Battery Brands To Steer Clear Of (And The Best Alternatives To Consider)

Humans consume over 8 billion alkaline batteries each year, including those that are thrown away accidentally when trying to replace flashlight batteries in the dark. One often-overlooked way to reduce the environmental impact of all those disposable dry-cell batteries is simply to buy better batteries that will last longer. But how can you possibly know which are better? 

The usual shortcut to buying better batteries is to prefer one brand over the others. But, as we'll see, this heuristic is anything but reliable. Batteries, even name-brand ones, tend to be more predictably good or bad based on battery technology rather than the name on the wrapper or the number of times words like super, heavy-duty, extra, ultra, ultimate, and max are added to the name. Carbon zinc batteries tend to perform poorly overall; alkalines do better with high-drain applications; and lithium wins across all categories, at a price. Rechargeables in general outperform alkalines, cost less over time, and are great to have on hand in case of an emergency. So many brands perform well overall but have particular battery models that are carbon zinc or alkaline that simply don't fare well in testing.

There are, of course, brands you can simply dismiss out of hand. A good rule of thumb is to be cautious of any completely unfamiliar battery brand. But sorting through which brands to avoid is a delicate operation involving reading lab test results and countless reviews. We've done that work for you, with results that aren't entirely surprising. Overall, we recommend avoiding Gelivita, VARTA, and Eveready, instead focusing on Energizer, Duracell, Amazon Basics, and possibly Rayovac.

Truly bad battery brands aren't exactly rare, but they're uncommon among the brands that people are most familiar with. Consider the almost comical case of Gelivita, a battery brand that has managed such unheard-of feats as allegedly delivering 32 DOA ("dead on arrival") batteries to an Amazon customer (according to the reviews) and only managing an overall rating of 3.7 stars in spite of being flagged by Fakespot for bogus reviews. They were the worst lithium batteries ranked by Project Farm and haven't seem to have gotten on anyone else's radar.

Amazon reviews for Gelivita alkaline AAs are below four stars, and with ratings being massaged and spun in every way possible these days, that's marginal at best. The only independent testing we could find was Project Farm's thorough analysis of lithium-ion AAs (Gelivita lithium AAs do not seem to be available any longer), finding that they deliver less than half of the capacity of the top lithiums and perform dismally in sub-freezing temperatures. Based on all this and the scarcity of these batteries, the brand is probably one to pass by.

It is, as we've pointed out, not uncommon for companies to make both great and dismal batteries, usually correlated to battery technology. For example, Rayovac Fusion alkaline batteries are very good, while their Heavy Duty carbon zinc batteries might not be great. It's hard to ding a brand for that; carbon zinc batteries just tend to perform poorly. But in 2025, VARTA managed to get poor scores across battery technologies from multiple testing sources and historically has produced inconsistent quality batteries. The inconsistency could, in part, be a function of how they're used. VARTA Longlife AA alkaline batteries have tested better as low-drain batteries in terms of performance, endurance, and value. Using VARTA alkalines for high-drain applications is less convincing.

In the past, VARTA has seen positive testing scores from Gigazine and others for their High Energy and Industrial lines, and some rechargeables, while their carbon zinc batteries have been panned. Since we found no recent testing for either of those batteries, it's possible that some VARTA batteries (all of which get good reviews on Amazon) continue to be high-quality. But if you're playing the odds, this might be a good brand to avoid.

Battery users of a certain age might consider Eveready a household brand, one recognizable to just about everyone. Household brands also tend to be universally popular, but we should stop you right there. Eveready's Super Heavy Duty batteries are poorly rated by consumer organizations like CHOICE and Consumer NZ, as is usually the case with carbon zinc batteries. But Eveready Gold alkaline batteries don't fare much better, turning in reasonable results only in low-drain applications like remote controls. Consumer NZ actually recommends Eveready Gold alkaline AAs, but only in low-to-moderate drain devices, as they have poor high-drain performance and capacity.

