Which AA Battery Should You Buy? Best Battery Brand COMPETITION

Which AA Battery is BEST? I did a bracket-style tournament competition to find out which batteries you should consider buying. The battery competition is fierce, but you might be surprised by the bracket results. I know that I was!

With the help of science, we test which batteries last the longest, and which AA battery brands offer the best value (cost per amp). We'll also learn what happens when you cut a lithium-ion battery in half and put it in water (hint: it makes a lithium battery explosion). We'll see what's inside a battery, and learn the juicy science behind which AA battery brands are the best to buy.

Tested name-brand batteries include Energizer, Duracell, Rayovac, Eveready Gold, and Fuji. Off-brand battery tests include Amazon Basics, Target (Up & Up), CVS, RiteAid, Dollar Store, Wegmans, and Giant Grocery.

#batteries

[Nifty-Stuff]

You clearly put in a TON of time (and money) into this video (and batteries). Very well done. I hope you get a ton more views and keep it up!

[truthlove]

Project Farm did this test and energizer came out far ahead of Duracell . I trust ProfectFarm. All of his tests have been on the nose. I purchased products he’s tested and been more than impressed afterward. No advertising on his channel.

[Chaosloki]

I feel that normalizing the prices of the batteries to an 8-pack made some of the off brands lose their main advantage. If a 100 pack only costs a few dollars more and brings the cost down to less than 30 cents a battery their performance vs cost would be much better than the brands that don't have that option. It might be annoying to change the batteries more often but it's definitely more a bang for your buck.

[webx]

OK I'm just a picky EE so I have to correct some units here, especially since it's an engineering channel. I assume you're a mechanical engineer and not an electrical one, so aren't as familiar with the units.

Current: Amps, but generally milli-Amps (mA) at this scale.

Charge Capacity: Technically Coulombs (C). But for small batteries, especially rechargable ones, milli-Amp-hours (mAh) are more common. 1 mAh = 3.6C.

mAh is used because it is easier to picture. And because batteries also express charge/discharge rates in rates proportionate to their capacity which are also expressed as (C). That is, a 1000mAh battery draining at 2000mA is draining at "2C".

Energy capacity: milli-Watt-hours (mWh). I bring this one up, because for a 1.5v battery, the mWh rating would be a higher number than the mAh rating. This is sometimes used to try to upsell batteries. Though it is actually a useful number in its own right, since the voltage of the battery changes as it discharges, and this gives you a better idea of how much total energy is available across those changes. This is why EV batteries are measured in kWh.

Anyway, I bring this up because you described a toy as "it draws 10mA every time I press this button so on a 1000mA battery, I can press it x number of times". Saying it draws 10mA doesn't tell you how much charge it is actually consuming. And a "1000mA battery" tells you nothing about its capacity. It could be a 100mAh battery draining at 10C, or a 10Ah battery drawing at 0.1C. Or any number of combinations, since you described current rather than charge.

Instead, if the toy draws 10mA while you press the button, it only draws this while the sound is playing. If the sound lasts 1s, then it consumes about 2.6uAh (micro-Amp-Hours) or 0.0026mAh. Then you would divide the capacity of the battery in mAh by this value to get a very rough number of times the button can be pressed. So a 1000mAh battery could have this button pressed 360, 000 times in a perfect world. (Not so perfect for the parents who bought the toy).

[khairimoataz]

Amazing review, really beneficial and a lot of effort has been put on
Thanks a lot!

[amishjim]

Good stuff, homie. Good production value.

[andyblinkblink]

Really good video however I do have a few corrections I would like to add. Firstly I would recommend testing dollar store alkaline vs the "heavy duty" ones since the "heavy duty" are really zinc carbon and are obsolete. They're super low capacity and low value as well.

Also, you are labeling price per amp and have the Y axis for the graphs as amps but it's really amp hours. Amps is really just current draw for a near 0 amount of time (think of derivatives for calculus) whereas amp hours is average current over time which is more important in determining capacity. Amps are like torque, volts are like rpm, and watts are like horsepower, and wh is like total work done. A low rpm, high torque motor will get the same work done as a low torque high rpm motor in terms of horsepower. What we care about is how much time can they do a fixed amount of work for.


