Posts Tagged ‘Maxell Alkaline

1-5v-aaa-maxell-super-alkaline-battery

The 1.5V AAA Maxell Super Alkaline batteries are supposedly better than standard Alkaline batteries that Maxell makes and are intended for high-drain devices according to the company. The batteries we’ve had for testing were with an expiration date of 01-2017 meaning that the shelf life is at least 4 years, though we are not exactly sure when these batteries were produced so it might also be 5 years. Anyway, let us see how good these 1.5V AAA size Alkaline batteries from Maxell perform in terms of useable capacity in our tests…


1-5v-aaa-maxell-super-alkaline-battery-capacity

Starting our test of the 1.5V AAA Maxell Super Alkaline batteries as usual with a low constant current discharge rate of 0.1A we have managed to get 948 mAh as capacity and that is actually a very good result. Increasing the load to 0.2A and 0.3A the Maxell batteries do manage well, and even at 0.5A the useable capacity was still quite decent. In overall these Alkaline batteries seem to be doing quite well, but do not provide as much capacity as an Alkaline Duracell battery of the same type for example does (we use Duracell as a reference), so there is more to be desired.

The performance of the 1.5V AAA Maxell Super Alkaline batteries in our tests:

– 948 mAh at 0.1A load
– 572 mAh at 0.2A load
– 474 mAh at 0.3A load
– 253 mAh at 0.5A load

– 1.135 Wh at 0.1A load
– 0.675 Wh at 0.2A load
– 0.552 Wh at 0.3A load
– 0.282 Wh at 0.5A load

1-5v-aa-maxell-alkaline-maxell-super-alkaline-batteries

Maxell makes two kinds of Alkaline batteries and since we’ve tested both the standard 1.5V AA Alkaline as well as the Super Alkaline version of these batteries we’ve decided to make a direct comparison between them in order to see what is the difference. These two types of Alkaline batteries are performing very well and are providing a capacity that is a bit below the one provided by the Duracell Copper Top batteries that we are using as a reference for the standard Alkaline batteries and the Super Alkaline batteries are a bit better than the Duracells.


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You can see that at low current drain the difference is about 6% at 0.1A constant current load in favor of the Super Alkaline version, at 0.2A their advantage is about 8%, at 0.5A we are back at about 6% and at 1A it is the highest at about 17%. So the Maxell Super Alkaline batteries are offering slightly better capacity than the standard Alkaline batteries that the company makes and while the difference at lower constant current loads is below 10%, at 1A load the Super Alkaline batteries manage to perform much better.

Maxell – Alkaline – Super Alkaline
0.1A load – 2237 mAh – 2377 mAh
0.2A load – 1807 mAh – 1959 mAh
0.5A load – 1010 mAh – 1070 mAh
1.0A load –   483 mAh –   566 mAh

In the end it is probably up to the price difference between the two types of batteries that can help you decide which one to buy, the standard Alkaline batteries are a bit cheaper than the Super Alkaline version from Maxell as to be expected. And while in general the Maxell Super Alkaline batteries are providing a bit more capacity at all load levels they are doing their best at the 1A constant current load test, meaning that they are definitely the better choice for applications with higher power requirements, though for others with lower power requirements you might still be Ok with the standard Alkaline batteries from Maxell.

1-5v-aa-maxell-super-alkaline-battery

The 1.5V AA Maxell Super Alkaline batteries are the higher-end Alkaline batteries that Maxell makes, the lower-end are labeled as just Alkaline batteries and we’ve already tested them, so our expectations from the Super Alkaline are to perform a bit better. The 1.5V AA Maxell Super Alkaline batteries we used for testing were with an expiration date of 01-2018, so they are supposedly offering quite a long shelf life. Maxell recommends the use of their Super Alkaline batteries for devices including portable radios, flashlights, radio control vehicles, MP3 players and portable GPS systems. And now let us see how good they will perform in our tests…


1-5v-aa-maxell-super-alkaline-battery-capacity

We have started the test of the 1.5V AA Maxell Super Alkaline batteries as we normally do with a low constant current discharge rate of 0.1A and the result we got was 2377 mAh as capacity and that is indeed a very good result. Increasing the constant current load to the higher values we use for testing the batteries continued to show very good performance and even in high loads they’ve managed to offer good performance. Since we’ve taken the standard 1.5V AA Duracell Copper Top batteries as a reference for well performing Alkaline batteries we can say that these Maxell Super Alkaline batteries do manage to outperform them in all four of the test loads we are using by a bit and that is definitely a good sign for Maxell.

The performance of the 1.5V AA Maxell Super Alkaline Batteries in our tests:

– 2377 mAh at 0.1A load
– 1959 mAh at 0.2A load
– 1070 mAh at 0.5A load
– 566 mAh at 1.0A load

– 2.978 Wh at 0.1A load
– 2.400 Wh at 0.2A load
– 1.263 Wh at 0.5A load
– 0.631 Wh at 1.0A load


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