Personally I haven't met an AA/AAA powered light that comes even close to matching the Li-ion powered ones for brightness or duration. I have 8 liion cells for my 3 lights. Two are single cell and the main light runs on 3 in parellel. It will run on one but if you get more than an hour on full output (700-900 lumen) you are lucky. However, if you run with 3 and set it to run at half power they last a loonnnggg time.