Apple Battery Charger - Photos + my review

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Hi all,

As you know I have recently purchased an Apple Battery Charger. And it has arrived to me today. About 2 weeks from when I first ordered it. And here is a photo of what you get in the little box.

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The plug adapter might be different for different countries though. Cause everyone has their own different wall power points. And now for a few points I have mentioned about the product so far.

1. The white charger itself is tiny. Very tiny. Hardly bigger than the batteries themselves ad you can see in the above picture. And neither the batteries or the Apple charger/wall adaptor have any Apple logo on them. Yes the main charger has the whole "designed in California and made in China" but no little Apple logo.

2. You might have to take out and put in the batteries a few times to get it to work properly. I know I had to. The batteries slide in and out of the charger very easily. But getting to charge and not just flash amber (error) is a little tricky. But not impossible. I had it done in say 4-5 mins of fiddling with it.

3. The charger itself does not get warm at all when in use. I haven't fully charged any batteries in it yet but I can't see that being an issue.

4. The initial batteries took say 1 hour 15 to charge from whatever levels they shipped with to a full charge. Which is pretty slow. But they are designed for a long shelf life with many recharge cycles and not a fast recharge. And if you're just using the batteries for Apple products and other similar things then this will not be an issue.

5. When the charger said the batteries were full I took them out and put them in my Magic Mouse. And my imac said the Magic Mouse was at 89% charge. Not 100%. and . . .
*NOTE WELL this point*
I've been reading up no the batteries and the Apple system. And the Apple computers rate 100% as a fully new unused non-rechargable battery. And they have a higher mA I think it is then the rechargeables. So in in short:
For the first charge the non-rechargeable batteries will get 11% more use then the Apple batteries. But for the 2nd charge you recharge the Apple batteries or have to waste money on more non-rechargeable batteries. So even if the batteries last for 5 years of use (half of what Apple claims) then it's still a very good deal for my liking.

That's as far as I know. Someone can correct me if I am wrong.

6. I think the batteries themselves are just re-branded eneloop AA's. The batteries have printed on them "Made in Japan" and only for use with Apple products/charger. So it is very hard to find out which manufacturer actually made the batteries. And I'm sure Apple would not tell us.

7. In Conclusion.
It's hard to say from one day of use if this product actually lives up to the specifications Apple set for it. And I can say though pretty this product really has no wow factor like some of the other Apple products do. But in my opinion is something you don't really think about. And not having to think "oh where will me next set of rechargeable batteries come from?" is a very good thing. If you use this product charge the batteries and think nothing more of it then Apple has done their job well.

8. A Score.
I'd give this product a 9 out of 10.
Simply because I plugged in the charger and had to spend 5 mins getting the charger to work. But apart from that it's a small sleek product. With very small vampire draw (which is good cause no one takes the batteries out the instant they are charged) and the time between fully charged and battery removal (from the charger) will not be as much wasted power thanks to Apple and this very nifty little product.
 
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6. I think the batteries themselves are just re-branded eneloop AA's. The batteries have printed on them "Made in Japan" and only for use with Apple products/charger. So it is very hard to find out which manufacturer actually made the batteries. And I'm sure Apple would not tell us.

Engadget are saying the same: Apple's rechargeable AA batteries are rebranded Sanyo Eneloops? -- Engadget

I received mine yesterday with the Magic Trackpad, I was surprised at how small the charger actually is. Quite impressive!
 

dtravis7


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That is a good point about the Rechargeable's and the Percentage reported by OSX.

I charged up a set of Everedy Energizer NIMH's that I use in my Logitech MX900 and my Canon A590 and tried them in my Magic Mouse. I got 80% or so while a even slightly used set of normal Non Rechargeable Energizers were still at 100%. A quick check with a Voltmeter shows why. 1.55+ volts for the normal batteries and 1.3 or less for a fully charges set of NIMH.

People on the Canon forums were blaming their Canon cameras for lower percentage with NIMH. Well the voltage IS lower but they last a long time and keep that voltage till the very end. Then of course you can recharge them over and over and save $$$.
 
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the8thark
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Ok here is some more information for this review.

I today just had my mouse beep at me (on screen) to say low battery. It was at 20%. So I recharged the batteries. And that took roughly 4 hours to do that. And when I put the batteries back in the mouse, OS X said the mouse is now at 93%.

So from the initial charge to 20% left in the batteries took about 2 weeks of pretty heavy use. That's not a long time at all. But since they are rechargeable, I can just recharge every 2 weeks or so not a big deal to me.

A lot of people wanted to know this information and here it is.
 

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