I am not in favor of a rechargeable battery system being implemented into the BP. I especially would dislike this if it was some sort of proprietary battery pack not available locally. My assumption is that there is no rechargeable battery that would equal the number of hours I currently get from my alkaline batteries. The portability of the BP along with the phenomenal battery life are very important things to me. As things stand now people can use rechargeable batteries if they wish to. It seems that most BP users use the BP on the go and having to recharge batteries in the unit or using a proprietary rechargeable battery pack don't seem terribly convenient to me on my initial consideration. Joni