+1 about the fenix lights, but there is a couple of things about eneloop that I want to comment:

1) They are called low self discharge cells for a reason. With ordinary nimh, you have to babysit and feed that cell on a regular basis to get anywhere near their rated capacity. Store it for a couple of weeks and that high capacity nimh cell is down to the eneloop capacity or lower.

2) The quality of eneloop is very high and their ratings is conservative. You know what you get, and what you get is very good.

3) Other aspects such as cold weather performance and the ability to deliver high currents when required is better with eneloop than most of the alternatives.


If you use and recharge your batteries on a very frequent basis (once every week or so) you may be better off with high capacity nimh of high quality. If not, eneloop (or similar low self discharge cells of high quality) is a better choice. Most of us don't use/recharge anywhere frequent enough to reap the benefit of the higher capacity rated nimh. Most of us could do very well without the drawbacks of maintaining a suite of self-discharging nimh batteries...


Of course, nothing beats lithium primaries for long shelf life and high capacity. But those would be labeled "emergency use ONLY" in my shelf - too expensive. Batteries to be used would be either lsd nimh (i.e. eneloop) or rechargeable lithium batteries. I use primary alkaline only for toys or equipment with incredible low power consumption (remotes, clocks etc).