JC OConnell wrote:
is the "out of the package" 80% charge that important in the real world or is it a marketing scheme.
It's a side-effect of the very low self-discharge characteristic, and is not at all important to me.
I agree that the "charged when new" thing is a marketing scheme, but it's quite a reasonable one because you can't sell "low self-discharge" to Joe Lunchbox or Aunt Tenna. And it would appear to be working because now Sony and Duracell are reselling Eneloops under their own name.
The crucial aspects of Eneloops that make them game-changers for me are the afore-mentioned low self-discharge, and the very flat voltage over time discharge curve together with reasonable capacity.
The Eneloop's 2000 mAh capacity is admittedly less than the 2700mAh cells available, but they work better in actual practice (at least in my K100D Super) because the voltage droops fairly early in the discharge cycle of a typical Energizer or even the Ansmann-badged cells that came with my charger such that I only get about 200-300 shots before the camera quits. I get 800-900 shots with the Eneloops under similar conditions.
With the low self-discharge I can charge the Eneloops, pop them into the camera and then forget about them until the low-batt indicator appears. I stuff everything into my kit-bag until I need it -- even if several weeks go by before I suddenly need to grab the bag and dash out somewhere to shoot. I never worry at all about whether I charged up batteries the night before.
For me, I would rather just pay less for nimh that dont have a charge when new or dont hold charges for 3-9 months, I couldnt care less unless it was a free feature maybe.
I have shopped around and bought Eneloops at the same price as Energizers, so yes, it is (or can be) a free feature.
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