Like, in the last 20 years or more. Or is a AA battery from 1985 pretty much the same thing as one I might buy today?
The main change is a thinner case. This allows for more chemicals in the same space and thus a longer charge. AA batteries today last longer than they did 20 years ago.
The chemistry has changed. Zinc-carbon was once common. Now alkalines are the norm. Not an earth-shattering improvement though.
You’d think that a battery the size of a AA cell today would be able to power a car, but nope, we’re not there yet unfortunately.
Why would anyone think that?
Has alkaline battery chemistry improved at all (other than the volume issue mentioned earlier)?
IceQube is referring to the exponential increase in computing power since then, aka Moore’s Law, also the origin of sayings like cars would now be able to go at 100,000 mph (or get 100,000 mpg) and such if it applied to cars. Alas, not everything scales that way (even Moore’s Law won’t go on forever as it reaches physical limits), although you probably could apply it to batteries, just at a much, much slower rate.
In pure amp-hours even the AA Energizer lithium don’t offer much more then standard Duracell Alkaline. What the advancement seems to be is in delivering more power on demand. Both Energizer Lithium and to a lesser extent Duracell ‘Ultra’ offer better ability to ‘quick drain’ the battery, but not a overall increase in stored power (just the ability to efficiently get much of it quickly). (the Lithium ones offer better low temp performance as well).
What’s the Straight Dope on the best kind of batteries to use in digital cameras?
I’ve been underwhelmed by how NIMHs perform. I got a bunch and they seem to be going bad after a few dozen cycles, and/or my camera doesn’t seem to like the lower voltage they deliver. I’ll charge a set and maybe get a dozen pictures out of it if the camera if it accepts them at all, as opposed to maybe a hundred or more with alkalines.
I notice Engergizer has two grades of lithium batteries. They claim “4X” the pictures, but they’re more than 4X the price. So are regular alkalines a good choice for digicams?
According to Consumer Reports,* the Energizer Ultimate and Energizer Advanced Lithium AAs got 1286 and 957 digital camera shots, respectively. By comparison Duracell Ultra Advanced Alkaline got 260, Energizer Max Alkaline 162 and Walgreen’s Supercell Alkaline133. Duracell Ultra Power Pix Nickel Oxyhydroxide got 174 shots.
For the prices they quote, the Energizer Ultimate was the cheapest per shot, at .23 per 50 shots.
*Online subscription required.
If your camera takes AAs, NiMH are far and away the best choice. You need to buy quality batteries, if you do they will last far longer than alkalines. You may be buying crappy batteries. In particular, I’ve been using the low discharge NiMH like Sanyo Enloops which will hold their charge much longer than older NiMH.
You also need a good charger. If you have one of those 15 minute chargers, throw it in the trash and get an intelligent charger that will keep your batteries alive for a good long time.
Yep. This. The rechargeables last far longer (about 5x in my experience) to regular alkalines in digital cameras and flashes. I’m not exaggerating. Five years ago when I shot with a couple of D200s, I would typically get around 1000 frames in raw on a a load of Energizer NiMH batteries. One day, I realized I had forgotten to charge my batteries, so I bought one of those giant 20 packs of Energizer alkalines. They lasted about 200 frames before my camera refused to shoot again. I thought it was a fluke. Reloaded. Same thing. Then, a few months later, I decided to experiment again. Same thing. I got about 200 frames from alkalines, but over 1000 on the rechargeable NiMHs.
Car powered by 2 AA batteries
To the notes of the digital cameras, Nimh is a good choice if you have a camera that likes them. Mine does not and sometimes right out of the charger the camera will not even turn on. Some cameras like/need the higher voltage of alkaline/lithium.
But if the camera works well with Nimh then I agree that it is a great choice, but I have found that Nimh have a tendency to all of a sudden stop working - though that is usually long into it’s life and after many cycles.
For water purification I use a steri-pen, it uses UV light to make water safe to drink and is common for backpackers and the like. They recommend lithium or Nimh rechargeable which should have about 200 sterilization uses per set of 4, and they say alkaline is not recommended as that may get you under 30 uses. The difference is the demand this places on the battery. It seems like the steripen takes a great amount of power for a short time. Both Lithium and Nimh can keep up, Alkaline can not and ends up wasting power for the high demand.
You can find quality NiMH batteries and chargers out there, but there are also lots of cheaply made batteries and/or chargers that perform terribly, so you have to make sure to get the good stuff. Here’s a slightly outdated digital photography site that has battery testing comparisons and other info. It’s mostly just to give you an idea of the top brands (and the crap ones) and the wide variance there is in quality.
But since that’s outdated, and to keep it simple, these days my recommendation would be to stick with Sanyo 2700’s and get this great charger that comes with 4 batteries - that should do the trick. (I can recommend that seller, BTW.)
Nitpick: Low ***self-***discharge NiMH batteries. They are often sold as “pre-charged” NiMH batteries.
Conventional NiMH batteries lose most of their charge in a couple of weeks even if you don’t use them. Low self-discharge NiMH batteries like the Sanyo Eneloop hold most of their charge even after a year, which is why they can be sold pre-charged.
Those are pretty nice if you really need low self-discharge for your purposes, but they are kinda pricey at $21 for 4.
Those are the super duper Eneloop XXs (and the ones that I use.) The regular white ones you can find for about $10-$11 a four-pack online or at Costco. The black Eneloop XXs can be found for cheaper at about $17.50 at B&H.
If you shoot a lot, they’re worth every last cent, IMHO.
They’re worth even more if you don’t shoot a lot, and tend to go for many days (or weeks) without using the camera. With conventional NiMH batteries, each time you use the camera, you’d need to charge the batteries. With Eneloop and similar batteries, the batteries will likely be charged from the last time you charged them.
This is true, but I’ve also noticed that they seem to hold their charge better with constant shooting, too. I normally shoot with the Energizer 2500s or Powerex 2700, and the Eneloop XX seem to good deal longer in my flashes.