I have a 4-year old Canon A95 PowerShot. It uses four AA batteries. I chose that model because if I were taking pictures outdoors somewhere, I didn't want to stop because I was out of power.
A while ago, I read a consumer information magazine that had an article about batteries. They said that when it comes to the smaller batteries, such as the AA and AAA, that the generic batteries that one can buy in bulk from the wholesale clubs are as good as the higher-end makes such as Duracell, but as for the D cell and 9v batteries, the higher-end ones are better.
On the first part, I call "bullshit." I bought a pack of Berkeley & Jensen AA batteries, the house brand of BJ's Wholesale Club, and I can say, without reservation, that they do not last anywhere near as long in my camera as the copper-top Duracells. Based on that, there is no way in hell that I'll use the cheap-ass batteries in my flashlights and my aviation GPS.
Needs More Rotation Notation
39 minutes ago
2 comments:
Yes, that was my discovery too. And why CR would say this is beyond me: did they think that there were no differences in manufacturing?
Anyway, I wait until batteries go on sale and buy bundles.
I like CR, but sometimes they are so far off base as to be playing hockey.
As they say there is a measure of what you get for the dollar. In a complex way for the dollar the total operational hours divided by the cost is a valid measure. Cost per dollar
is a useful measureb when y9ur burning through batteries. Some of the cheaper batteries do well such as b&j and toshiba. If you want the most life for a given battery then spend and spend hard. Durcell its still king and has been for a lot of years. More expensive are lithium, per battery you get the most usable hours per battery and you pay dearly.
FYI: if you want lowest cost over time and can tolerate the shorter charge/recharge cycle the NiCds or NiMH
will be king. For a AA sized 1-2$ each and typically 300-700 cycles of charge and use they will be cheapest. There are caveats, they have rotten shelf life when charged (they will be down my 20-30% if unused for 1 month) and their total capacity is about 1/2 to 2/3 that of premium alkaline and easily 1/4 that of lithium. The up side is a pocket full, say 3 sets for the whatever device, with charger will still be cheaper then lithium.
Some however I avoid such as rayovac. Generally alkaline cells are not prone to leak unless left in and dead for obscene periods of time. Rayovac has however always given the poorest life and also likely to leak their guts which can be costly to completely destructive.
the old saw is you still get what you pay for. Just understand that batteries are not all the same and what your paying for may be different from what you thought.
Eck!
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