Not sure about online mouse communities, but it intrigued me that you prefer replaceable AA batteries to built-in rechargeables. I realise now that because of my dislike (leaning towards hatred) of single-use alkaline batteries I unwittingly dismissed the benefits of having quick replaceability.

Nickel metal rechargeables are a good AA/AAA substitute for devices designed to tolerate their lower voltage. For more power, 14500/18650/21700 cylindrical lithium cells are my go-to.

Personally though, I find it more convenient to have a charging cable on hand vs keep some charged batteries on standby. When the built-in battery eventually goes bad, I am confident that I could replace it myself (not a universal position).

Had to use my old TI 89 one day. Haven't used it in 10 years. Took it out of storage, put in 4 AAA usb-c rechargable batteries, worked like a charm. Could you do the same with your hard to replace custom battery?

Any consumer electronic using standard format batteries is superior by default. Because 10 or 20 years from now, it still have brand new full batteries lying around.

> Nickel metal rechargeables are a good AA/AAA substitute for devices designed to tolerate their lower voltage.

Any device that can't is arguably broken as designed. Much of the energy (the majority, in a higher current application) in an alkaline battery is found under 1.2V.

See discharge curves: https://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/Duracell%20Ultra%...

NiMH actually stays above 1.2V longer for all but the lightest loads: https://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/Eneloop%20AA%20BK...

I too was surprised by this view when I started at Oculus, where the game controller folks who had come over from Xbox were adamant that players would rather swap in a fresh pair of AAs than plug into a charging cable.

Personally I've never come around to their side of things, although I do recognise the inconvenience of charging cables while you are using a peripheral (Apple Mouse charging port location especially :D )

I, too, prefer disposables, but for a somewhat different reason. One very commonly used surgical item is a sterile suction/irrigator. It's sealed with 8 AA's at the factory, used for 2-3 minutes during laparoscopic surgery, and disposed of. So pretty much anyone who works in a surgical suite that does laparoscopy has a personally unlimited supply of AA's that would be thrown away anyway.

> it intrigued me that you prefer replaceable AA batteries to built-in rechargeables

I share this preference. Replacing a battery has a device back in a working state a couple orders of magnitude faster than onboard charging, and when built-in batteries wear out, replacement is often difficult to impossible.

I always use NiMH rechargeables; alkalines are wasteful and sometimes leaky.

If you have a a device that does not tolerate the lower voltage, check out NiZn rechargables. They top out at ~1.7 V when full and keep their voltage quite high until they are almost flat. (At which point they should be immediately recharged, they don't take deep discharge well.)

I use them almost everywhere nowadays. Most devices tolerate the slightly higher voltage and even expensive hardware usually cheaps out on proper battery circuitry.

Replaceable rechargeable batteries are the best choice (assuming the weight doesn't bother you).

You can quickly swap in a new pair, and recharge the other one. Some mice can even charge the batteries themselves. You get the best of all worlds.

I always have at least a half-dozen NiMH AA batteries sitting charged in the drawer ready to go. When the mouse stops working, I grab a couple of charged batteries, slap them in, put the drained ones in the charger and then carry on with whatever I was doing. With a built-in battery, when the battery goes dead, I have to mess around with finding another mouse while this one charges.

(Yeah, the computer tells me when the mouse battery is getting low, but I do not have the discipline to remember to plug it in hours later when I'm done with the computer for the day.)

The thing with AA is that it gives you options. You can use rechargeable in it if you’d like. Avoiding proprietary batteries is a good thing because they are not always available or easy to service for the end user compared to AA.

For certain activities like hiking having AA or AAA is preferred. If they run out of charge they are trivially replaced with a light weight inventory and this is probably sufficient to last your trip.

> cable on hand vs keep some charged batteries on standby.

You don't need to keep them, you get warned many days in advance, so an overnight recharge of existing batteries works just as well

My Logitech G603 runs quite happily on Eneloops, for the best of both worlds.