A discussion with Beege on Twitter sparked the idea for this post. As always, I am not sponsored nor do I get anything from any company mentioned here. If you are a company and interested in such, do drop me a line. Anywho, since we talked batteries in the last chapter of the book, some food for thought.
When buying batteries, do a bit of research first. The ads you see aren’t always a good reflection of reality. For example, years ago Duracell had a great reputation and there were a number of first responders and emergency medical people who would only use Duracell batteries. Then, I noticed the quality slipping, and there were reliability and longevity issues. In short, I and a number of others quit using Duracell as we were getting better performance at a much better price out of others.
I’ve tried a number of batteries over the years, and right now I’m using Ray-O-Vac as I’m getting good performance for a very good price thanks to some sales at a certain home improvement store. Beege swears by Energizer, and I’ve had good luck with them myself. I’ve had mixed results out of a house-brand for a major sporting good chain, but if the rubber has to hit the road, I want the best.
I’m actually thinking of doing a comparison test between Energizer and Ray-O-Vac similar to the one that sparked the conversation on Twitter. New batteries, fair test, and see what happens. What say you?
Oh, I will add that when it comes to my Streamlight products, I am using the regular and rechargeable Streamlight batteries. Those are items where I’m not willing to risk anything else.
Remember, there is no one magic list nor is there one magic product for each need. Do your research, test, and find what works best for you.
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I’ve had great luck with Energizer Lithium for AA and AAA. They never leak and I’ve gotten useful life out of ones that have been in hiking packs or car emergency kits for 10 years or more (not a ton of useful life, but more than the nothing I’d expected after so long in poor hot/cold storage conditions).
Duracell is pretty bad now. I stopped buying them after I had several of the Costco bulk packs leak before I’d even used half of the batteries in them. Once seemed an oddity but the 4th time was a good indicator that I needed to stop bothering with them.
I’ll need to try more Streamlight rechargeable batteries. I have a few of their small USB rechargeable lights with integrated batteries (a few microstream usbs and a pocket mate) and they just seem to keep on trucking no matter what they are subjected to. Streamlight has entirely replaced Surefire for my go-to hard use lights. I still prefer the switches on my old Surefire X300s, but Streamlight just makes better lights these days and for a much better price.
Ditto on Costco’s chinese Duracells – they leak even before you open the blister pack.
I’ve use Sanyo Eneloops for years. Their advantage is their very low self-discharge rate and many cycles of rechargability. I’ve got a charger for them that works off a 12 VDC car outlet or 120VAC.
Have to check those out.