As part of its admirable ‘Think Gaia’ campaign, Sanyo has launched a revolutionary new type of battery. Quirkily titled, ‘Eneloop’ these Ni-MH batteries are rechargeable but, unusually come fully charged: standard long-life Ni-MH batteries quickly lose theirs. Sanyo claims Eneloops only lose 15% of their charge in a year. They are also recyclable and offer an impressive operating temperature range of -10°C to 50°C.

At present, 8000 tonnes of batteries end up in Australian land fill each year. Although Sanyo hasn’t established a local system of recycling yet, with each battery lasting a claimed 1000 recharges, there’s a long grace period before it needs to.

In our tests they, unsurprisingly, worked fine when replacing regular AA and AAA batteries but they also matched the peak performance of Ni-MH batteries used in our Nikon Coolpix S2 digital camera – lesser batteries take time to generate enough charge for flash and successive pictures.

At $25 for four AAs they come at a minor premium and will quickly pay for themselves because of recharging. Everyone should buy these, it’s as simple as that.

This article appeared in the November, 2006 issue of PC Authority.