Watt hours is the most important metric as that's actual capacity (thats why batteries for TSA are checked for wh). A lot of devices regulate the voltage that's supplied, meaning they have a constant voltage, current and therefore watts. For something like a cheap handheld fan, the voltage likely isn't regulated and the current is drawn based on the supplied voltage and total resistance. In that case batteries with a high wh would get more "total work" done. It could power the fan more slowly if it had more voltage sag but for longer. Or more quickly for a shorter period of time if it has less sag, but the total air moved (ignoring the fans efficiency) would match the wh metric. I suspect the difference wouldn't be huge between the mah graphs and the wh graphs, but it probably would make some difference, especially between different battery technologies. I think the lithium would have a bigger boost in mwh vs mah since it likely has less voltage sag and is likely doing more "work" in your test when drawn a constant current vs the others.

If you were to do a part 2 (which I would like to see :D ) I would recommend doing just alkaline and lithium. Test for watt hours vs amps or amp hours when testing for capacity. Also test for peak current by continuously placing them under higher load until the voltage drops to below like 1.2-1.0 volts or something. I would also test for various power draws, do maybe 1.5 watts, .5 watts and .1 watts or something like that when doing capacity testing to see what does better for various scenarios to replicate a flashlight vs kids toy vs remote for example.

[porkallenpat]

I’m in the live entertainment biz, (a lot of wireless devices), I did not see that you had the duracell “procell” in the challenge. I find that those are the best for the “best all around”, while when I can afford them, the energizer ultimate lithium last the longest even tho the most expensive.

[lukasbahurinsky]

Just wanted to say, hope you make it big one day! Your content is top tier quality, while you get almost no attention, such a shame!

[michdude]

Great Vid. One thing you forgot to mention is not to mix different batteries like you did in the last few seconds of your video as the less powerful battery will die before the other. Keep up the good work!

[BackToWar]

63c 2 years ago for panasonic, how much are today? With indlation.

[jobfour]

Last year I bought 20 pack of RAYOVAC high energy alkaline, several of them leak in my TV remote, I thoght that was a thing of the past. So now I might try different bran, ruled out high price Duracell, I'll either go with the rabbit or a off brand brand of a popular

[jryder-fdrd]

Best battery for survive. Most important aspects:
- shelf life
- cold weather resistance
Thats all. 😊

[johnmknox]

Great video! I wonder if an update will be coming? The big companies like Duracell and Energizer seem to have a few different versions of their batteries now to confuse us even more and probably try to get more money from us. E.g. Energizer Industrial. Energizer Max. Energizer MaxPlus. Energizer Ultimate. And then with Duracell we have Duracell Procell Constant. Duracell Procell Intense Power. Duracell Plus. Duracell Ultra. Duracell Optimum. It would be interesting to know how many mAh all of these different products cost and their price so we can figure it all out.

[BeReadySelfDefense]

Dude, I was legit pondering this while buying batteries just the other day. Love seeing you on the tube, man!

[richardmerriam]

Duracells leak. I use Energizer. A surprising deal is the Panasonic Carbon Zinc AA (blue & black label). Very inexpensive and they last quite awhile.

[Abcd-osgb]

I really like your channel, stumbled upon it after watching some reviews about car battery boosters. I like the family oriented/ dad oriented themes and video inserts - as if from the eye of the hard working and responsible father who needs to procure batteries to keep the kid/s happy with their battery powered toys.

We all know those batteries in toys die at the worst moment. So it's nice and I would say important to have a pack of batteries of various letters and sizes to accommodate battery needs at home.

[cmpleckz]

great content and video production! how long did the rayovac end up lasting in the flood light?

[liennitram]

I have always used Rayovac I'm out in the cold hiking....then lithium all the way.

[lancecaldwell]

It's funny that's the brand I buy Rayovac I thought they were better than all the rest and I like their their industrial batteries too