• INTRODUCTION
• THE WORKING PRINCIPLE AND THE CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF A BATTERY
• THE RECHARGABLES
• THE SPECIFICATIONS

A product, which after a couple of hours use is thrown away is not particular brilliant.
So the all-favourite alkaline battery scores little in our view as a good product. The advertising hype lets us believe we are buying a high quality item that justifies us spending $5.00 for what is actually very little power. The pink drumming rabbit might be cute, but.....work out how much you spend on batteries a year! Do it, it's worth it!

 

This is too boring (even for us!). We might update this if we really, really don't know what else to do.....

 

The rechargeable battery is a nice device, since it allows for many reloads of the stored power. There are different types out there. Some better than others.

Important note: the rechargeable batteries have a lower voltage than your normal one-time-use. The nominal voltage for an alkaline battery is 1.5 volts, for a rechargeable battery it's commonly 1.2 volts. This will normally not affect the performance of any device, but in flashlights this means that you should replace the bulb with a lower voltage one. This is not possible with the MagLite type halogen flashlights. So: if you want to operate a flashlight with rechargeable batteries, you should choose a flashlight where you can add special bulbs for rechargeable batteries.

 

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As a basis for all following data, a size 'AA' (or UM3) was used. Note that batteries differ very much between manufacturers, so the figures below are an approximation only. The price reflects the range between buying one or two in an expensive shop, and buying bulk in a discount store. The winner of each category gets a marked in green, the loser gets a marked in red.
Our ratings are divided into 'home use' and 'ultralight hiking' or 'trail use':