rechargeable battery question

[QueBert]

I was in BB looking at portable mp3 players. I noticed they had these rechargeable battery "sticks" looked somewhat likd a stick of gum (they were flat) and the box said they work in many newer cd players. I then noticed they were 20 bucks each, and rated @ 1200 NiMH. What is the advantage with these? my regular NiMH's are 1800 I believe. I don't see the benefit of spending 20 bucks on a battery and having to buy some weird non standard charger (more money)
what am I missing here? 🙂

 

[KenGr]

They are small so they fit easily in the more compact players. That's what you're paying for. If you want to save money, get a bigger one that uses a standard battery size.

 

[0roo0roo]

yup, those round ones aren't exactly space efficient if your trying to make the unit as small as possible.

 

[RossMAN]

I guess the advantage is:

1) Small size, stick of gum is pretty damn small.
2) Rechargeable is better than alkaline.

However I would just use regular sized rechargeable AA's since:

1) You have more choices, they fit in ANY electronic device which accepts AA's.
2) Cheaper, $9.99 vs $20.
3) 1950 mAH instead of 1200 mAH

Rechargeable batteries Hot Deal

 

[zephyrprime]

The advantage is that they get to charge you more money.

Cordless phones use AA bateries assembled into packs and they charge you 2-3x as much as the batteries cost. They could just as easily use regular AA batteries but they don't.

The flat batteries like you saw are called "prismatic" cells. These cells are available at online battery stores but they aren't in the package that is needed for physical compatibility.

By the way, electrically, the nonstandard charger must be a standard. But they make the physical connection into a funny shape so you have to buy their charger. You can just as easily charge the batteries on any Nimh charger than supports the required voltage by connecting the battery up with aligator clips but who's gonna do something like that?