Consumer Reports rates AA batteries

[kitelights]

The November Consumer Reports Special Electronics Issue rates Top AA batteries.

The ratings consist of 3 battery types tested for two different situations (use). The first use is for digital cameras using a flash and the second is for Toys, CD players, flashlights, etc.

The three types are: Lithium, Nickel Oxyhydroxide, and Alkaline. The CR rating system consists of Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair and Poor.

The Lithium cells (Energizer e2 Lithium) were rated as Excellent for both applications.

The two Nickel Oxyhydroxide brands, Duracell Power Pix and Panasonic Digital Extreme, were rated as Good for both applications.

14 brands of Alkaline were tested and all but one had the same results. Kodak Xtralife was the one brand rated as Good for Toys, CD players, etc.

All of the others tested rated Very Good for Toys, CD players, etc. while all 14 rated Fair for Digital Camera use.

Kirkland Signature (Costco)
Duracell Ultra Digital
Energizer e2 Titanium
Duracell Coppertop
Rayovac
Rite Aid
Radio Shack Digital Plus
Radio Shack Enercell
Panasonic Xtreme Power
Energizer Max
CVS
DieHard
Walgreens UltraAlkaline Supercell
Kodak Xtralife

Lithiums are recommended for digicams and actually cost less to use them than other cells because of the longer life (more pictures). Nickel Oxys are solid performers in digicams but aren't the best choice for other uses.

CR's take is that you can't go wrong with lithiums and that good alternatives are the Panasonic Digital Extreme, Rayovac and Kirkland because of their cheaper price. They do say that rechargeables are the least expensive in the long run.

My take is what most have been saying all along, buy alkalines by price.

 

[paulr]

Lithiums are recommended for digicams and actually cost less to use them than other cells because of the longer life (more pictures).

NiMH (not included in that comparison) is the only digicam choice that makes any sense.

 

[kitelights]

Paul, while I personally agree with you because our financial values are similar, it's not fair to imply that others that may choose to use lithiums for whatever reason are senseless.

The LD NiMHs available now, make an even better case for your view, but rechargeables done properly are an expensive investment and easily screwed up by the average consumer. Sometimes the $10 spent on 4 AA cells that will yield 200-500 pictures for a getaway is just more convenient and less hassle than rechargeables.

 

[James S]

it also depends in the frequency of use. If you have your cam with you every day then rotating a set of NiMH through it makes perfect sense. If you only take it out when you go on vacation or once a week when the grandkids visit, then there is no point to messing with them. You'll never make back your investment because they will always be self discharged when you go to use it, and they will eventually die from just laying around.

I generally do both NiMH for daily use, and a set or 2 of lithiums in the case for backup when the NiMH run out on me and I need something as backup.

 

[altis]

Me too! For daily use I have NiMh (now Eneloop) cells with a set of Energizer L91s in case of emergencies. However, if I'm away from the mains for a long time, for example while treking, I'll use L91s exclusively. I tried a portable solar charger but this was relatively heavy and not very powerful. L91s are incredibly light, making them easy to carry in and out, and they still work at very low temperatures - handy while treking over 5000m.

 

[Daekar]

All of this is kind of funny, particularly considering how disappointed I remember being at the batteries that ran my toys as a kid. Considering the number of alkalines that fried from the high-discharge rates in our toys (I think boys have more power-sucking toys than girls) my parents could've saved money with NiMH, even with the less-powerful ones of 15 years ago. I remember my original Game Boy didn't last that long on a set of batteries, and the Sega GameGear was worse by quite a bit. Do toys like that even TAKE regular AAs anymore, or are they some proprietary format battery like high-end cameras?

 

[greenLED]

Funny, chevrofreak's runtime graphs and testing showed the Kirkland batts as strong performers many moons ago. I've been buying them based on his advise.

 

[James S]

Yea, these tests dont really show you anything, as any of the companies could change their recipie or their manufacturer tomorrow and change the specifics. Also I know that the walgreens batteries are actually manufactured under contract with the same company (and same recipe) that makes one of the top 4 there They are actually identical under the label and when they have sales I always buy some.

I dont subscribe to them anymore, but I might pick this up at the library to have a look. I suspect that once you drop below lithium there really isn't that much difference at all between the various brands.

 

[kitelights]

I'm another big Walgreen's user simply because they run sales often and I have also been told that their cells are produced by one the two major players.

I do believe that most alkalines are close enough in performance to buy mainly price. The exceptions are that I stay away from unknown imports and I'm skeptical of the closeout/discount stores.

