5. Controversial Test Results

Many Positive Reports Or References Don't Prove A Thing

On its European and German Web sites, Batterylife AG cites numerous publications whose measurements and test reports purport to prove the effectiveness of its activator foil. But follow-up with many of these sources, as with other "proofs" from the vendor, show that none of the organizations making these citations:

Documented their test procedures Were willing to talk to us about those procedures Wanted us to quote them, or Wanted to verify the supposed results together with us through testing.

Most of these sources speak only about a single measurement, taken under poorly defined, irreproducible conditions. The validity or veracity of these results is therefore entirely questionable.

In fact, on one Internet forum or another it's easy to find positive "test reports" from various customers. This represents a case of what we take as a kind of pure placebo effect - namely, that as a function of deeply discharging and then recharging the battery in any kind of mobile device, any rechargeable battery will display an improvement, whether activator foil is in use or not. In addition, it's difficult to impossible for lay people to accurately measure the battery life of a notebook anyway.

For mobile phones, measurements of battery life depend so much on signal strength and the ratio of talk time to standby time that it's hard to make reproducible measurements in tests that last more than one day. Other factors that affect battery life on notebooks include display brightness, type and amount of system activity, and the type of power management scheme in use - any or all of these can make a big difference in the results measured and reported.

...but Reproducible Measurements Validate Negative Ratings

Not all publications came up with positive results for Batterylife's "miracle foil" products. In this case, the primary sources that came to other conclusions include Websites and magazines known for the high technical standards they employ when conducting product tests and reviews, and also for their independence and objectivity. Representative examples include Dansdata and Spodesbode , whose tests of the activator foil produced the same poor showings that our own testing did.

Even our business partners at PC Professional magazine - who also conducted a multi-week test of the efficacy of the activator foil - came to the same conclusions about the lack of improvement in battery capacity or life in mobile phones, PDAs, and the notebook computer they tested.