July 4, 2019 at 20:15Cheap and expensive AAA batteries
Advertising has succeeded: most buyers are confident that the Duracell and Energizer batteries are significantly better than others. To check if this is the case, I tested 20 types of alkaline (alkaline) AAA batteries - from the cheapest to the most expensive.
In 2014, I did Grand Battery Testing , but five years passed, new brands appeared, and some batteries of old brands changed.
In 2019, I did some new AA and AAA battery tests:
The cheapest batteries from Auchan and Atak stores ;
Cheap batteries from FixPrice ;
Lexman batteries - nowhere cheaper ;
Baskwill Batteries ;
Mirex batteries .
“Finger-type” AA batteries are less and less common in various devices - for the sake of miniaturization, manufacturers are releasing more and more devices powered by “tiny” AAA batteries. Even devices with fairly high consumption (lights, moving toys, pressure meters) now use AAA batteries without exception. That is why only AAA (LR03) batteries are involved in the new test.
Recently, I have been testing cheap batteries, as I found out in “grand testing” that it makes no sense to buy expensive ones. But still, I spent a thousand rubles and bought Duracell, Energizer, GP, Sonnen and others batteries to once again see if expensive batteries provide at least some advantages over cheap ones.
On sale there are three types of AAA and AA batteries: alkaline (alkaline), salt and lithium. Lithium batteries have the highest power consumption, but they are very expensive. The energy intensity of salt batteries is the smallest, they are unable to withstand heavy loads and have a short shelf life. In today's test, only alkaline batteries are involved.
I conducted tests using the battery analyzer Oleg Artamonov .
The batteries were discharged in two modes:
The measurement was made when the batteries were discharged to a voltage of 0.7 V.
The test results surprised me.
Expensive Energizer Maximum batteries turned out to be the worst of all, both at low discharge current and at high. Duracell Ultra Power at 100 rubles apiece is almost no different from Duracell Turbo Max at 40 rubles and these are far from the best batteries - they took eleventh and twelfth places in the table. Regular Duracell batteries are even worse - they are in sixteenth place.
In the first place was Varta Longlife, but cheaper Vkusville batteries (26.5 rubles apiece) give more energy at high load and you can consider them the real winner of the test.
The best batteries of the test in terms of price-to-capacity ratio were batteries of our own brands of retail chains:
Lexman - 8.5 rubles apiece (sold in Leroy Merlin);
Diall - 8.5 rubles apiece (sold at Castorama);
CMI - 9.5 rubles apiece (sold at OBI);
Auchan blue - 11.5 rubles apiece (sold in Auchan and Atak).
Of the good batteries that you can buy in "convenience stores" I will single out two models:
GP Super - 24 rubles apiece;
Vkusvill - 26.5 rubles apiece (sold in Vkusvill).
I am very surprised by the results of Energizer and Duracell. There is no doubt that all the batteries are original and not fake: Duracell was bought at Metro, Energizer in Dixie. At the time of testing, the batteries were no older than a year with a shelf life of 10 years.
Discharge graph for a current of 200 mA. Cheap Lexman and color from Auchan defeat Energizer Maximum.
GP Super, Vkusville and Lexman defeat Duracell Ultra Power.
Maybe I’ll spend a few hundred rubles and buy in other Energizer and Duracell stores for a second test.
There are no IKEA batteries in the test, which turned out to be the best in terms of price-capacity ratio in Grand testing. I did not have the opportunity to get to Ikea for new batteries, and those that I had (manufactured in May 2017, expiration date until May 2022) showed poor results - 0.73 Wh and I decided not to include them in the table.
I tested several instances of many types of batteries. The smallest results are in the table. On most batteries, the difference between the instances is minimal. The difference of about 10% between the copies was recorded only for Flarx from FixPrice stores (0.81 and 0.94 Wh) and for unnamed color batteries from Auchan (0.83 and 0.91 Wh).
The main conclusion from my test: you should not buy expensive batteries, they are no better than cheap ones.
