Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Black and Decker has at least 7 versions of the Slide 18v battery pack. You have no guidance which is better than the other as B&D absolutely refuses to publish the ampere rating or number of contacts of any of them. Battery identification is poor: Every battery I have seen is marked "244760-00." What good is that in identifying the battery? There are some molded-in numbers but B&D absolutely refuses to tell you what they mean. On the blister pack for the HPB18-OPE you read "25% more power than the standard battery*" Finding the "*", it says "Compared to the HPB18." Both are the same price on Lowes shelves. B&D absolutely refuses to divulge how these two compare to each other or the FireStorm series. A Factory Store manager has said two Firestorm versions were once better but have been downgraded this past 12-18 months and are usually worse than the HP18 units. B&D absolutely refuses to divulge any history of the FireStorm 18V batteries. These batteries will connect to three types of chargers. One will charge the battery in 9 hours, another in 3 hours, and the last in 1 hour. Between the battery and charger combination, severely reduced battery life will result if the battery is left on the charger longer than 2 days. On another the degrade occurs only after 30 days. The third does not damage the battery in any length of time. You are left to guess which combination is optimum and which is a disaster. B&D absolutely refuses to divulge which is which. I have many hours into trying to make heads or tails out of this, including several contacts on the phone, and e-mails with B&D, ditto plus in person at a factory store and factory repair station. The B&D Factory Stores and Repair Stations concur with my view that B&D is extremely arrogant, totally wrong in their attitude, and show no willingness to change.