From my previous research, Thomas Distributing seems to be one of the better places to purchase in the US. Unfortunately, shipping costs make it less practical for me in Oz.
They currently have a 16pack for $41.97 but I'm sure there are other quantities as well. http://www.thomasdistributing.com/16-Pack-Maha-Imedion-2400-AA-Low-Discharge-Batteries_p_2449.html
Apparently if you order over $75, US shipping is free so you might be able to ask around if any of your mates need batteries to bump up your order quantity.
(FYI, the same 16 cells here would cost me about $78 delivered from a local seller. Sucks!)
Other bargain hunters can probably steer you to Amazon, Adorama or Ebay deals but I doubt you can go too far wrong with Eneloops or Imedions from TD.
I bought some of those yellow ones for a bike light, which then left me stranded in the middle of the woods at night. After I tested them, they came out around 700mAh like yours and I got a full refund. I really can’t explain my total lapse of judgement, live’n’learn I guess. Have a bunch of Tenergy LSD AAs now - I haven’t tested capacity but they last for ages and don’t noticeably self-discharge.
I also bought a couple of Uniquefire 2500mAh 18650s off eBay for $hits’n’giggles - massive voltage sag @1A and ~800mAh capacity. Got my money back on those too. I even pulled one apart after soaking it in salty water for a couple of days and it looked like a real battery (no cell within a cell).
Moral of the story is… don’t buy non-brand batteries off eBay!
I see mention here that a test was done at 500mAh on these batteries but perhaps it should be kept in mind that this is a very high discharge rate for continuous discharge. It’s likely to cause some internal heating and would lower the capacity with the already high internal impedance (relatively) of Ni-MH cells. If you want this sort of discharge rate out of an AA size battery, your better at looking at Ni-Cad batteries which have a very low internal impedance. Sadly, it’s not possible to make Li-Ion batteries which could be used in place of 1.5V cells as these have a low internal impedance and a high storage density. I guess we have to wait till appliance manufacturers catch up now there is a ready supply of 3.7V cells with high capacity and relatively low price. I chose my torch based on this as I can get something like 24h continuous use on a single charge and the batteries are just a few $ on eBay.
You can start a car on Ni-Cads, just you try that on your eneloops, it’s just a matter of what your using your batteries for. Bragging that my batteries can do 5A is great, but just what are you using them for that and, more importantly, how long do they last at that drain. I bet the capacity will not be the same at 5A than 5mA or 500mA… If you have an item that only uses a drain current of 50mA, perhaps some of these other batteries will show greater capacity at this rate (this is expected behaviour).
I agree that in high drain devices, like cameras, the batteries you mention are King but these may be an expensive luxury for low drain devices.
I have some of those and with a 150 mah discharge it lasted around 3 hours. Eneloops can do 10 amp discharges with a very good capacity. (Around 1500 mah) Also nicads aren't LSD.
To be fair to eneloop competitors, the batteries tested in this thread are not a comparison to any decent NiMH. This thread is not saying buy eneloops!
Before you think that eneloops are the only cells worth buying you really need to try the following:
