Thanks to bitbox and their comprehesive battery test at www.batteryshowdown.com, the following is a detailed test to find the best AA batteries you can buy for your money on the highstreet and online.

The following results are from the www.batteryshowdown.com High Drain test, as this best matches the heavy load on the batteries that our motors would use.

Results: High Drain

The high-drain discharge of 1000mA is designed to represent a typical heavy load on a battery that a digital camera or similar power-hungry device may use. All batteries suffer a reduction in available capacity when placed under heavy load, but some perform better than others.

Performance Graphed

Click any graph to see a larger preview.

Analysis

In this test some of the lesser well known discount alkalines did not do as well. However, the Kodak Xtralife and Polaroid Super Alkaline batteries did quite well compared to their more expensive cousins and represent excellent value for money. The Kodak cell was also the winner of the 200mA test in terms of value for money.

Zinc cells did very poorly, but this was expected as the chemistry is not optimised for high drain applications. The Panasonic cell didn’t even manage 100mAh.

The Poundland Duracell (genuine Duracell batteries; Duracell Standard in the below data) performed poorly, and you would be better off with the Kodak Xtralife that Poundland also sell in 6 packs.

It’s hard to see how Duracell can market their Duracell Ultra Power battery as being the best they have made, especially at the price it is sold at, because it performed worse in both 200mA and 1000mA tests than their own Duracell Plus Power - which is 31p a battery cheaper! Like in the 200mA test, the Duracell Ultra Power is the worst value for money battery we tested.

Duracell PROCELL and Energizer Industrial are very good batteries for the price and compare well to their retail cousins. However, they are only available from online resellers in boxes of 10.

The Energizer Ultimate Lithium and VARTA Professional Lithium cells performed very well, achieving more than 2800 mAh each with the Energizer beating the VARTA cell by approximately 150mAh. Clearly, these batteries perform very well under high discharge current – they only lost around 250mAh due to the higher current. At this discharge current these lithium cells seem like better value for money but still cost more than the cheaper alkalines. They could be useful in a digital camera application as changing batteries may cause the photographer to lose a shot. They are much cheaper per Ah and Wh than many premium alkaline cells.

Like in the 200mA test, the VARTA High Energy Alkaline was the best performing alkaline cell and bore its claims of being very long life. However, it provided only marginally more lifetime than the Energizer Industrial cell for 2x the price.

Similar to the last test the major disappointment was the Panasonic EVOLTA. It claims Panasonic’s own “Platinum Award” (for unknown reasons), and previously claims to hold a Guinness World Record for “Longest Lasting AA Alkaline Battery in a Wide Range of Devices”. For an alkaline cell, this battery performed the worst in this test, as well as in the 200mA test.

Raw Data

Battery Name	Price Per Cell	Cells/Pack	Purchased From	mAh ▾	mWh	Joules	£ per Ah	£ per Wh
Panasonic (Zinc)	£0.10	10	99p Stores	87	77	280	£1.14	£1.29
Ford1 (Zinc)	£0.08	12	99p Stores	167	146	526	£0.50	£0.57
Tesco Value (Zinc)	£0.23	4	Tesco	194	169	610	£1.16	£1.34
Daewoo (Zinc)	£0.08	12	99p Stores	202	175	632	£0.41	£0.48
Panasonic EVOLTA	£0.74	4	Online	709	781	2813	£1.04	£0.95
Sony Alkaline	£0.25	4	Poundland	857	902	3249	£0.30	£0.28
Daewoo Super Alkaline	£0.17	6	99p Stores	905	927	3339	£0.19	£0.18
Energizer (Standard)	£0.38	4	Online	943	1006	3625	£0.40	£0.38
Duracell Ultra Power	£1.12	4	Tesco	948	1025	3692	£1.18	£1.10
Ford1 Alkaline	£0.17	6	99p Stores	990	1029	3707	£0.17	£0.16
Polaroid Super Alkaline	£0.17	6	99p Stores	1022	1037	3736	£0.17	£0.16
Wilko powerplus EXTRA	£0.30	8	Wilkinsons	1047	1043	3756	£0.29	£0.29
Duracell (Standard)	£0.50	2	Poundland	1062	1110	3996	£0.48	£0.46
Panasonic Alkaline Power	£0.25	4	99p Stores	1068	1126	4053	£0.24	£0.23
Energizer Ultra+	£0.81	4	Tesco	1084	1120	4033	£0.76	£0.73
M&S Extra Long Life	£1.00	4	M&S	1087	1132	4075	£0.92	£0.89
Duracell PROCELL	£0.22	10	Online	1089	1151	4145	£0.21	£0.20
Kodak Xtralife	£0.17	6	Poundland	1134	1154	4156	£0.15	£0.15
Costco Kirkland Signature	£0.21	48	Online	1176	1232	4438	£0.18	£0.18
Panasonic Pro Power	£0.50	4	Online	1180	1262	4544	£0.43	£0.40
Tesco Extra Long Life	£0.30	8	Tesco	1188	1251	4504	£0.26	£0.25
Morrisons Extra Long Life	£0.62	4	Morrisons	1199	1229	4426	£0.53	£0.51
Duracell Plus Power	£0.81	4	Tesco	1238	1314	4732	£0.66	£0.62
GP Ultra	£0.33	6	Online	1278	1346	4847	£0.26	£0.25
TIGER Super Alkaline	£0.25	4	TIGER Stores	1294	1362	4903	£0.19	£0.18
Energizer HiGHTECH	£0.94	4	Tesco	1335	1406	5064	£0.71	£0.67
Energizer Industrial	£0.27	10	Online	1351	1454	5237	£0.21	£0.19
VARTA High Energy Alkaline	£0.59	4	Online	1432	1519	5471	£0.41	£0.39
VARTA Professional Lithium	£1.13	4	Online	2841	3585	12909	£0.40	£0.32
Energizer Ultimate Lithium	£1.13	4	Online	3009	3828	13781	£0.38	£0.30

¹ Yes, these are genuine Ford Motor Company AA batteries.