sh*t batteries I used in my discman that time were re-packaged ducells May be the case for some companies, but it can't be the case for all!

 

[TMTCC]

I remember reading in the current issue of Popular Science or Popular Mechanics where they had an article comparing the e^2 and Ultra on high drain devices. The e^2 came out on top if memory serves me right. Can't find the article on their respective websites though.

 

[Looney]

Well, a lot of the top manufactuers (such as Energizer and Duracell) also produce the same batteries under generic names... they won't tell you which ones they make, but according to the Dateline i seen last year, they do.

Also, there are differences between the premium ones and the more 'regular' ones. But does the difference in cost outweight the difference in performance? NO WAY. You could be paying 2 or 3x the price for a premium pair of batteries over generic ones, but the premium won't offer 2 or 3x the performance (or life) of a generic one (at most they were like only 20% more effective). So the moral of this? Buy the generics... they may not last as long, but the premiums don't last that much more to justify the higher cost (also, like what i mentioned before, a lot of these generic brands are made by Duracell and Energizer).