The biggest difference to me with the big names is that they do come with almost hassle free warranties. If they damage an item, the big guys will pay for it. The "smaller" guys will too, but it's a much bigger hassle. With that in mind, I do pay attention to what cells I put in my more expensive lights, especially those that I don't use often.

What I've learned from input here on CPF, is that ALL alkalines will leak. The longer they're left in, the more cells there are, the more heat they're exposed to, the changing temperature extremes from cold to hot and vice versa all influence their likely hood to leak.

The only answer that I know of to prevent leaking is to change cells once or twice a year.

Personally, I've never had cells leak in anything that is used often. How about the rest of you?

 

[UnknownVT]

NiMH (not included in that comparison) is the only digicam choice that makes any sense.

I have very high regard for Consumer Reports -
but the digicam community have long known and advise the use of rechargeable NiMH in digital cameras.

I have digicams at both extremes of being not fussy to very fussy about batteries.

Canon PowerShot A-series are very tolerant and frugal about batteries.

Pentax K100D dSLR - very fussy about batteries - ones that easily work in the Canon A-series might not even power up the Pentax K100D - this camera made me do a lot more research on batteries.....

From the Pentax K100D manual -

Using the 50% flash (CIPA) column ratings - one can see that lithium AAs give almost double the shots of 2500mAh NiMH rechargeables.

Notice alkaline AA's paltry 60 shots......

But the economics are about $10 for 4x Energizer e2 lithium AA vs. about $10 for typical 4x 2500mAh NiMH.

So the lithium AA would give good performance at almost twice the number of shots over the NiMH - but once depleted - they are thrown away - whereas the NiMH probably would last conservatively say only 100 cycles - so that's equivalent to 50 sets of lithium AA -
or nearly $500 difference!!!! ..... this is not a trivial sum of money.

The latest LSD (Low Self Discharge) batteries (eg: eneloop) make even more sense.

Mainly because the Pentax K100D is very fussy about batteries - I think probably voltage level sensitive -

Please see Post #49 (link) over at the PentaxForums for use of LSD (Uniross Hybrio) and NiMH (Energizer 2500mAh) in a Pentax K100D - a dSLR that's pretty sensitive to batteries - it's in a thread called -K100D - "Low-Battery" Problem

QUOTED here:
"I'll just add a few facts as measured with my particular K100D........

Battery meter shows full charge at > 1.25v per cell, i.e. >5.00v
Battery meter shows half charge at 1.25v per cell, i.e. 5.00v
Battery meter shows empty and camera shuts down at 1.19v per cell, i.e. 4.76v

I'm an electronics engineer and took great care in taking these readings by the way, it's very easy to get it wrong. Other K100Ds could be a bit different of course, and temperature may be a factor possibly, I'm not going to repeat these measurements to find out.

As far as batteries are concerned, Uniross Hybrios are SO EASY to live with, I get 5-600 shots over just about any period of time I'm ever likely to leave them in the camera and they outlasted a friend's Canon 5D Li-On batteries at the same airshow and I took more pictures, so where's the problem? I've about 9 months experience with these batteries, they're great.

Energizer 2500mAh (Sanyo manufactured) NiMh batteries last for 900 shots if used the same day as charging, but may only get 2-300 after a week or two. Now, I've measured the remaining capacity of Energizers after a 2 week rest, and it's hardly dropped at all, what's happened is that the voltage has depressed to a level where the K100D cutoff voltage is approached, so only a couple of hundred shots max is likely whereas there's actually plenty of charge in them for 2 or 3 times that. So, when the K100D says they're flat there's actually 75% of the charge remaining. Hybrios' voltage doesn't depress so much after a rest period so still can deliver most of their charge into a K100D."

Another CPF thread with similar theme on LSD voltage level maintenance -

My Eneloops charge to and hold a higher voltage than other LSD's

A common problem is that if only one battery is damaged or under-performing - the whole set shows low or inadequate power in the Pentax (K100D).

Even when the whole set of NiMH rechargeable batteries is fine -
one of the main complaints of NiMH is their high self-discharge rate - often people return to their cameras some months later to find the batteries flat.

Regular NiMH lose about 15% of their charge in the initial 24hours, then tapers down to about 15% every 30 days thereafter (ref: BatteryUniversity.com) - so they lose about 30% of their charge in a month (~45% at 2 months, and ~60% at 3 months).

The current trend seems to be to use LSD batteries in the K100D.

The cross-over point between 2000-2100mAh LSD batteries (like eneloop, Hybrid, or Kodak Pre-Charged) and higher capacity regular 2500-2700mAh NiMH is about 30 days - ie: on par at about 30 days.

