Batteries Reviews

Well, first to the reviewer "m_night2" from Savannah, who said you can use "regular" AA batteries in this phone... that is NOT true. The manual explicitly says that you CANNOT do that, and that the batteries must be NiCD or NiMH rechargeables. This is probably the reason he had trouble with his phone, because regular AA alkaline batteries are different voltage and milliamps than NiMH rechargeables. Use the right batteries and these phones work great.

The features are well thought out - everything is controllable from the handset. One nice thing is that you can pick up your messages from ANY handset. And you can set options from any handset. One of the dissapointments is that the phones do not replicate the directory from handset to handset, so you have to reenter all the names and numbers in every handset. (I really didn't expect that to work, but I was hoping.)

Great buy overall.

Was looking for an easy solution to phone quality and ease of use with an integrated answering system. Persistence in reading the documentation thoroughly was key in setting the phones up properly. The quality is really far and away much better than any other phones I've used. I love quality stuff so this fit me to a T. Price was good. So far, after about 6 months we've had no problems. I am a very satisfied customer.

I like this charger, very small and portable. Sony shoud sell a extra battery / charger combo. I sure recommend it for taking vacations.

This charger takes up minimal space. The prongs for plugging into the wall fold in preventing snags. Excellent design. It also charges your spare battery in minimal time.
Highly recommend.

I was looking for a battery recharger without a cord -- and this was the smallest I could find. The sleek design also makes it easy to slip it into my small camera bag. Here is some additional information: the electrical plug on the back of the charger can be folded flat into the back of the charger. In addition, it can be plugged into the wall upside down or rightside up (this might be important if you have limited space above/below your outlet.) I have mine sideways, because that's how my countertop outlets are oriented. The unit is a little heavy and tips down a little -- but not nearly enough to pull it out of the outlet. If you want to charge 4 AA batteries at once the directions say it will take about 210 minutes. The "1 hour quick charge" is if you want to charge two AA batteries to 80% capacity. I wonder if other chargers that boast an 1 hour quick charge operate similarly. You can also use this charger to charge two AAA batteries. The unit does not accommodate four AAA at one time. However, charging two AA or two AAA batteries should take only 105 minutes. You can also charge two AA and two AAA at the same time. I expect SONY quality from this product as I continue to use it. Its size is about as big as a deck of cards and it weighs 4 oz without batteries.

I bought a small digital camera and wanted a compatible battery charger to go with it. This one does the job: it is very portable, specially compared to other chargers available. It also works with voltages from 110 to 240 V, so if you are taking it in an overseas trip you don't need to worry about that. It comes with only two batteries, so you will probably want to buy an extra pair since the charger's capacity is for four batteries.

The Kodak batteries are amazing. I was going to buy a more expensive brand at first, but another customer's rave review on these batteries made me decide to try this one and save. Boy, it works like a charm! The first time I used it in my digital camera (hp photosmart 318), I was wondering if the battery was ever going to run out. Then the second time (after a recharge), I checked exacted how many pictures I took. I used the flash and turned the LCD screen on a lot, and I got 451 pictures. My hat off to the engineers of Kodak! Other people gripe about digital cameras having short battery life. I don't know what they are talking about! The batteries recharge overnight (under 12 hours), and I don't find that a problem. If I go on a trip, I just plug them in at night, and they are all ready in the morning. And 451 is a lot of pictures. I clicked until my finger was shot! Since they are supposed to recharge 800 times, I don't expect to buy another set of batteries for my digital camera in my life time

WOW! I had Kodak Max 1700mAh batteries and used them for my digital camera and it lasted me quite awhile. However, I just purchased these Kodak 1850mAh batteries and I am blown away! These batteries have lasted so much longer than my 1700s! It is a great buy compared to retail stores with Kodak rechargeable batteries. Amazon.com's price is a great buy and you will love these Kodak 1850mAh batteries. You will never go back to alkaline ever again!

With a digital camera, rechargeable batteries are a must for those who take a lot of picture. These batteries didn't take as long to charge or recharge as other brands I have tested, and lasted almost twice as long on one charge as the expensive "Max-Powered" throw-away alkaline batteries I've bought as back ups. I am very happy with this Kodak product and recommend these rechargeable batteries to anyone with a digital camera or other high-drain electronics.

