A note about 'Lithium' NiMH batteries

Certain metal names imply quality.

For example, "Titanium". Originally, it meant that it used the element Titanium. Eventually, steel bladed shavers with Titanium Nitride coating were sold, but then classified as false advertising, as "Titanium". Lithium is often times the same thing. Most folks have a mental association with Lithium as being what reliable batteries are made of.

Thus, the other day, when I came upon "Rayovac 4.0" batteries, which use "Lithium" all over the package, I was wondering if there was a new battery formulation that I wasn't aware of.

I did some web searching. Nope. No advances. The state-of-the-art in AA sized batteries is still low-self-discharge NiMH.

It turns out that most low-self-discharge NiMH batteries will give you 4x the battery life per charge that a standard alkaline would give you for taking pictures. This is a fairly well-understood thing in the battery industry, which is why there are alkaline batteries that contain the same level of power but give you twice as many shots... they are better able to handle the bursty nature of photography.

Oh, and there's also Lithium batteries that give you 4x the battery life available from Energizer while outputting the same voltage as alkaline batteries instead of putting out twice as much, which is the way things usually are. However, there are apparently patents behind them that have prevented other battery makers from also marketing these batteries.

Thus, Rayovac is selling these batteries that have similar life to the Lithium batteries when fully charged (same as any other LSD NiMH) but that are rechargeable.

And I'm sure there's at least one Lithium compound in the battery. And, as far as I'm concerned, I'd much rather deal with NiMH batteries now that they've been reformulated. Oh, and they are fairly cheap, so you aren't exactly paying extra for new and improved lie. It's still questionable.

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I also need a new battery for my G7. The problem is that the no-name battery I was using has a bad habit of not being charged when I need it to be and my main battery is getting worn out. So I probably need to buy another genuine Canon battery, which is like $50 and I think of how many rolls of film I can get for $50.

Nonetheless, I ran out of battery on the camera, from a fully charged battery, before the model was tired of my bad jokes. So it's clearly time for a replacement.