Welcome to My World

They’re cheap. They’re an obvious knock-off brand. They’re absolute crap. And they were without a doubt the single best purchase I’ve ever made with four American dollars.

“What are they?” I hear you ask. They are dirt-cheap off-brand AA batteries. I’ve long been a real fan of “boycotting” Duracell and Energizer products, not because they suck, specifically, but because they’re so insanely overpriced given what they do.

“Boycott” is probably too strong a word in this case; it’s not like I refuse to buy the batteries on principle; I just don’t buy the damned things because they’re a serious waste of money.

The “third place” market contender brand, “Rayovac,” are perfectly serviceable batteries, coming within a few percent of the overall electric storage capacity of the two leading brands’ batteries. The price difference, though, is staggering — you may well end up paying half as much for almost exactly the same overall battery life.

The batteries I’ve got sitting here on my desk aren’t Rayovacs. They aren’t even Sony or Toshiba “OEM-style” batteries. They are “Toceba” batteries (which makes me laugh my ass off).

I bought sixty-four of these suckers for four dollars at the flea market (heh, uh-oh, does this make me a redneck?). That makes these batteries 6.25 cents a piece. A quarter for a pack of four. A fucking quarter. They’re standard AA batteries and produce a clean, steady 1.5V output when they’re fresh, and have a reliable, predictable falloff from that full state. They are significantly lighter than the name-brand batteries, meaning their capacity is very likely unimpressive (it’s doubtful they’ll last even half as long as a Rayovac battery).

In other words, they’re good batteries that just don’t last as long as the name brand ones. And I walked away with sixty four of the damned things for less than it would cost to buy even twelve Rayovac batteries. Even if these things last a fourth of the time a “regular” battery does, I’ve saved a metric assload of cash.

What the hell good are they, though, if they run out of juice so fast? First, I don’t actually know that they run out of juice faster, though it’s safe to assume they do since they’re so light individually. Second, they’re useful for low-drain, low-usage devices. Examples include:

• Nintendo WaveBird controllers (maybe I’ll get 80 hours of use out of these batteries instead of the normal 120-150).
• My battery-powered “atomic clock” (a big plastic thing that shows a digital (LCD) clock and calendar and synchronizes itself with the Fort Collins, Colorado-based atomic clock broadcast signal) … it should run for months even on these cells.
• The outdoor temperature remote sensor for the atomic clock … again, it should for months on these batteries without question.
• Remote controls for televisions, DVD players, etc. (months, possibly even years, of use here, too)
• My GPS receiver, which shows a full power bar when I load these things into it (probably 8-10 hour runtime, easily) – because of the weight of these batteries, the receiver floats properly (with rechargeable batteries, only the tip of the receiver floats; the end with the batteries in it drops below the water).

For stuff that doesn’t normally need a replacement set of batteries more than once a year, these things will be perfect. For things that only need replacement batteries once a week with heavy use, they’re still useful. I’m betting they’ll even work nicely in the green laser pointer. Again, the lighter weight of these batteries means the sucker won’t be as heavy (it sounds stupid, but pile that thing into a pocket with keys and a wallet, and you start needing a belt (or tighter pants, I suppose )).

We’ll see in a month whether I still like these suckers or not, but I’m thinking I will. Even if they totally suck performance-wise, it was only four bucks. Not too much of a “waste” for an experiment like this.