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Apple Battery Charger gets official: a battery charger, only you know, better (update: hands-on)
Apple's just slipped something into its iMac update press release that we didn't want to go unnoticed: a battery charger. Apple's AA battery-powered lineup now includes the wireless keyboard, the Magic Mouse (which seriously burns through the juice) and the Magic Trackpad, and for $29 you can score a dedicated charger for all that gear. The Apple Battery Charger comes with six long-lived NiMH rechargeable batteries which apparently have a lifetime of up to 10 years. Update: We just had a chance to get a quick hands-on with the little guy, and well, it's a battery charger. Apple tells us the charger has the lowest vampire power draw of any charger on the market -- the idea is for users to keep two batteries in each of their peripherals and two in the charger, so they can quickly swap out as the cells run out. Interestingly, the batteries are some of the only Apple products in recent memory that don't have an Apple logo on them -- they're just plain silver with "Rechargeable" printed on them. The charger itself has slightly nicer charging contacts than the usual spring-and-flap arrangement, and it features the same removable flippy-prong AC plug as Apple's laptop and iPad power adapters, so you can theoretically swap it for a longer power cord if you like. %Gallery-98293%
A battery for gamers? Puh-leeze
Most gamers probably don't give two seconds of thought to the batteries behind their wireless controllers, but that hasn't stopped Panasonic from trying to market their new line of Oxyride Extreme Power batteries as "extreme power for every gamer's needs". A recent public relations entreaty promoting the batteries asks wary gamers to picture a Halo match with friends that suddenly goes awry when "all of sudden the battery in your wireless controller runs out of juice. BANG! Instant kill." Sorry, but with Xbox 360 wireless controllers lasting up to 40 hours on a set of standards AAs, this is far from a major concern for most players. For the paranoid player that's really concerned about a dead-controller kill, there's always the play-and-charge kit, which is more environmentally friendly than disposable batteries and pays for itself after only a few charges. With the PSP, DS and even the PS3 wireless controller all sporting built-in rechargeable batteries, the years of gamers throwing away their power sources are on the way out. Now if Nintendo would only announce some sort of official recharger kit, the Wii remote gamer's dreams of a battery free future might be complete. Until then, there's always the USBCell.
Hybrio batteries bridge gap between disposables and rechargables
We're resigned to the fact that the constantly increasing power demands of modern gadgets will always outstrip slow increases in the energy density of batteries: however, high energy density is not the only factor that goes into making a good battery. Other factors that matter include the length of time that a battery can hold its power, how often it can be recharged, its price, how easily they can be recycled, and, of course, how often they explode. Disposable batteries come dead last in pretty much all the aforementioned categories, which is why we're happy to see that Uniross, a company that develops and manufactures rechargable batteries, has released its range of "hybrid" Hybrio batteries in North America. The Hybrio batteries mix the best of disposables batteries (fully-charged out of the box) with the best of rechargable batteries (can be reused / recharged) whilst keeping the price down, which is the main reason that people continue to buy environmentally damaging one-use batteries. A four-pack of fully charged Hybrios with a charger comes in at around £15, and each battery keeps 70% of its charge after a year, can cope with up to 500 charge cycles, and is protected by a three year limited warranty. We've heard this whole song and dance before, but apparently Hybrios are such an improvement over regular one-use batteries that the Worldwide Wildlife Fund recently let the company stick its logo on the packets -- and if there's anything that motivates us to buy things, it's a giant, environmentally-friendly panda.
