Energizer Recharge

Bottom Line

While reviewers recommend Energizer's rechargeable batteries, the recommendations come with a couple of caveats. For example, the batteries are a bit bigger than standard AAs, which can make them a bit difficult to insert and remove, as pointed out by an Amazon.com reviewer who ran into trouble when using them in a small flashlight. Energizer Recharge batteries don't last nearly as long as the top-rated Sanyo Eneloop (*Est. $12 for four AA) batteries.

Staying Power

Decent battery life. Choice magazine gives Energizer Recharge batteries a score of 85 percent, having been able to take 480 shots in one charge. Engadget.com's tests yield no notable difference in performance between Energizer and two other brands. Gizmodo.com's Brian Lam has a totally different experience. When he tests the Energizer rechargeables along with Duracell's rechargeable batteries by using them with an LED flashlight, Energizer's rechargeables don't even come close to Duracell's performance. At TomsGuide.com, Brian Nadel expresses his disappointment with Energizer rechargeables, noting that they lasted only one hour and 53 minutes on a flashlight and four hours and 32 minutes on a CD player.

Performance

Limited charge cycle. Even though Energizer's rechargeables performed just as well as Sanyo's Eneloops in Engadget.com's tests, reviewer Darren Murph still recommends the Eneloops because they can be recharged up to 1,500 times, compared to Energizer's rechargeables, which can withstand only 500 charge cycles.

The batteries also aren't the fastest to recharge, but they're not exceedingly slow either. It took Brian Nadel at TomsGuide.com two hours and 35 minutes to recharge two Energizer AA rechargeables, an hour less than it took to recharge Sanyo's Eneloops. He also says that Energizer's 15-minute charger is not as fast as the company claims it is, but that it did recharge a set of AA batteries in 22 minutes.