UltraLast Green High Speed 1-Hr 4AA/AAA Charger Kit. Review

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(More customer reviews)The display of this UltraLast Green High Speed 1-Hr Charger looks very impressive. It has a large LCD screen with blue backlight. On the screen there are four battery-shaped indicators, with three bars in each battery symbol. This design is similar to those found in advanced chargers such as Sony BCG-34HRMF4 and Targus TG-LCD2700. Naturally, this would imply this charger also has four independent battery status monitors, right? Wrong!
The first thing you must know is: this charger does NOT charge cells individually. That is, it can only charge cells in pairs. This is very inconvenient when you have appliances that require odd number of cells. Furthermore, if two cells in a pair have unequal capacities to start with, then one of them will be over-recharged. This is very bad for battery lifespan, especially when charging at a fast rate.
The second problem is: those 'status indicators' do NOT actually reflect the status of the cells. When you insert two cells into the two left slots, for example, the two left 'status indicators' simply start flashing from zero to three bars and circle back. Those bars do not grow taller as battery voltages grow higher, so they are useless as charging gauges. In fact, they are not any more meaningful than a single blinking LED light, as found in cheaper chargers.
Thirdly, this is NOT a '1-hour' charger as advertised. When charging two AA cells, the charging current is 1500mA. That means it takes about 1.6 hours to fully recharge the 2400mAh NiMH cells in this package. When charging four AA cells, the charging current is reduced to 750mA per pair. So the charge time is extended to over 3 hours.
The four AA cells included in this package are advertised as 'High Power/Capacity' and labeled as '2400mAh'. My testing showed that their true capacity only reached 2100-2300mAh (after multiple Discharge/Refresh cycles on my La Crosse BC-900). This is typical for most off-brand NiMH cells, so they are 'Average' at best.
Bottom Line:
Don't fall for deceptive advertisement and pay a premium for this mediocre charger package. For lower cost, you can get either the SONY or Targus charger package mentioned above (both have individual battery status indicators, plus a DISCHARGE function). Alternatively for slightly higher cost, you can get an advanced charger with really informative LCD panel, such as the La Crosse BC-700 or BC500 instead.
[Update on Sep 25, 2010]
I noticed that the product image has changed. Previous UltraLast charger I reviewed is the same as Digipower DPS-6000. The new one is same as the Tenergy T-2880. But no matter which version you get, it is still a poor value.

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Kit Includes Four High Power/Capacity NiMH AA Batteries, AC Adapter, and DC Car Charging Cord.

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