I am not sure if it chalks up to stupidity of the consumer in the US or what but really I think it's the chargers and the cells are fine, though someone with more money than me would have to do a test to see if a charger really does make a difference. Aka someone buys a cheap Duracell charger and batteries and uses it together as the package says and then buys a pack of the same Duracell cells and uses them in a good charger. Though I am not even sure if such a test is necessary as we all know what would likely happen.
I also think it has to do with being burned in the past, and a lot of people don't even understand the technology in rechargable batteries is much different today than it was 8 years ago with cells that actually hold a charge while in storage. None of this is conveyed through marketing. I only seem to see marketing for alkalines these days. A lot of people went back to alkalines after spending a chunk on one of those $18 energizer chargers from Walmart and got burned when the batteries lasted a couple cycles and then stopped holding a charge they just won't spent the initial investment again no matter what.
And that's kind of where I'm coming from here - that was exactly my experience in the past; I bought some NiMHs and a charger in some local store, possibly Target or K-Mart or something, they really didn't work very well,, so that stopped that. A few years later I'd vaguely heard of these things called Eneloops and that they worked well, but I was skeptical - if they were so good, surely they'd be available if not in normal stores at least in places that sold electronics, video game stores, places like that - but no, I never saw them. I still don't know where to get them in the US save from Amazon, eBay, Thomas Dist., places like that. Duracell had the Duraloops which simply on the product's quality should have been a big deal but I don't remember ever seeing ANY advertising for them, never mind any explaining the differences between them and old school NiCd or NiMH that consumers may have tried in the past - and given that they apparently switched suppliers for the black-top "staycharged" cells and we don't know who's making the new cells that they just introduced, I'm sticking with the brands I know and trust until some reports/reviews come out.
I also think the batteries could be damaged on the shelf from sitting too long, perhaps a lot of people got a set of batteries that sat for several years then refused to charge which could explain the quick death stories I hear from friends and family, this happened to me a couple times if a battery is too old it will only charge to a certain point then stop which means they never get full capacity out of the box, can be fixed with several refresh cycles but no chargers in retail stores are capable of doing a refresh cycle but if a store manages their inventory correctly this should not happen.
Again, agree with your comments - but I just picked up some duraloops that had been sitting on the shelf for literally years, and they came right back after a break in cycle (and had over 500mAh in each cell to begin with.) That's a good product, but again, you need a good smart charger to properly charge them. There are acceptable smart chargers in the $30-60 price range; but again, you have to almost obsessive-compulsively research them and then mail order.
I also seem to have the problem that many of you have, there always seems to be a better product online than there is in the stores, I am guessing US retail is just concerned with meeting certain price points on their goods instead of actually providing a quality product that will last instead of something you have to replace after a couple uses. The thing is the better products are almost always available for a lower price online than is an inferior product in a store no wonder people are getting away from retail and doing more shopping online these days.
Again, I agree completely...
If I had the seed money I'm wondering if I could make a go of starting an old school hardware/variety store where I would only sell products that I had personally used and considered acceptable for the intended purpose. e.g. my battery rack would have a few quality alkalines, some Energizer Ultimate Lithiums, and then a selection of Eneloop, Imedion, etc. and good smart chargers. If a customer would ask, or complain about the price, my response would be "these will work and not disappoint you. If you want to pay less you're free to do so, just not here - and I don't want to take your money when you'll be back in six months complaining about the crap that I sold you." Unfortunately, I'm not entirely certain that that attitude would resonate with your average consumer.
I would like to think that if the average person were actually educated on the difference between alkalines, lithium primaries, NiCd, NiMH, and LSD NiMH we would see that for general consumer use pretty much everyone would be using mostly LSD NiMH and maybe a few lithium primaries for mission critical applications, but that clearly isn't happening at least not looking at the percentage of display space given to each in your average store.
On a Usenet group that I occasionally read I saw a quote recently that struck home about the quality of consumer goods (from a poster that oddly I usually disagree with on most everything, but in this instance he was right on point) - I'm paraphrasing but it was something along the lines of "I am constantly annoyed that I have to become an expert on pretty much every subject before making a purchase to avoid disappointment." But he's right, and I seem to have the same issue - the number of diverse forums to which I'm subscribed is evidence that I'm attempting to do exactly that!
And almost but not quite completely off topic... I have two table radios in my house, one downstairs in a basement bedroom is an old German-made Blaupunkt that was built in 1957 or 58 as far as I can tell (still uses tubes, remember those?) and is running off its internal antenna. The one upstairs is a newer Tivoli unit that is well rated and not cheap at all to purchase, and has a split dipole tacked to the exterior wall behind it. My local NPR station is broadcasting with reduced power for tower maintenance. Guess which radio still reliably pulls in that station and which one is pretty much useless?
