The "REPULSIVE TASTE" might just be your first clue 'somting wong'!

 

Some on the 1600 forum say the bitter coating might be the problem.

 

I don’t see why an older style of packaging and a different country of manufacture show that one of them is fake. I assume that Duracell has many factories all over the planet, and that the packaging and what’s printed on it will vary from country to country and over time, sometimes by law.

Is there an expiration date on batteries you received from eBay? This might give as much of a clue to the weakness you observed.

 

The weak batteries are manufactured in Indonesia and the ones shown on the Duracell site come from China.
The Indonesian ones only promise a 50 % increase of power (vs 70 %) under some legal reservation of usage and device .
I think you may have bought legit batteries of a different, lower quality from EBay.

 

Should have photographed the back of the packaging. The first one I bought from Tesco which I believe is genuine and the one below which I consider as fake I got from eBay. One shows date of manufacture and expiry etc. and the other shows absolutely nothing.

 

I think you’re right .
It has been a very long time that Duracell batteries are no longer manufactured in Japan .
Moreover the legal company form BVBA , for which the batteries alledgedly are made, doesn’t exist anymore in Belgium.
So, an old packaging backside has been copied by the falsifiers… such crooks ,