My current personal "strategy" is to use freshly charged higher capacity NiMH ~2500mAh when I know I have to shoot a lot over a short period of time and keep a set of LSD batteries (I use the Kodak Pre-Charged mainly because they are cheap) as back-up/spare.

If I am not going to use the camera for a while - I then keep the LSD/Kodak Pre-charged in the K100D so it's always ready to use, without notice, and plan to do a top-up charge of LSD's about every 6 months.

 

[Fenris]

Yea, these tests dont really show you anything, as any of the companies could change their recipie or their manufacturer tomorrow and change the specifics. Also I know that the walgreens batteries are actually manufactured under contract with the same company (and same recipe) that makes one of the top 4 there They are actually identical under the label and when they have sales I always buy some.

I dont subscribe to them anymore, but I might pick this up at the library to have a look. I suspect that once you drop below lithium there really isn't that much difference at all between the various brands.

While they are made by one of the major brands, it uses a different slurry mixture. Atleast it did the last time I toured the plant.

 

[georget98]

The last time they tested batteries (maybe a couple times ago), they gave Radio Shack batteries the highest rating. The magazine said the RS cells had the edge, not especially because of chemistry/construction, but because RS sells a lot of them, so they're more likely to be fresh.

Personally I use the Lithium disposables in my camera. I average about 20-50 shots a month (Nikon CoolPix 3200) and a set lasts about a year. With alkalines, I'm lucky to go much more than a month without changing them. When I travel I don't like being tethered to a charger so I don't use NiMH in it. Maybe with the new low self-discharge cells, I may change my mind.

Yes, $2.50 each for AA cells is expensive, but coffee costs almost as much and can't even take one photo.

 

[kitelights]

I agree with everything that you've said, but on this forum we are not Joe Average.

I own at least 8 chargers, and each one that I've bought, I expected to do a better job of charging my cells and making them last longer than the previous one that I bought.

I've also purchased dozens if not a few hundred of rechargeable cells again expecting those cells to be better than their predecessors.

Gleaning info from this forum, doing other research, and my own experiences from using rechargeables for years, I'm not Joe Average and the profile for many others here are far from Joe Average public. Yet, I've had far less than desireable results with rechargeables over the years until very recently.

Your example of financial savings using rechargeables over lithiums is excellent. It is conservative and therefore very realistic and the savings are dramatic, and will hopefully encourage others to consider rechargeables. The dramatic difference is because of the high price of lithiums and the difference with alkalines that can be purchased for less 25¢ per cell is not as attractive to Joe Average.

I wish that CR had done a better job of pointing out the substantial savings potential with rechargeables instead of just making a passing statement to that effect, particularly in regard to use in digicams.

Back to Paul's statement - I think everyone here with a remote understanding will agree that NiMH AAs are the way to go for digicams, but there are those that for convenience or whatever reason, will still use primaries and CR lets us know that for those that do, lithiums are worth the added cost.

Regarding your comparisons about stingy and frugal digicams. My first was an Olympus D-490 that used 4 AA cells. It was designed for 6 volts and like most cameras back then, it was a power hog. The directions advised you to use the viewfinder over the LCD screen to conserve power. Forget alkalines, it came with two CR-V3s - talk about expensive cells. Everyone was having problems using NiMH cells because with 4 cells you were starting off with 5 volts instead of the intended 6 volts and in voltage sensitive cameras, that was a problem. Like you pointed out, there was plenty of power left in the cells, but couldn't be utilized because it was below the camera's threshold.

I designed an external power pack using 5 AA NiMH cells that I was going to produce and sell online. In the process, I got some decent higher capacity cells that I tried in the camera and I found that I could get 60-70+ shots with them, which was really good back then. The external pack would go an easy 200, but I didn't need it, so I used the more convenient internal cells and kept a couple of backup sets with me just in case. Of course I had to recharge them before I went out each time, or I might only get 10-20 shots off of each set that had self discharged. With LSD cells now, it's a no brainer.

Look at the newer generation of digicams that use AAs. Most only use 2 cells compared to 4 from the older ones and the two cells last 3-4 times longer (more pictures). In addition, many of the newer, smaller cameras don't even have viewfinders, so that the LCD is in constant use. The newer cameras are obviously more and more power efficient and that includes more voltage tolerance with rechargeable cells in mind.

I'm in favor of rechargeables, and I encourage others to use them for the savings involved. BUT, proper use and care and knowing which cells and chargers to buy is a bit more involved for Joe Average than we might think.

