Review on 🔋 Optimized Tenergy TN438 16 Bay Battery Charger for AAA and AA Rechargeable Batteries with AC Wall Adapter and Car Adapter - NiMH/NiCd Rechargeable Batteries Charger by Amy Silakos

This is just a regular charger. This is quite a smart charger that will give a good, gentle charge to 1 to 16 AA or AAA batteries individually. Some people's criticisms of having to mess with installing AA batteries seemed unfounded to me. I had no trouble installing batteries; All you have to do is push the AA in firmly until you hear a click. Installing AAA is a bit easier, but both are easy enough for me. And the individual status for each battery is good, and the ability to charge up to 16 batteries at once is pretty good. So in general it works well and without major complaints. Now to what isn't optimal and why it doesn't get 5 stars. First, you want to charge batteries, not bake them. Heat shortens battery life. They had the right idea of 500mA for AA batteries and 250mA for AAA batteries because you want to charge as quickly as possible without heating up the battery. I would choose these rates to start with myself, but then I would lower the AA charge rate to 400mA because I feel this charger generates too much heat for AA batteries. 250mA AAAs don't heat up at all, and for good reason. Look at the dimensions of these batteries and you will see that the surface area of AAA is 67% that of AA. But they charge the AAA with 50% of the current (250mA) of the AA battery. This explains why AAA stays cold while AA gets a little warmer. It's not too hot, but warmer than you'd expect from a 'smart' charger. Okay, they have thermal protection to prevent your battery from getting fried, but I don't want to easily bake my batteries either. Another downside of this charger is that it states that the batteries should be removed after charging. (BTW: the directions are pretty sparse.) What the heck? Remove from charge immediately? I figured smart chargers were smart enough to switch to continuous charging, so I could leave a whole bunch of batteries connected forever and grab a fully charged battery at any time. Such a simple function would make this charger much more useful. But apparently it turns off all charging after charging the battery and that's it. There is no mention of charging anywhere. But they advise you to take them off after loading. I'm a little spoiled by the outstanding LaCrosse and PowerEx chargers that put you in control of every aspect of battery charging. Heck, they can be used as lab tools. At the other end of the spectrum are the dumb quick chargers that are sometimes bundled with rechargeable battery purchases. These things are terrible. This Tenergy charger sits almost in the middle and does its job well. They narrowly missed by not charging at 400mA for AA and could also be charged continuously. I almost forgot to give them credit for being able to discharge and recharge the cargo. It's a nice feature and it seems to work well, so they need some credit for that. Many people don't realize how useful the reset/refresh feature is. I've seen people comment on how their batteries drain with use, so what's the point of having the ability to drain? Well, with most devices, it's almost impossible to fully discharge the battery. Solid state devices such as cameras, LED lights and other electronic devices stop drawing current from the battery once the voltage drops below a certain level. However, there may be 10% or 15% energy left in the battery. The same happens with motorized devices. Once it starts to slow down and become sluggish, take out the batteries instead of draining them completely. Therefore, this upgrade option is very useful for training batteries to reach their full potential. Discharging and recharging may give you an extra 10% or more capacity because you can charge deeper. Do not you believe? Get those 2 fancy chargers I mentioned, do extensive testing on different battery brands like I did and then you'll believe it. Bottom line, this is a good charger that could have been excellent. It is suitable for many people. I will not return mine, I will use it. I could just be a little happier, that's all.