In our testing, three brands of AA rechargeable batteries—the AmazonBasics AA, Energizer Recharge Universal AA, and Panasonic Eneloop AA—performed about the same. They will keep your lights lit and your clickers clicking longer, can be recharged thousands of times over, and are widely available and inexpensive. We think you should get whichever one of the three is cheapest at the time of checkout.
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Though we couldn’t test how the batteries would perform years down the line, we did test how they held up to regular recharging. After draining and recharging a battery from each of our top brands 50 times, we found that all three brands had retained a lot of their capacity. In our testing, we measured capacities of 1,836 mAh (AmazonBasics), 1,833 mAh (Energizer), and 1,850 mAh (Panasonic) after 50 cycles.
The biggest differences showed up when we tested the batteries in real-world uses. Even though all three brands powered a flameless candle for 120 hours, or five days and nights, differences emerged when we tested them with a toy radio-controlled car. The AmazonBasics kept the RC car’s wheels turning for 17 hours, which is the longest of any batteries we tested—and much more time than anyone should ever spend continuously playing with a toy car. When we took the Energizer Recharge Universal AAs out for a spin, they kept their remote-control car racing for 16 hours, and the Panasonic-powered car lasted 15.5 hours.
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Our testing results for AAA batteries were not quite as neck and neck as those for AA batteries, but we still had a three-way tie between the AmazonBasics AAA, Energizer Recharge Universal AAA, and the Panasonic Eneloop AAA. The AmazonBasics AAAs outperformed most of the other models across the board, but the improvements were negligible. So if you need AAA batteries, we think your best bet is to get whichever of these three good options is the cheapest.