 

[UnknownVT]

Your example of financial savings using rechargeables over lithiums is excellent. It is conservative and therefore very realistic and the savings are dramatic, and will hopefully encourage others to consider rechargeables. The dramatic difference is because of the high price of lithiums and the difference with alkalines that can be purchased for less 25¢ per cell is not as attractive to Joe Average.

Thanks, I know I am not addressing Mr Joe Average here - but let's stay with that example of the Pentax dSLR on 25cent alkalines -

A set of 4 alkalines lasts 60 shots vs. 300 shots on 2500mAh NiMH rechargeables.

So it would take 5 sets of alkaline to get the same number of shots from a single charge on 2500mAh NiMH.

Taking that conservative life of 100 cycles only for the NiMH - it would take 500 sets of alkalines to get the same number of shots.

That is again almost a $500 difference.

So the alkalines might be cheap(er) to buy initially - over the long run, the savings using NiMH rechargeables is just as dramatic as the much more costly lithium AA's.

I realize that the Pentax K100D might be an extreme case being overly sensitive to alkalines (in fact the specs do not recommend their use) - but the savings using NiMH is the same as over the lithium AAs - ~$500 - ie: more than enough to buy the actual dSLR camera....

 

[kitelights]

I'm glad the math is strongly convincing again, but I don't recommend the use of alks in a digicam at all, except for an emergency.

Even though you say your Pentax is voltage sensitive, it's way more power efficient than my Olympus from 5-6 years ago. I wouldn't get 15-20 shots from alks using the flash and LCD.

To boost your projected savings, we might also take into consideration that the more average Joe Average is, the more likely he is to buy higher priced cells at 50¢ to $1.00 each instead of discounted or bulk cells at the 20-25¢ range.

 

[UnknownVT]

To boost your projected savings, we might also take into consideration that the more average Joe Average is, the more likely he is to buy higher priced cells at 50¢ to $1.00 each instead of discounted or bulk cells at the 20-25¢ range.

Good conversation.

Yes, without meaning any disrespect to Mr. Joe Average (I'm sure I am him in many other fields) - the average price of alkaline AAs is closer to 50cents to $1 each - especially for those who "insist" on buying the well known brand names like Duracell and Energizer - in fact I even see a post asking if RayOVac (another well known and respected battery company) alkalines are any good..... despite the fact Consumer reports have now published battery tests that show basically almost all alkaline AAs are about equal and they are more dependent on freshness than brand.

Of course if a battery does damage equipment (which is pretty rare these days) one might get better treatment from the well known major brands?
However bear in mind the store own brands such as Walgreens and Kroger - are backed by major store chains, and their customer service have always been good in my experience too.......

OK back to economics let's take a really tolerant and frugal digicam - say the Canon PowerShot A630 (the more frugal in the specs below) -

Using the first column figures that's 350 shots on alkalines vs. 500 shots on Canon NB-3AH (=2500mAh NiMH) - this is actually an amazing performance on alkalines (compare this with the 60 shots of the Pentax K100D in my previous post).

So that's 500/350=1.43 sets of alkaline per charge-cycle of 2500mAh NiMH rechargeables.

Conservative life of 100 cycles for the NiMH - means one goes through 143 sets of alkaline AAs in the life of the 2500mAh NiMH - at the cheap $1 /4 = savings in about $143-$10 = $133.
Taking the more likely average of 50cents/battery (=$2/4) price we are again talking about saving about $280 - again more than the price of the average digicam..... so use disposable alklines and one could have bought another digicam......

I really would have thought Consumer Reports would/should have pointed this out - the savings would pay for almost 11 years' worth of CR magazine subscriptions!!!

 

[viorel00]

... in fact I even see a post asking if RayOVac (another well known and respected battery company) alkalines are any good..... despite the fact Consumer reports have now published battery tests that show basically almost all alkaline AAs are about equal and they are more dependent on freshness than brand.
...

hey, that was me, and please do not compare me to Joe Average, I ma be average on some other areas, but I have been reading this forum for over two years now. I asked simply because the price was unbelievable low, 99 cents for 12 cells (AA or AAA), come on, that is 8 pennies per cell. And there was also a $1.00 off coupon that I missed out, so one could have gotten the cell for free. when you see a 8 pack of Duracell or energizer selling for 5 or 6 bucks, and you get a larger pack or Rayovac for almost free, you have to ask yourself, is this too good to be true? even if you are above joe average.

BTW, I am a bog fan or eneloops, and somewhat hybrids, so I don't want to waste alkalines except where I have no other choice.