On Project Farm, Todd compares three Li-ion battery packs, two cheap brands and an expensive DeWalt pack. He looks at the US$59 DCB-205 DeWalt, a $26 Vanon battery, and a $27 Waitley pack and compares them for high and moderate drain and cold temperature performance. He also dismantles the battery packs and and tests their individual cells for milliamp hour (mAh) capacity and internal resistance. He also calculates and compares advertised watt hours to tested watt-hour performance. Fascinating stuff.

Bottom line? The Vanon battery performed about as poorly as expected. And the DeWalt was the best in the bunch. But more than twice-the-price good? No. Todd does raise the issue of performance over time, but the Waitley did surprisingly well, and at less than half the price of a DeWalt, it’s definitely worth the money.

BTW: If you don’t already know Project Farm, check it out. It is, by far, my favorite workshop product testing channel. Really smart and thorough testing of fuels, lubricants, adhesives, batteries, and similar products.