i miss devices taking batteries
in the current age, basically everything has forgone the old way of powering devices not meant to be attached to a way with internal rechargeable batteries. now, i'm just stupid, i know why this is appealing for product makers, since it allows them to forgo the massive bulky batteries bays of old. it also definitely leads to less waste, since the vast majority of people just used disposable batteries.
however, just speaking for myself, i still cherish the few devices left that use regular ol' aa/aaa batteries. tv remotes are still probably the most ubiquitous, often having a battery life so long that you can go years without replacing. for me though the area where i find myself slapping some aa batteries in something is xbox controllers, who have consistently forgone the cries for an internal battery for the last 22 years. some might see this as backwards, but for me, it's perfect.
to put it simply, i like being able to hotswap. "oh shit my controller is dying. not a big deal. get the crown royal bag, fish out a pair of aas that are probably fully charged, slam 'em in, and i'm back to #gaming. if there's 4 dead ones, i'll put the charger on, forget about them for a day, and dump the charged batteries back in the crown royal bag. easy. this is in stark contrast to the dualshocks 4 and 5, which have battery life that i can only describe as "annoying". it's somewhere between 1 and 2 heavy play sessions worth of juice. inevitably i'll be playing yakuza for a couple hours and get a low battery warning. now i gotta decide if i want to be tethered to a charging cable or just stop playing for the day. that isn't fun whatsoever.
i bring this up just because it feels like this set of duracell rechargables i've had for... god, how long? i genuinely don't know how long. it feels like they're starting to have issues with charging. feels like it's time to change things up, get a fresh set of nice eneloops that can last me for probably a decade.