Duracell Pre Charged Rechargeable Nimh AAA Batteries 4-Pack


An eneloop by any other name...4

[Updated Dec 21 2008]

I was only half-right when I boldly proclaimed that "Duracell Pre Charged AAA are rebranded Sanyo eneloop cells" in my original review. It turns out that the first batch of Duracell AAA cells I bought from Amazon are made in Japan and those are identical to eneloop (both mechanically and electrically). But lately I bought some more Duracell AAA from a warehouse club. Those are made in China and they are identical to the Rayovac Hybrid (see my scan in the Customer Images section). Note that the Rayovac Hybrid AAA has an average capacity of about 780mAh (compared to about 830mAh for eneloop AAA) so is not as good a value.



[Original review follows]



Judging from similarity of technical specifications and physical shapes of (+) and (-) terminals I am convinced that the Duracell Pre Charged NiMH cell is actually Sanyo Eneloop underneath a different wrapper. Therefore all the good things you heard about eneloop apply to Duracell 'Pre Charged' too.



My own testing has shown that the capacity of eneloop AAA cell is slightly above the claimed 800mAh. The Rayovac Hybrid AAA is usually cheaper but its capacity is slightly below 800mAh. Both brands are able to retain at least 85% of their charge after three months of storage. Just pick whichever brand is on-sale and you can't go wrong.



One small problem with the Duracell 'Pre Charged' cell is that: it looked too similar to the well-known 'Copper Top' alkaline cell. So there is a good chance that people may mistaken it for a disposable cell. Personally I prefer the distinctive-looking white case of the eneloop cell.

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