Sony BCG-34HRMF4 Battery Charger with LCD Display and 4 AA Ni-MH Rechargeable Batteries by Sony
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Our Price: $73.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more digital camera details and other models |
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Digital camera reviews of Sony BCG-34HRMF4 Battery Charger with LCD Display and 4 AA Ni-MH Rechargeable Batteries
Digital camera Review: Best battery charger you can buy
Summary: 4 Stars
The Sony Super Quick Charger with LCD is just fantastic. The LCD display is the best feature ever. (I don't know why other rechargers don't have it!) You get the status of each battery at just a glance. And I really recommend Sony batteries. Their safety orange color means you won't accidentally throw them away (Both Energizer and Rayovac look too similar to their regular batteries).
THE GOOD: Sleek design, LCD Display, no AC adaptor power brick, somewhat fast 4 hour recharge, refresh button drains batteries before recharging.
The BAD: Plastic door is a little flimsy -- drop it once, and I'm sure it'll break off. Batteries are untouchably hot immediately after recharge. No power button -- you must unplug unit before inserting and removing batteries.
Digital camera Review: Best charger I have ever owned, great for travel overseas
Summary: 5 Stars
I have had this charger for over 4 years and it has never let me down.
While this charger is more costly than others it also works better than any other charger I have ever used, and I have a drawer full of chargers.
The first trip I brought this charger on was to a country that had terrible power and the charger works perfectly while other people in our group had problems.
The best thing about this charger is that it uses a power cord like I use on my Laptop which not only elimates blocked outlets but allows me to put the charger on a table top.
Features none of my other chargers have that I think makes this charger a rock star:
*LCD display that show charging status for each individual battery
*Refresh cycle that brings back batteries that I thought were ready for the recycle bin
*Uses laptop type power cord without having a wall transformer blocking other outlets
*Backlite display so I can see the status in low light
*Automatically switches power for use in countries that are not 110 volt power with 60 cycles
This is the charger I always recommend to my friends and they have all told me they like it as much as I do!!
Digital camera Review: Best charger I have tried
Summary: 5 Stars
I manage rechargeable batteries for a company of 45+ people, and this charger is the best I've used -- and we've been through four vendors at this point. This charger allows for a "refresh" cycle (in other words, discharge any remaining bit of charge, then recharge from scratch) which I use all the time. This feature that isn't available on many other chargers, including others from Sony (see below for more on this topic). Almost as important, it has four INDEPENDENT charging circuits, which means that you can put in any crazy combination of AA and AAA batteries you like. (In practice, this means I can top off one AA/AAA battery to match a set of two or three other charged batteries that I may have...very handy, and impossible with units that require charging in pairs!)
Previously, my office used a charging unit from Emerging Power, also purchased on Amazon. That was an okay charger, but lacked the refresh cycle and required batteries to be paired for charging. Also, the lack of a real user interface (the UI consisted of single LED's per channel that were either on, blinking, or off) made it hard to tell what was going on. This Sony charger has an LED graph that shows you a rough percentage of battery charge, which makes it much easier to judge how much time remains. Finally, the Emerging Power charger had big springs (versus metal tabs) that held the batteries in place...guess what, one the springs went wonky after a few dozen charges, making it a dicey proposition to try charging four batteries at once. This Sony charger uses better-designed tabs to hold the batteries in place -- much better!
In an office with 45+ users, this charger is used by many people in my office every day. It's dead simple to use -- just pop in some batteries and off you go. If you want a "refresh" cycle (discharge before the recharge), just hit that button after inserting the battery (or batteries). Very easy and user-friendly, and built for tons of charge cycles...unlike some other units that have big springs that can break or go limp after a lot of use.
The only restriction is that this charger only handles AA and AAA batteries. In our office that's okay -- we use those batteries for wireless keyboards, mice, and pagers. But if you need 9V or other battery sizes you might consider a different system.
All told, I'm very pleased with this unit. It's worth the extra cost compared to the "BCG-34HE4" charger -- I have that unit at home, and the lack of LED, refresh cycle, and independent charging channels makes THIS unit much, much better. (In fact, I'm going to buy this unit for home too, and eBay the BCG-34HE4 -- which is an okay charger, but not worth the extra hassle.)
UPDATE: roughly two years later, I'm still using this charger and it's still awesome. Get it! For what it's worth, I'm using it primarily with Sanyo Eneloop batteries at this point, though I do still use a few Sony batteries as well. It works just fine with the Eneloops as well, including the "Refresh" feature.
Digital camera Review: Best charger I owned
Summary: 5 Stars
I have used it for 4 weeks now. The best charger I ever used. Charging cycle indicators work very well. Correctly identifies dead batteries. Charges all sorts of AA & AAA batteries (I used it with 5 different NiMH types - all very well done). The last 5 years I used about 6 different charges - this is the best. It's pricy but IMHO worthwhile.Digital camera Review: Best charger period.
Summary: 5 Stars
I can't imagine using another charger now, Sony took it to a whole new level. The LCD screen is very very nice as with a glance you can see the progress with the batteries and also can easily tell if you charged them already or not. If you are like me you have a dozen or so rechargeable batteries lying around and sometimes they get mized up, the readout helps you quickly establish which are the charged ones and which are not. A+ for Sony!
Other nice note, there is something different about the way it charges batteries. My other chargers are a bit faster at putting a charge on, but the batteries die much much sooner. I am not a technician so I have no idea how this all works but the ones charged on this last so much longer, my other chargers have a permanent home in a box in the garage now. Highly recommend this charger!