Paleblue Voyager AAA USB Review

Design and charging

• Integrated USB-C port for charging
• Cable and carry case included

As standard AAA batteries, these will fit into any appliance rated for that size. Internally, these are Li-ion batteries, rather than NiMH batteries, which gives them a few advantages. 

First, the Paleblue Voyager AAA USB-C hold their charge for longer than NiMH batteries, which makes them better for low-discharge devices, such as remote controls or clocks, where you’re using small amounts of power. Plus, you can pre-charge these batteries and have them ready to go in the future; NiMH batteries start to lose their charge, so aren’t typically as useful months down the line.

Secondly, the Paleblue Voyager AAA USB-C are rated at a constant 1.5V, rather than around 1.2V for NiMH, which means they’re compatible with devices that will typically only work with alkaline batteries, such as smart locks. There are some exceptions, as explained in more detail below.

These batteries are available in a four-pack, which includes a carry case and a four-way USB-C cable for charging.

Rather than having to use a battery charger, you can just charge them via their USB-C input on top: when the light turns solid green, they’re ready to go. This version has USB-C at both ends of the cable; the older Paleblue AAA USB-C batteries used USB-A at the end of the charging cable.

In most cases you should avoid using a regular battery charger designed for NiMH batteries, as these will damage the Paleblue Voyager AAA USB-C. If you do want to use a battery charger, you need one that supports Li-ion.

Charging via USB-C, 80% charge is reached in 60 minutes, and a full charge in a rapid 78 minutes. If you need to quickly turn around a set of batteries, these recharge speeds are good to see.

Compared to the previous generation, the main improvement is in capacity, and each Paleblue Voyager AAA USB-C battery is rated at 750mAh, a 150mAh improvement. That doesn’t sound like a huge amount, but it puts these new batteries level with the bulk of NiMH cells.

Paleblue still claims 1000+ charge cycles for these batteries. That is you can charge and drain them at least 1000 times.

Price is the one thing that the Paleblue Voyager AAA USB-C can’t compete on. At XXX for a pack of four, these are far more expensive than NiMH cells. 

Of course, they’re more expensive than a set of Alkaline AAA batteries, although as you can use each battery 1000+ times, over their lift time, the Paleblue Voyager AAA USB-C are far more cost effective than alkaline batteries.

Performance

• High capacity
• 1.5V tested voltage
• Minor incompatibility issues

To test, I used an XTAR VX4 battery tester, which is compatible with Li-ion batteries. Running the discharge test, I found that the batteries delivered, on average, 777mAh. That’s much better than the 524mAh that the previous generation delivered.

And, that’s in-line with a lot of NiMH batteries, too. In fact, the only notable set of NiMH batteries that had a higher tested capacity where the Amazon Basics Rechargeable AAA 800mAh, at 847mAh.

Context is important. While the Amazon batteries have higher capacity when measured with a single drain test, in low-discharge environments, the Paleblue Voyager AAA USB-C will last longer.

I measured starting voltage at 1.52V, so devices should pick up the Paleblue Voyager AAA USB-C as regular alkaline batteries. Paleblue has then configured the discharge voltage curve to closely match alkaline batteries, with a slow drop off, until the batteries near exhaustion, when there’s a steep voltage drop-off to prompt low-battery warnings.

Generally, this is all good news, and the Paleblue Voyager AAA USB-C worked in all of the devices that I tested them in, bar one: a remote controlled alarm clock. This relies on a radio signal to set the time, but the voltage control electronics in the batteries interfere with the reception, so the time can’t be set automatically. That’s a niche use-case, but it does show that the Paleblue Voyager AAA USB-C might not work in the minority of cases.

Should you buy it?