Rayovac has a one hour charger with 4 independeent charge circuits (can cahrge unqually used batteries or uneven capacities without over/under charging some of theM)) for the same price as this (w/ batteries). GP has 2000mah batteries. These batteriees are 1700mah. Acessories that I've had interest in that has olympus brand is 50% more expensive than generic brands of the same quality. Olympus has great cameras. Buy the accesories from another brand, cheapeer, higher quality. Oh yeah this is a dumb charger also. That means batteries get overcharged and that substantially reduces their life. You can buy rapid (4-5 hrs charge time), dumb chargers for [$$$]

While I don't own this charger, the college I teach at has an Olympus camera that came with it. It's quite small, works well, and is a pretty good deal considering it comes with a set of batteries.

Most of the negative comments I've seen here are due to the fact many people don't understand the qualities of NiMH batteries. These batteries work well in devices that draw a lot of power, but don't work well in all devices. They lose about one percent of their charge daily, so I wouldn't use them in a flashlight unless you plan on recharging them at least once a month whether you use them or not.

NiMH batteries are only 1.2 volts, but that's not a problem in most devices since they hold that 1.2 voltage till they die. An alkaline battery drops slowly from 1.5 volts, and continues to drop slowly till it dies. Problem is, while a NiMH battery can hold a steady 1.2 volts for a long time, it drops in voltage very quickly when it does die. That means if your device has a low battery indicator, it may give you little warning. However, most digital cameras are setup to use NiMH batteries, and their battery indicator is adjusted for this.

Also, a NiMH battery must be recycled a few times before it works at full capacity. I put a brand new charged battery in an MP3 player and it ran for less than 2 hours. On the second charge it ran for over 7 hours.

So, why not five stars? There are better batteries and chargers on the market. The newer AA batteries are rated at 2000 mAh, and there are faster, better, "smarter" chargers on the market (MAHA, Rayovac, etc.)that can charge both AA and AAA batteries. Still, I've had good luck with this compact charger and the batteries, and recommend it. I also know for a fact the school has abused the heck out of both the charger and batteries and they are still working fine.

By the way, make sure and get a second set of batteries for your camera. When you come across Elvis, the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot all having a picnic, I guarantee you the batteries in your camera will be dead.

This charger accepts any input voltage from 100-240 V, so it operates anywhere in the world. There may be others out there that can do this also, but I have not found any. Even the exterior packaging on these chargers do not list the line voltage.
I have taken the charger with me throughout the world and it works flawlessly. Unlike some of the universal chargers for camcorders which tend to overheat and undercharge batteries when operated on 240V, this one works fine. It is not as fast as some of the "smart chargers", but you should always carry an extra set of batteries with you when you are out for the day anyway.
The only reason I did not give if 5 stars is that the design is not super compact. The line cable unplugs, but takes extra space in your luggage.

First thing I notice when I first used it is that they provided 2 AAA batteries NIMH that last about 5-7 hours of play and you can charge with the wall adapter. You can purchase other NIMH batteries for a low price to have extra power when needed.

Sound: The Ear phones are awesome and the sound of the actual unit is better than average. With another earphone unit with extra base, you can feel the base rip trough your ear drums. I have couple of MP3 players that I own: Pine, Coby, and Jwin and to tell you the truth, the sound of the PM-1 surpasses these others in sound output. Also the 5 different sound options, rock, classical, pop, jazz, and normal give you the power to control the tone.

Play performance:
I use this unit for the gym where I move constantly and harshly. This unit is basically shock proof.(nothing is proof but this come close to it). The CD moves for about 12 seconds until the song is in its memory and will play from that. I have not received a jump since I bought it except when the battery is low. It reads into memory 8 miniutes of music to prevent the jump of music.

Other:
This has a nice clip on display panel where it shows the file name or the ID3 tag. The buttons are in perfect areas for easy reach. The only draw back is that the unit does not have an actual display panel and the clip on display pannel is the only place you can see the names. I guess who cares about that. I bought cheap 8cm CD-R and it work perfectly. Even in one cd that I had a burning error and did not finish the table of contents or TOC, the PM-1 was able still to read the cd-r. My other MP3 players did not even do that.

Not so hot about it:
Have to have a CD-RW to make CD's
no case
Hard plastic package.(This thing took me 5 minutes to open with a blade). Compaq next time put this thing inside a box!!!!
No FM(for $... what do you expect)

Conclusion:
For anyone who is looking for a real portable, super sounding MP3 unit with great features, this is the unit to buy. Unlike smart media card, multimedia card, minidisc, and Dataplay players, the 8cm cd-r is as cheap as regular cd-r's and you can even have many songs for fraction of the cost. We'll it even reads CD-RW so you can buy one for less than a dollar and re-record over and over. Since this unit surpasses many mp3 players, this unit is a fabulous deal for $... 1-25-02...

