New bargain alkaline at Lowe's - Utilitech

Member jhc37013 discovered a new player in alkaline batteries at Lowe's, which he posted in Good Deals. At mods request, I want to provide a proper place for posting his results of tests he is running on them, which seem so far to put them squarely in the mix of the big name brands in alkalines. So, quoting from jhc37013's Deals thread, this is what he has provided so far on the AA size:

"Utilitech with Quark X to max - 33 minutes before drop to medium

Duracell with Quark X to max - 33 minutes till drop to medium"

And, also on the Quark 2xAA X:

"Duracell - High mode 1hr 41mins until drop to medium

Utilitech - High mode 1hr 33mins until drop to medium

Rayovac - High mode 1hr 31mins until drop"


He is planning a AAA test next, and I look forward to the results of that one also.

I will add a link to this thread in the Good Deal thread, here: http://www.cpfmarketplace.com/mp/showthread.php?259208-30-AA-batterys-for-4-Lowes

Thanks to jhc37013 for discovering these! They become most economical when purchased in the larger packages, so good for dividing with friends if you don't use large volumes.

I've been using them for a while with no problems. I just bought the 100 AAA pack. Alkalines perform fairly close, so it makes sense to go with the lowest cost option. It has been the big name brands that give me the problems, like early failure with cells or leaks. Rayovac and most of the other lower cost brands have been the most reliable in my experience.

Ya, I saw those on blackfriday at lowes. Bought a AA 30 pack for 4 bucks. Haven't run the set down yet I am using. So its good to know that they will be comparable to the more expensive brands.

The only good alkaline battery is a dead alkaline battery

Mr Happy said:

The only good alkaline battery is a dead alkaline battery

Click to expand...

Yea, And hopefully disposed of before it leaks mr happy. I have 30 to 40 Nimh batteries (lost count) in kids toys and devices all through the house. Still not enough to keep up with the demand.
And I knew christmas would soon be here with all the new stuff santa brings. :shrug:

Rechargeable cells are generally going to be the better value in the long run, especially something like Eneloops, but that aside, I can understand the ease of use of just getting some alkaline cells now and then.

I choose not to now mostly because I've had too many of them leak (regardless of brand name). Remotes and clocks are about the only things where it might have still made sense to use alkaline cells, but it wasn't worth the risk.

My advice: Try to only use them in things you don't care about, and good luck.

Thanks Hondo for the thread and you guys are of course correct about alkaline and leaking, poor performance etc. but I think they still have their place for instance if you have kids AA and AAA go fast with all the different little toys, also it is comforting to have a large AA stash for emergency's.

Yes I have over 100 CR123's and 20 something 18650's and 18 Eneloops I keep charged not to mention a good stash of Energizer Lithium primarys but hey I'm a battery junky and feel like their is no such thing as to many, winter is here and ice storms are as likely as snow around here.

Good to know the Utilitech batteries are decent. I have tried cheap batteries before and ended up going back to the top three name brands. The Ultralast batteries I tried had about 7/10 the runtime per battery of the name brand ones putting them at about 2100 mAh, if you discharged them slowly. This year, I went for the Rayovac deal at Home Depot, 30 AA and 30 AAA (60 total) for $10. The AAAs tend to be harder to find at a decent price. Even at Costco, 48 Kirkland AAAs cost $15. By the way, Costco now has a pack of 24 AA and 24 AAA Rayovac cells for $8. It's a good time to stock up on cheap batteries while you can. Next month the price will be at least double what you can get them for now.

Is Utilitech a Lowe's house brand, or, a company in its own right?

First hit on Google is here, but I can't tell if that is the same branding as the batteries this thread concerns.

LEDAdd1ct said:

Is Utilitech a Lowe's house brand, or, a company in its own right?

First hit on Google is here, but I can't tell if that is the same branding as the batteries this thread concerns.

Click to expand...

This is what the wrapper on my AA's read:
Distributed by
L G Sourcing Inc.
P.O. Box 1535, N Wilkesboro, NC 28659 .lgsourcing.com (I left the www out)
MADE IN CHINA

Ahh, there's the answer: "A wholly owned subsidiary of Lowe's Companies, Inc."

So, they are a Lowe's house brand.

Still, we don't yet know who makes the batteries. I highly doubt L G Sourcing, Inc. makes batteries for Lowes.

Who has the detective hat and can find out who the OEM is?

Picked up a pack of 48 for $9.00

Also found a pack of 20 Duracells for $10.00 at Microcenter

Just to put some numbers out there for fun... (Yeah, I'm kind of geeky like that.)

One AA Utilitech with cumulative lifetime capacity potential of 3000mAh (optimal rough estimate) for $0.1875.

One AA Eneloop with cumulative lifetime capacity potential of roughly 2682450mAh for $2.435625.

Utilitech price per mAh: $0.0000625.

Eneloop price per mAh: $0.000000907985.

So in the long run Eneloops have the potential of being about 69 times less expensive. Also, you'd only need to reach about 20 used cycles on the Eneloops for them to be the better value (given the optimal scenario for the Utilitech cells).

Wrend said:

Just to put some numbers out there for fun... (Yeah, I'm kind of geeky like that.)

One AA Utilitech with cumulative lifetime capacity potential of 3000mAh (optimal rough estimate) for $0.1875.

One AA Eneloop with cumulative lifetime capacity potential of roughly 2682450mAh for $2.435625.

Utilitech price per mAh: $0.0000625.

Eneloop price per mAh: $0.000000907985.

So in the long run Eneloops have the potential of being about 69 times less expensive. Also, you'd only need to reach about 20 used cycles on the Eneloops for them to be the better value (given the optimal scenario for the Utilitech cells).

Click to expand...

Well you left out what the electricity cost to charge the eneloop in its lifetime potential is.

Sure, probably a good idea to invest in a quality charger. That should just be a one time expense though.

Cost of the actual electricity used in charging one Eneloop cell over a 1500 cycle lifetime isn't very much at all. Maybe a dollar or two total? Certainly much less than the cost of buying additional cells.

OK, so I guess they're only roughly 40 times less expensive (assuming you get to 1500 cycles, but keep in mind that that's also assuming you get 3000mAh from each of the alkaline cells for all their uses, which isn't very realistic). Also, if given that you get 1500 cycles down to 80% usable capacity, 2682450mAh cumulative lifetime capacity for an Eneloop cell is a conservative estimate because it doesn't account for the capacity increasing over the initial average 1987mAh during the beginning of the cell's life after it becomes more broken in and assumes a linear degradation of capacity over the cycles when it's really exponential. They'll still make up the cost difference at about roughly 20 cycles because you haven't actually used 1500 charging cycles worth of electricity yet, of course.

I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I know I go through enough batteries that they'll more than pay for themselves in the long run, including the cost of the charger and whatnot too, but the main advantage I like is always having batteries ready to use whenever I need them.

I'm just pointing this out to those looking for a good deal, not saying alkaline cells aren't handy sometimes. Alkaline cells probably still have a price advantage when used in very low drain rate applications such as TV remotes and some clocks.