In article ,
Roy Lewallen wrote:

| Only a few rules of thumb can be put forth:
|
| 1. For heavy drain applications such as photoflash or an HT, alkalines
| last many times longer than "heavy duty" carbon-zinc types, so the
| latter is seldom an economical choice for those applications. Likewise
| for applications with moderate but constant drain such as a GPS
| receiver. Carbon-zinc is probably more economical (unless you use
| alkalines from Costco or other discount store)

.... well, if you're looking for the most bang-for-your-buck, you
SHOULD be getting the non name brand alkalines

Personally, I've not found carbon-zinc batteries to be more
economical, unless you're not actually using them.

| But I don't use carbon-zinc for anything.

Me neither.

| 3. Modern NiMH cells have about the same capacity as alkaline cells

In my experience, the alkaline cells have higher capacities, about
twice as high.

| more at very high currents -- and the capacity is quite constant
| over a wide range of discharge conditions.

And this is very true. The alkalines suffer greatly if you discharge
at a high rate, where the NiMH cells do just fine.

| A down side is the high self-discharge rate -- they're not a good
| choice for something like a flashlight that's used only
| occasionally.

Yup. NiCd cells are better, but still nowhere near as good as
alkaline or lithium cells with regard to self discharge rates.

--
Doug McLaren,
`Ever heard of .cshrc? That's a city in Bosnia. Right?' -- Discussion in
comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands