RE: AA & AAA alkaline batteries...
Do you have any history w/ these? I used to buy some brand at the local hardware store. They seemed to be ok but after some shelf life some of them were dead while others were ok...........no quality control built in.
Forgot the name.....but batteries were gold/black color .
I've only been buying them for 6 months, so no real personal data. Reviews were positive. The packages are dated ('Best Before' 2018 & 2019 on the ones I just bought).
Just make sure you are getting ALKALINES, not 'super heavy duty' or 'heavy duty'. Alkalines a far superior to those old types.
These things are a commodity. I know people who say they have been in the factories and have seen the same unmarked batteries from the production line get shuttled over for various brand markings. I recall a Consumer Reports test that pretty much validated this. IIRC, more variation batch-to-batch than from brand-to-brand. It's possible that QC could be lax on lower cost ones, but I'm not aware that it is a significant issue.
OTOH, I avoid buying cheap coin cells on Amazon or other on-line places. The cheap ones appear to be repackaged, with old dates and/or may have been in a hot warehouse (ages lithium batteries).
OK, now you got me curious, so I 'm going to run my battery tester on each my stock (wha'dya do all day?). This tester puts it under load, and measures current (indicating voltage under load), back in a minute......
OK, so I had three 4-packs, and one pack with 3 left in it. All measured 4.2-4.3 on my meter, no significant variation, and typical of what I've seen on other new batteries. A reading of 4.0 is considered 'good' on this scale, but I've put used ones into service when they've read 3.5, and I can still get plenty of life out of them. I really doubt these are of any lesser quality that anything else you can buy on the regular market.
-ERD50