Batteries

On October 15, 2008 I posted the following to a message board:

I mistakenly bought rechargeable batteries and I don't even have a charger! Is there a valid reason that they were only partially charged when I bought them or is it a gimmick? I have one of those cheap, 1 gig mp3 players since I am allowed to listen to music while I work. Normally the AAA battery will last about 20 hours of use, but I buzzed through two of these by lunch time. What determines battery life? The actual battery or the device it is used in? They cost me between $11 to $12 for four batteries. I went to a local grocery store today and bought a 16 pack of a generic brand for $8. At work there are about three coffee cans full of batteries. Apparently someone had the idea to recycle them, but she couldn't find anywhere to accept them and heard that throwing batteries away isn't very dangerous anyways. Now apparently people are supposed to throw in batteries that they want to donate, but aren't dead yet. I pulled out one AAA and it was fully charged.

The first response:

Rechargable batteries lose their charge in storage. There is no way for a store to inventory fully charged batteries. If you read the instructions that come with any rechargable device, they will say to run a full charge cycle before using it.

The second response:

If you use batteries a lot, the rechargable ones (plus the cost of the charger) will probably pay off in the long run. If you only use batteries infrequently, then rechargables probably have too much upfront cost.

I'm glad I took their advice.  Using rechargeable batteries with a charger has saved me a lot of money and hassle.