Why the USBCell Isn’t That Great
September 22nd, 2006 • Business, Rants, Reviews + Recommendations, The Press
This is an interesting story about how hype happens on the Internet yet fails to go beneath the surface of the story. So many people are talking about the USBCell product which is currently only available in the UK. Heck, the folks at Buzz Out Loud even talked about it during one of their podcasts (I’ve forgotten which one now).
The product sounds great. A NiMH rechargeable AA battery with an integrated USB port. Whenever you need to recharge the battery, you flip open the top and connect it to a powered USB port which will then recharge the battery. Great! We all have USB ports a plenty and when you travel, you can recharge batteries from your computer without having to worry about bringing a separate recharging station.
But, as with most things, the devil is in the details. The cost is fairly high (£12.99 for two batteries) with limited availability (only the United Kingdom right now). So that price point equates to roughly $24.60 with the current exchange rate (1 British pound = 1.89442 US dollars).
But wait, there’s more! The USBCell is rated at 1300mAh. That won’t mean much to the average user so let’s compare it to another battery. The Energizer NH15BP batteries are rated at 2500mAh and cost about $7.50 (on sale from $15) for four batteries on Amazon.
So the cost per mAh for the USBCell is:
Compared to the cost per mAh for the Energizer:
Or in other words, the USBCell costs an 1161.5% premium over the Energizer cell when viewed in a per mAh basis.
Couple that with the fact that you have to recharge them more frequently leading to a shorter lifespan and thereby producing more garbage (which goes against the idea of having rechargeable batteries in the first place). Yeah, I think I’ll pass.
I knew that electrical engineering education from Georgia Tech would come in handy one day.
