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> I've definitely bought bad (really cheap..) store-brand batteries that lasted inconveniently short. If it's Duracell I know it's good. If you bought the chea
by tanzam75 12y ago
> I've definitely bought bad (really cheap..) store-brand batteries that lasted inconveniently short. If it's Duracell I know it's good.
If you bought the cheapest battery on the shelf, then it probably wasn't an alkaline battery. A heavy-duty battery (carbon-zinc) has half the capacity of an alkaline.
If you buy Duracell, you know you will get at least an alkaline battery. Duracell simply does not sell heavy-duty batteries, hence the brand name: the durable cell. It's mostly a matter of brand positioning, rather than technology.
Rayovac uses one brand for both alkaline and heavy-duty batteries, which cheapens their brand when a consumer buys the wrong type and all the batteries die a quick death. Energizer addresses this problem by selling heavy-duty batteries under the Everready brand.
- moreati 12y agoIt sounds like you know the history. Why are zinc-carbon batteries called 'heavy-duty'?
- tanzam75 12y agoSorry, I gave the wrong chemistry. The carbon-chloride battery is labeled as "heavy-duty," because it has greater capacity than the carbon-zinc battery ("general-purpose"). When alkaline batteries were invented, the older chemistry continued to be sold as heavy-duty. This leads to the strange situation where the heavy-duty battery has less capacity than the other batteries you find on the shelf.