These batteries...

Somehow, I haven't been writing many reviews of products from AliExpress lately, but I just had to write one about this item.
It all started on August 25, when I ordered a bunch of different small items (probably like many others did)—some for myself, some for friends who'd asked me to. The packages have started arriving recently.
I'll probably write about some of the other things I ordered too, since there are some interesting items among them, but for now, here's a review and complaint.

I'll say right away that I wasn't the one who chose the item; a friend did. But I didn't check the order myself—I just clicked Buy, and that was it, so I'm partly to blame too.

I have no complaints about the packaging or appearance. They came in a regular envelope, but arrived without any damage.
They had tracking, and the seller really did ship them quickly.


When I ordered them, I didn't notice there were 40 batteries. For some reason, I thought there were 20.
So I figured it was $20 for 20 batteries, which would often get you some pretty decent batteries.
The listing included 20 AA and 20 AAA batteries.


I didn't weigh them individually. I figured it would be easier to weigh them all at once and then just divide by 20.
That gave me a weight of 13.7 g for one AA battery and 8.4 g for one AAA.


The batteries were packed four to a pack. They looked like a real treat—neat and attractive.


The stated capacity is 3000 mAh for AA and 1800 mAh for AAA.
I fully understood that there was no way they could actually have capacities of 3000 and 1800 mAh, but the price was low, so I thought they might manage 400–600 mAh. My friend later said he'd expected roughly the same capacity.


Before confirming receipt, I always make a point of checking what I've received as thoroughly as possible, and I recommend that everyone else do the same.
The batteries arrived almost fully charged. To test them, I used the charger from one of my reviews.
It was set to charge at 500 mA and discharge at 250 mA.
To avoid inaccuracies caused by differences between the channels, I put one AA and one AAA battery on each channel.


The very first test showed that the batteries' capacity was 10 times lower than stated.
I understand that the numbers printed on batteries are made up and much higher than reality, but 10 times!?
Even when I tested the cheap lithium battery that came with a flashlight, the difference wasn't nearly as large.
Since Ni-Cd and Ni-MH batteries are supposed to be conditioned and then “woken up,” I ran another test. The result was almost exactly the same as the first one.


Thinking that, in theory, I might have gotten one bad pack, I opened another. As before, the batteries were fully charged, but now I think the problem wasn't the charge level—it was high internal resistance. Even at 500 mA, the voltage rose to the cutoff level for charging.


The result was almost identical to the previous pack. You could even say the batteries were identical, one for one—but unfortunately, in a bad way :(


Just to be thorough, I “charged” another set of batteries in the charger, but the result was the same as before.
I didn't test the remaining batteries—not because there are 40 of them and it would take too long; I'm quite used to testing large numbers of batteries. I was simply already sure what the tests would show.


I could have ended the review on that sad note, if things weren't even worse.
When I went to read the product reviews, I was surprised by how many positive comments there were.
Here are just four of them. There are actually quite a few more; if you're curious, you can visit the product page and read them.
The last comment especially “delighted” me: the buyer hadn't tested them yet, but was already happy.
The end.


As they say, I've seen bad batteries and even reviewed some of them, but these beat all the records.
So, if you have any enemies, recommend this seller to them. There's enough to go around :)

This review isn't a complaint, but a warning to anyone looking for cheap batteries on AliExpress, so they know what kind of crap they might end up with. And that the reviews can still be quite good, even glowing in some places.

In the end, I wrote to the seller that the batteries have only 10% of their stated capacity (though I think he already knows that), and that it would be fair to issue a refund proportional to the capacity actually received. I asked for 80–90% compensation. Let's see what the seller says.
By the way, I was surprised to learn that you can't message sellers on AliExpress in Chinese. You can use any other language, but not Chinese. When I tried to send a message, it said I couldn't use Chinese characters. Ridiculous.

P.S. What to do with these batteries now is anyone's guess. There's a saying: paint them green and throw them away. These batteries don't even need painting—they're already almost green. Maybe someone already painted them and threw them away? :)

The seller offered a $17 refund without much fuss, which was fine by me.
I wrote an honest review and included a link to this article, but I don't know whether they'll publish it.