Negative Voltage of Panasonic Oxyride Batteries

Oxyride batteries are the new type of batteries intended to substitute old Alkaline batteries in the market by Panasonic. The batteries are claimed to suite for a high-drained device such as a digital camera or even a car and a low-drained device such as clock or remote controller [1-2]. They provide 1.5-1.7 V through out their life time and live for 1.5-2 times longer than ordinary Alkaline batteries [1-3].

Around 1 year ago, I bought new batteries for my calculator, TI-89. I surely selected Oxyride. I bought four of AAA size and put them in my calculator after I unsealed the package. I just opened once after loading the batteries.

1 year after, I cannot power on my calculator. Surprisingly, I had used Alkaline batteries for almost 2 years before I changed them to Oxyride. I then used a multimeter to measure the level of the batteries. Here is the results.

1st one's voltage is 0.75. -_-" It's dead.

2nd one ~0.18 V.

3rd one -0.13 V! WTF! Negative voltage?

4th one -0.22 V. What the hell!

They might not suite for low-drained device as they claimed. My conclusion is oxyride batteries leaks faster than Alkaline ones and if your device is not designed well enough they can ruin your device with their negative voltages.

References
[1] http://www.panasonic.com/consumer_electronics/oxyride_ms/flash.asp
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/07/technology/circuits/07pogue.html
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyride