The differences between premium and budget batteries

Few markets are as sharply segmented as batteries. You can pay a fortune for lithium-based models, or gamble on a generic brand when all you need fresh cells for is the remote control. There’s a huge interest online in finding out which battery brands are the most efficient, and the Freakin’ Reviews channel released a video that evaluates exactly that. The scientific rigor of the test isn't extreme, but it gives us a fairly solid starting point…

Who hasn't stolen batteries from a remote or a flashlight that gets little use? I admit that my household never had good portable energy discipline, and every time the power goes out we fumble around until I (by chance) find the inverter and hook it to the car's 12V battery. The logical thing is to be a bit smarter than yours truly and keep a good 'inventory' of batteries compatible with our devices. But the question quickly arises: Which battery brand should you buy? Are the most expensive really 'the best'? Today we'll look for answers to those questions … on YouTube, of course:

Expensive vs. cheap batteries: which ones perform better?

On the Freakin’ Reviews channel, they decided to pit two teams: one made up of three AA battery brands considered 'premium,' and the other with three budget brands: Energizer Ultimate Lithium, Duracell Quantum and standard Duracell vs. CVS, Sunbeam and Panasonic. The test rig consists of half a dozen personal fans you can find in generic electronics stores for a couple of euros. The goal is to calculate battery efficiency, i.e., cost per hour. Freakin’ Reviews reports costs of USD 6.99 for the 4-pack of Duracell Quantum, USD 6.29 for Energizer Ultimate, USD 3.99 for regular Duracell, USD 4.99 for CVS (even though they're supposedly 'cheap'), and a dollar each for Sunbeam and Panasonic.

Over a total of four tests, the first thing we notice is a lack of consistency among high-performance batteries, with differences of up to an hour and a half between cells (possibly caused by fan quality). In an attempt to smooth those variables, they calculated the average over four rounds, and as expected, premium batteries show a very significant advantage, especially Energizer Ultimate Lithium, whose average doesn't drop below seven hours per cell. However, they're far from being the most efficient. At just 5.9 cents per hour, Sunbeam batteries crushed the competition. In short, getting the most out of your batteries requires a bit of strategy. If you don't want to change batteries that often, something like Energizer's lithium variant will serve you well, but if cost-benefit is your priority, don't ignore the cheaper batteries.