© 2019, Alexey Nadezhin
In 2014, I did Grand Battery Testing , but five years passed, new brands appeared, and some batteries of old brands changed.
In 2019, I did some new AA and AAA battery tests:
The cheapest batteries from Auchan and Atak stores ;
Cheap batteries from FixPrice ;
Lexman batteries - nowhere cheaper ;
Baskwill Batteries ;
Mirex batteries .
“Finger-type” AA batteries are less and less common in various devices - for the sake of miniaturization, manufacturers are releasing more and more devices powered by “tiny” AAA batteries. Even devices with fairly high consumption (lights, moving toys, pressure meters) now use AAA batteries without exception. That is why only AAA (LR03) batteries are involved in the new test.
Recently, I have been testing cheap batteries, as I found out in “grand testing” that it makes no sense to buy expensive ones. But still, I spent a thousand rubles and bought Duracell, Energizer, GP, Sonnen and others batteries to once again see if expensive batteries provide at least some advantages over cheap ones.
On sale there are three types of AAA and AA batteries: alkaline (alkaline), salt and lithium. Lithium batteries have the highest power consumption, but they are very expensive. The energy intensity of salt batteries is the smallest, they are unable to withstand heavy loads and have a short shelf life. In today's test, only alkaline batteries are involved.
I conducted tests using the battery analyzer Oleg Artamonov .
The batteries were discharged in two modes:
- Discharge by direct current 200 mA. Such a load is inherent in electronic toys;
- Pulse discharge (10 seconds load, 20 seconds pause) 1000 mA. Such a load is typical for powerful devices.
The measurement was made when the batteries were discharged to a voltage of 0.7 V.
The test results surprised me.
Expensive Energizer Maximum batteries turned out to be the worst of all, both at low discharge current and at high. Duracell Ultra Power at 100 rubles apiece is almost no different from Duracell Turbo Max at 40 rubles and these are far from the best batteries - they took eleventh and twelfth places in the table. Regular Duracell batteries are even worse - they are in sixteenth place.
In the first place was Varta Longlife, but cheaper Vkusville batteries (26.5 rubles apiece) give more energy at high load and you can consider them the real winner of the test.
The best batteries of the test in terms of price-to-capacity ratio were batteries of our own brands of retail chains:
Lexman - 8.5 rubles apiece (sold in Leroy Merlin);
Diall - 8.5 rubles apiece (sold at Castorama);
CMI - 9.5 rubles apiece (sold at OBI);
Auchan blue - 11.5 rubles apiece (sold in Auchan and Atak).
Of the good batteries that you can buy in "convenience stores" I will single out two models:
GP Super - 24 rubles apiece;
Vkusvill - 26.5 rubles apiece (sold in Vkusvill).
I am very surprised by the results of Energizer and Duracell. There is no doubt that all the batteries are original and not fake: Duracell was bought at Metro, Energizer in Dixie. At the time of testing, the batteries were no older than a year with a shelf life of 10 years.
Discharge graph for a current of 200 mA. Cheap Lexman and color from Auchan defeat Energizer Maximum.
GP Super, Vkusville and Lexman defeat Duracell Ultra Power.
Maybe I’ll spend a few hundred rubles and buy in other Energizer and Duracell stores for a second test.
There are no IKEA batteries in the test, which turned out to be the best in terms of price-capacity ratio in Grand testing. I did not have the opportunity to get to Ikea for new batteries, and those that I had (manufactured in May 2017, expiration date until May 2022) showed poor results - 0.73 Wh and I decided not to include them in the table.
I tested several instances of many types of batteries. The smallest results are in the table. On most batteries, the difference between the instances is minimal. The difference of about 10% between the copies was recorded only for Flarx from FixPrice stores (0.81 and 0.94 Wh) and for unnamed color batteries from Auchan (0.83 and 0.91 Wh).
The main conclusion from my test: you should not buy expensive batteries, they are no better than cheap ones.
© 2019, Alexey Nadezhin