It's small, light weight, doesn't look cool. The player can charge the included two batteries. The included software is useless to me, as I have more advanced, highly appreciated streambox ripper 2.009 which can encode to the low limit of 8kBps and 8000Hz and high limit of 256Kbps and 44kHz from wav,mp3,ram!. The player can play mp3's of all the range above. The LCD can show file name, song title, and author name. I encoded 15 hours of music on a single CD. Of course they are 16Kbps and 50Kpbs.

The most important part should be sound quality. I have read from amazon reviews that there is buzz background noise, and I did hear it and annoyed by it, and even intended to return it. However I tried to use a cheapist headphone for no reason, and the noise is complete gone. Then I put the original headphone back, and I heard the noise again. So I decided that the headphone must have been cheaper than the cheapist. Before I had threw it away, I plugged it in my computer and listened some music. Supprisingly there was no noise at all, and the sound quality was much better than my cheapist headphone. So I decided to keep it for other use except to use it with the mini CD player.

My concludsion is that both the player and the headphone are of high quality, BUT they don't match!!! What a mistake compaq made!

My personal feeling about it is that it's relatively cheap for its functions---value(5); the sound quality is good except they shipped with a mismatched headphone---performance(4);there is no LCD display on the play, making it unconvienient when not using inline remote---ease of use(4); and the average is rounded to 4. But for the player alone, 5 star.

I got rid of a full sized CD-MP3 player for this and have never looked back. The sound is fantastic and the tracking is excellent. It is also easy on batteries when you forget to charge the two 'AAA' rechargeable that come with the unit. I travel a bunch and the iPAQ produced beautiful sounds on a flight from DC to LA and back on one set of batteries.

I like old radio shows. One disk will hold over 20 hours of radio shows.

Tip #1: Ditch the supplied headphones. They didn't fit and have a limited range. Plus they let in too much outside noise.

Tip #2: If you fly a lot, invest in a pair of noise canceling headphones. I have found that the AIWA or Jensen perform equal or better than the BOSE and cost only a fraction.

Tip #3: Since the software supplied is very pedestrian, replace it with almost any free downloaded ripper and even the CD cutter that came with your CD-RW drive.

Tip #4: Buy the 3.5" disks in bulk. They are much cheaper that way.

Tip #5: Label all of your tracks. There is no ability to go directly to a track or select the sequence that I have found that consistently works. "Next" and "Back" are about all you get.

Tip #6: If you use MUSICMATCH Jukebox do not perform volume leveling on your music before you cut the CD-Rs. For some reason this blocks the iPAQ's ability to read the title and artist data.

Since the player, control unit, and headphones all fit nicely in your briefcase, it is truly a portable unit. Need sound for a group, add a pair of good travel speakers and you are all set.

for christmas i got a cannon digital camera. The regular alkaline batteries would drain in a few hours. My camera takes 2 AA batteries and i went throught 8 to last me one day. I got these batteries along with the Energizer Charger and they work great. They dont drain as fast as regular batteries and i would say they last 10 times longer. When they do drain you just charge them and they work great. Ive had one pack for 3 months and they are still workin great! THIS IS A MUST BUY SAVES U MONEY!!

these batteries are great and are not that expensive. they will last you up to 1,000 charges. this is all i use. i never buy regular batteries anymore because these batteries will last a long time. it powered one of my sony atrac cd player for more than what it was supposed to last. with regular batteries, the cd player lasted as long as advertised, about 75 hours but with these batteries, it lasted about 8 more hours! if you want them to be charged quicker, they sell a 30 minute charger and it is awesome.

these are great for kids toys as well as the digital cameras! we have a 1 hour charger that charges each battery to what it needs so all the kids have to wait is at most 1 hour to return to their toys! we have them in the cordless controlers for our playstartion and also in the sponge bob atari game they work GREAT!!

Being a bit of a snob when it comes to binoculars (I own now and have owned both Leica and Zeiss binoculars), I was very sceptical of some of the reviews I'd read heaping such high praise on the Canon IS series of binoculars. But since I always want to own the best, I thought that I had to try these binoculars out and disprove all those glowing reviews. Well, the first time I focused a pair of 12x36IS binoculars and pushed the image stabilization button...it was like magic! I've always had a problem holding my 10x binoculars steady enough to get a really satisfying view, and here I was looking through 12x binoculars and getting a rock steady image that brought out amazing amounts of detail in everything I was looking at. And they were acting more like 12x50 binoculars than 12x36 binoculars because you could see so much more easily and clearly when the image was so steady. So believe everything that you're hearing about how great the Canon 12x36IS binoculars are - it's true!