Normally you could pigeonhole a battery like this as a decent choice for a narrow range of applications, but the trouble is that Eveready Gold batteries are exceptionally expensive at $1.19 to $3 each when compared with other big-name brands like Amazon Basics, Duracell, Energizer Max, and Rayovac that are often much cheaper. You simply have better options for the price.

No one is going to be surprised that we're recommending Energizer and Duracell as battery brands. That's probably because they're available everywhere and nobody has a particular problem with their performance. Energizer Max alkalines are recommended by Consumer NZ and were CNET's pick for best AA alkaline battery. They're good batteries overall, but no brand is flawless or universally loved. The alkalines have consistently subpar high-drain performance, and they're among the most expensive major brands. Even when everyone agrees a battery is great, like Energizer Ultimates, price might be prohibitive; Ultimate lithium AAs can cost $1.85 to 3.50 each, depending on the quantity you buy. Lithium batteries will almost always outperform alkaline and carbon zinc formulations, and purchasers at big box hardware stores like Home Depot rate them extremely well. (Remember, what we're trying to discern are the most consistent and reliable battery brands, not individual batteries.)

Duracell is in a similar situation. Duracell alkaline AAs test well, though not spectacularly. Because the brand is so well-known and widely available, there's a lot of testing data around to sort through, and it shows that Duracell generally performs better than most competitors. They have good capacity, strong shelf life (important since batteries are an essential household emergency supply), and superior sub-freezing performance. The famed Coppertop alkaline line is great for low-drain uses and slightly better than Energizer for high-drain applications. Overall, they're dependable and decent quality batteries across the brand.

Perhaps because their carbon zinc batteries were ubiquitous for so long but never very good, Rayovac might seem like an outmoded brand. But the data seems to tell a different story, at least when it comes to the Rayovac Fusion line. It might seem unfair to zoom in on one strong battery model in an industry where most manufacturers have a strong model but also terrible batteries, but there are three reasons we're making a bit of an exception for Rayovac. First is the fact that Rayovac batteries don't generally test poorly for the battery technology in use. Their carbon zinc batteries, for example, perform at least as well as other carbon zinc batteries. Second, Rayovac is owned by Energizer, one of the two top battery brands. And third, Rayovac Fusion AA alkalines are superior to most of their competition.

Project Farm rated Fusion highly for capacity, and they get top consumer ratings at Lowe's and Home Depot. The duration testing done by Cinema Sound shows them to be the second best alkalines, being edged out by Energizer Max. While the Energizer Max and Rayovac Fusion product datasheets report ANSI test results on a slightly different scale from each other, it does appear that Energizer Max outperforms Fusion. But since both are made by the same company and Rayovac Fusion might be the second-best among the most popular alkaline battery format (AA), it would be negligent not to mention Rayovac Fusion's successes.

Amazon Basics batteries are among the cheapest high-quality options around, and reviewers are starting to notice that "high-quality" bit. Amazon Basics batteries took the "best of" award in three of CNET's five categories (AAA, D, and 9V alkalines) in their battery testing.

But in a way, there's another underlying truth about battery brands at work in the Amazon Basics battery story: The consistency of a battery brand over time is not a given. When Cinema Sound did its battery roundup in 2019, Amazon Basics AAs performed so well that it was actually problematic. Because the batteries had a high level of output up to the very moment they were depleted — normally a good thing — they couldn't be trusted in any device for which you rely on a low-battery indication to know when to replace the batteries. They were just full until they were completely empty. You can actually see this effect in CNET's more recent data as well; the trouble is that, for newer Amazon AAs, the "empty" point comes before competing AAs are even halfway depleted. The good news is that Amazon Basics alkalines have great shelf life, so they'll last a long time if you don't use them.

Overall, though, the other Amazon alkalines performed quite well, and the 9-volt batteries amazingly so, meaning they have extreme value as the best way to stop annoying chirping smoke alarms. The Amazon AAA, D, and 9V batteries are safe bets as alternatives to both inferior batteries and to the more expensive options. Of course, whether that will still be true in a few years remains to be seen.