Reviewed by Marcus Knapman, BSc (Hons) Computing ·
Researched from 100+ Amazon customer reviews
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Nobody gets excited about batteries. Nobody has ever unwrapped a fresh pack of AAs and felt a flutter of joy. But everyone has stood in the kitchen at 9pm, jabbing a dead remote at the telly, rummaging through a drawer that contains only a single AAA, a loose button cell and a takeaway menu from 2017. That is the problem a 60-pack solves, and it's why I wanted to look properly at the KODAK AA Alkaline Batteries (60 Pack).
Here's my bottom line up front: at £16.99, this is a sensible, unglamorous purchase that I'd happily recommend to most households. That works out at roughly 28p a battery, which is cheap for a brand name with a proper history behind it. The headline claims are a 10-year shelf life, a leak-resistant design and plastic-free cardboard packaging, and none of them are the sort of thing that falls apart on closer inspection.
I should be upfront about my method. I haven't run these through a discharge rig in my shed. What I've done is go through the spec sheet and the way buyers describe using them, then weigh that against the price. There's no Amazon rating available for me to quote here, so I'll be careful not to pretend there is one. What I can tell you is whether the claims stack up and whether 60 is a sensible number to buy.
Sixty AAs sounds like the kind of stockpile you'd keep if you were bracing for the end of days. In practice, a modern British home chews through more of them than you'd think. Remotes, wall clocks, kitchen scales, torches, wireless keyboards, mice, gaming controllers, a toddler's noisy toy that nobody will admit to buying. Add a few devices that eat through cells quickly and a pack of four from the supermarket vanishes in a month.
The 60-pack format is aimed squarely at households, schools, tradespeople and small businesses, and it suits all of them. For a family, it means the dreaded drawer is permanently stocked. For a tradesperson or a small office, it means you're not nipping out mid-job for a four-pack at inflated shop prices. At £16.99, the per-cell cost is clearly lower than the little blister packs by the tills, which is the whole point of buying bulk.
This is the feature I'd put at the top of the list. Bulk buying only makes sense if the last battery in the box still works when you finally reach it. KODAK states a guaranteed 10-year shelf life on these Xtralife cells, which means you can buy 60 and not feel obliged to use them up in a hurry. Stick them in a cupboard, forget about them, and they should still be ready when the smoke alarm chirps at 3am.
That matters more than it sounds. Plenty of cheap bulk batteries tempt you with a low price, then quietly lose charge sitting in storage. A long guaranteed shelf life takes most of that risk away. I'd still keep them somewhere cool and dry, because heat is the enemy of any battery, but the claim gives you decent room to buy ahead.
Anyone who has opened a remote to find crusty white corrosion knows how irritating a leaking battery is. KODAK says the Xtralife range uses a leak-resistant design to protect remotes, clocks, toys and other electronics from corrosion over time. For devices that sit untouched for months, like a spare torch or a seasonal clock, that is exactly the sort of reassurance I'd want.
I'd treat it as a sensible safeguard rather than an iron-clad promise. No alkaline cell is immune if you leave it in a device for years, and I'd still pull batteries out of anything you won't use for a long stretch. But as a design priority, leak resistance is the right thing to focus on, and it's one reason I'd trust these in the places where a leak does the most damage.
KODAK claims 148% more performance than standard zinc batteries, with a steady 1.5V output under pressure. I'll be straight with you: that comparison is against zinc cells, the cheap stuff, not against rival alkalines. It's a fair claim, but it tells you these are a clear step up from budget zinc rather than that they beat every premium alkaline on the shelf. Treat it as proof of competence, not of supremacy.
What matters in daily life is that they're described as suitable for both low-drain and high-drain devices. That covers the lot, from a wall clock that sips power to a wireless keyboard, camera or gaming controller that gulps it. You don't need to buy separate batteries for separate jobs, which keeps things simple. For a mixed household, that versatility is half the appeal of a big single pack.
The packaging is a recyclable cardboard carton, plastic-free, and I like that. Most bulk battery packs arrive in a shrink-wrapped brick or a rattly plastic tray, so a tidy cardboard box feels a touch more thoughtful and goes straight in the recycling.
Here's the catch, though, and it's my main gripe. A big cardboard carton is easy to store but not especially convenient to dip into. There's no clever dispenser, so you'll likely want to decant a handful into a small tin or drawer organiser rather than rummaging through the box each time. It's a minor irritation, not a dealbreaker, but it's worth knowing before you picture a neat little dispensing system.
If you only use a couple of AA devices, 60 batteries is overkill, and you'd be better off with a smaller pack. Equally, if you use power-hungry gear every single day, such as a camera flash or a controller you've practically welded to your hand, rechargeable cells will save you far more money over time. Alkaline disposables are about convenience and readiness, not about being the cheapest long-term option for heavy users.
It's also worth being realistic about the brand story. KODAK talks about 130 years of innovation, but that heritage is in imaging, and the batteries are a licensed product that trades on the name. That doesn't make them bad, and the claims here are reasonable, but I wouldn't buy them out of nostalgia for a film camera. Buy them because the price per cell, the shelf life and the leak protection add up to a practical deal.
At roughly 28p per battery, this is good value for a branded alkaline with a 10-year shelf life. You're paying a little above the rock-bottom unbranded multipacks, but you're getting a name people recognise and a leak-resistant design that protects your kit. For most households and small workplaces, I think that's a fair trade. Buy it once, tuck it away, and you can stop thinking about batteries for a very long time, which is rather the point.
The KODAK AA Alkaline Batteries 60 Pack is a sensible, no-nonsense stock-up for households, schools and small workplaces that want AAs ready whenever they're needed. At £16.99, the per-cell price and 10-year shelf life make it easy to recommend. Skip it if you only use a couple of AA devices or you burn through batteries daily, where rechargeables make more sense.
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