I also have the Zeiss image stabilized 20x60 binoculars, which run about $5000, and the comparison is interesting. First, the Canon eats batteries, and I've tried using lithiums which are much more expensive, without much improvement, so take a set of alkalines along on field trips. The Zeiss does not use batteries, but it will take a while for those savings to balance the cost difference! Second, the Canons won't stabilize in a rough sea; the Zeiss will. (So will the noisy gyro-driven Yamahas, by the way.) Third, the Canons give a rock solid image with fresh batteries; the Zeiss only give an easily readable image, but of course it is 20x instead of 12x. Fourth, the Zeiss weigh a ton, the Canons are easy to carry. Fifth, obviously, the field of view of the Zeiss is considerably less than that of the Canons. However, it's pretty good for a 20x; it's a portable scope without the need for a tripod. Both are easy to use for the complete techno-handicapped.

Against the best of the standard binox, the Nikon Super E and the Leicas, which I also have, the gains are terrific for most but not all purposes; e.g., the twilight performance of the stabized binox, with their limited 3mm exit pupil, is notably inferior, and the weight is less handy. But on balance, the 12x Canon is great!

I was lucky - I found a nearly new used one on eBay, cheap.

Image-stabilized binocs are incredible. You won't believe the extra detail you can see. Need that little bit of detail on feather or bill for that rare bird ID? Does that bull elk half a mile off have a rack worthy of an extended stalk? The astronomy crowd touts them because those faint photons saturate the same cells in your retina, giving better images than giant binocs.

They're not exactly light or compact, but they beat carrying a spotting scope and tripod, hands down. Battery goes dead? 123 batteries aren't all that big - carry extras. You can find them for a buck apiece or less online. I use my 12x36's all the time and I get a month or more out of a battery.

See also my review of the Canon 8X25's

RB

I had orders 3 of this batteries but all of them can take only few pictures then have to rechange again.

A must for extended sessions of photo taking - the Elph generates a surprising amount of heat. This battery is well engineered, incredibly lightweight and it performs. I've recharged mine 50 or more times and it never seems to develop those "conditioning" problems that other batteries get.

The most helpful advice I give to other Canon Elph owners: to conserve the battery, turn the LCD viewfinder off and just use its optical viewfinder like a regular camera to take pics. After taking a pic, leave the button depressed and it'll pop-up in the LCD after a second for you to review it until you let go. I have yet to even open my backup battery using the camera this way.

This battery lasts about 20 shots with the Canon S100, if you're lucky. You simply have to buy a backup battery if you want to do some serious photo taking. It's a bit pricey, but since no other battery fits the S100, Canon can charge whatever they want. It does a full recharge in about 2 hours and doesn't seem to have a "memory effect" with constant charge and recharge. If the price was less I'll give it 5 stars.

Alkaline batteries would last a week in my child's toy. I am lucky if these rechargable batteries last a day. They spend more time in the recharger than in the toy. Save yourself the money and the grief. Do not buy this product.

My neighbor and I bought this charger but I returned mine and I think she is going to return hers also. It seems a little dated because it charges the batteries for a fixed amount of time (both NiMH and NiCad). So if your battery is only slightly discharged it'll still charge it for the same time as if it were totally dead. It also can't charge batteries individually which my Rayovac charger can. The only downfall of my Rayovac is that it can only charge AA and AAA which is all I need. I paid 25 dollars for the Energizer and the Rayovac was only 10 dollars... BIG difference. If you can find a Rayovac recharger at your local store get it! I even got 16 NiMH batteries for 25 dollars - PLUS they're ALL 1600mah (higher the rating the more power). Just thought I'd let everyone know. Alohaz

For the money, you'd be hard pressed to purchase a better battery charger. This unit from Energizer (which is apparently really getting into the rechargeable market) can charge any consumer-size battery--AAA, AA, C, D, and 9V--in either NiCad or NiMH chemistries.

It charges standard cells in about 4-6 hours and 9V batteries in about 9-10. This rate isn't as fast as some "quick chargers," but doesn't make the batteries hot and is really slightly better for them. When it's done, it keeps them on "trickle charge" so that they're at 100% capacity when you remove them.

For any batteries except 9V, you have to charge in pairs; many NiMH chargers have this restriction, however. You also cannot charge NiCad and NiMH at the same time.

Overall recommendation: If you're looking to stop wasting money on alkaline batteries and need a NiMH charger for household use, buy this one. For those few people who really *need* to be able to charge batteries in one hour (which are really only very high-intensity digital camera users), however, spend extra for a quick charger.