Charger Reviews

I bought a pair of FRS 104's for a recent trip to wine country and was quite disappointed. The channel button has NO LOCK, and is large and easy to bump (i.e. accidentally change). This flaw rendered the FRS 104 virtually unusable! You can't put this radio in your purse or pocket and still stay in touch. You can't even casually pick it up to carry on a conversation without the danger of inadvertant channel changes. I e-mailed Cobra about this, but was snubbed and told to take it up with my retailer. Fortunately Lowe's has a great exchange policy and I'm now the proud owner of 2 Motorola T6220's-for a mere 13 dollars more. I would NOT recommend this product to anyone. No way, No how.

This is a great set of radios for the price to include the charging station. Great range and clarity. I haven't had to use them no more than one kilometer, but with all the buildings in my area, these are great. Really practical without all the extras.

Con--NO KEYPAD LOCK! I had to constantly check to see if I was on the right channel due to the equipment I carry hanging across my chest, but to stay alert is to stay alive so I adapted.

Be warned, Circut city is not shipping the rechargable units. They are shipping the units that take AA batteries. I spent much time on the phone with their India-based customer service only to find that they do not carry the recharable model.

The value of this radio is hard to beat. I bought it first for my 8yo daughter who likes to play "spies". I was so impressed with the quality of the sound and the range that I took it with me to Ecuador, on an adventure trip in the Amazon. They held up great - very durable. It worked well in the jungle, though I never pushed the range over 1/3 mile.

The lock feature on the channel selection is a good idea. The on/off button is located on top of the radio and would get inadvertantly pushed sometimes - my biggest complaint.

Unfortunately, I lost one of the sets in a cave(in a deep pool of water). No big loss considering the price. I will buy another set.

The unit is nice and compact but cycles off and on (internal thermal protection) when the Ipaq is in use with w/ CF Plus sleeve and Socket low power wlan card, even at room temperature. The Compaq charger does not have this problem.

This product does an adequate job. I live in Japan, and it takes the lesser 100v outlets here just fine. But, I found that when I am charging my iPaq and I am using it at the same time, the charger gets overloaded, and shuts off for a few minutes until it cools down. So, that's annoying, but it does charge my ipaq when I let it sit there. And I haven't had any other problems with it--so, it's adequate.

This phone was great for about the first 6 months of owning it and actually we have two handsets. On both handsets the #1 buttons stopped working then the HOLD buttons stopped working. A couple of months later the #2 and #3 buttons stopped working on one handset, on the other handset just the #3 stopped working. I called several local repair shops to inquire about repairing the phones because we spent a lot of money on these phones, and found that no one would even touch the phones, let alone repair them. We are disappointed and are now in the market for new phones.

Sony's "QuadraStation 2.4" phone is just a good product - which is becoming a rarity in consumer electronics. It's been in operation for a year and both the base as well as the wireless handset have performed flawlessly and beyond reasonable expectations. The remote handset has been half-way down the block and reception was still strong.

Keep the manual close at hand; there are so many functions - most are useful - that referring to the book will stay a habit for a while.

Until the "next big thing" in phones comes along, this will be a keeper.

We have purchased a few of these chargers for our department digital cameras (olympus) and every one of them is broken. The thin plastic cover which activates an interlock, breaks at the hinge point and doesn't make contact sometime. Just when you think the batteries are charged, and ready for swapping out, you find that the cover prevented the process from initiating and now all of the batteries are dead. Not too good.

After reading the online reviews, I found a similar product for $19.99 at a local store. The charger is an Energizer ACCU RECHARGEABLE™ and can charge 1 to 4 AA and AAA or 2 9 volts in either NiMH(Nickel-Metal Hydride) or NiCd(Nickel-Cadmiun). The batteries can be left in the charger, keeping the battries at full charge. Product part number is UPN-3076814.

I'm the kind of person who leaves batteries in a charger andforgets about them till I need them. I think most people are likethat. The worst feature of this product is you cannot leave the batteries in it for more than 48 hours without damaging them! I'm sorry but I've got other things to worry about besides checking batteries' charge status.

The "Universal Battery Charger (23-419)" can do 4, and is half the cost of the Olympus. The "Rechargeable Battery Fast Charger (23-422)" can do 8, which, considering the way the D-340R eats batteries, you might want. It is almost the price of this model here, but with twice the capacity. Neither come with NiMH batteries.

After returning the Olympus charger, I got the size 8 one and it works fine. The batteries are sold separately but you will still come out ahead.

Do yourselves a favor, skip this one

I bought and returned these radios. They had little range in my comparison tests w/ Motorolas and Audiovox 1535 (which I settled on). Although compact, good voice quality, and decent features, I did not get acceptable range.

if this walkie talkie is so good and the price is just to low to show then why there is no description of the walkie talkie...i mean does it go 5 miles....? can i hook up ear phones to it for free hand ablities ? do it have privacy channels ? how many channels does it have ?
why none of that stuff is shown....?
Are they trying to sell the walkie talkie ?

The GMRS midland radio is great and the radiohas nice features and good rangebut this radio has bad bad battery life. I bought this radio and still have it but i had to go out and buy new rechargable batteries. i found that this radio workes the best in the feild with regular AA batteries. i have used other radios because i own a radio repair and rental company i use these radios in the shop. they are great.

I have a 3900 series IPAQ and installed the software per the instructions. First problem, I could not open more than three maps at one time even though the book says ten. Second problem, there are gaps between the maps. I tried to have it plot me a trip from Atlanta, GA to Pensacola, FL. This is a straight-forward trip, but because of missing sections between the maps, it could not. Third problem, every second or third time I powered down the PDA when stopping for gas, I had to do a soft-reset to get the thing working at all. The system had no problems reconnecting to the GPS signal(s) during gas stops, except for these lockups, it usually took 30 to 45 seconds. Maps were accurate along the route, where maps were available. I found no updates available online to fix these problems. For around town I think it works great, but for any kind of distance, I would look into a different solution/product.

The Pharos GPS for iPAQ has the potential to be a good product, but the current version has some some definate challenges. The Ostia mapping sodfware is fairly easy and frindly to use, but that's where its good points end. The routing is not very intuitive. For example a simple direct route between two large cities connected by an interstate would not route that way. Instead the route has you getting on and off the interstate onto US or state roads several times. Presumably it is a shorter distance that way. I was told that version 4.01 corrects this and was offered a "Free*" upgrade. (*just my opinion, but when you pay for a product that is outdated when you get it, I just don't see is as you doing me any special favor by giving me a "free" upgrade). Well, anyway the upgrade did have an option to stick to highways but it didn't work, the software still routed me the same way. The software decides the best way to get from point A to point C, not you. You can't go via point B. The next issue was the hardware. The cigarette lighter plug would not maintain a connection and any time there was a power loss the GPS signal would be lost. The GPS signal itself was hard to get and hard to keep. I finally determined after much trial and error and frustration that the problem was the connector between the cable and the GPS antenna. I contacted Pharos Tech support via email and received no reply. I called and explained all the problems and requested a new cable. They would not do that, and insisted I send the cable for testing. Not wanting to be down, I requested Pharos ship me a new cable first that I would pay for then they could issue me a credit once they received the old cable and determined it was bad. They would not do that either. The only way they would work with me was for me to send them the cable for them to test and return within 2 days. I did. Three weeks later I got my old cable back, no explaination, no repair, just a box with a cable. Still didn't work.

Summary: Concept - 5 stars, Software - 2 stars, Tech Support - minus 100 stars. Maybe a real software company will buy Pharos someday because they really do have some good ideas, but do not seem to be able to make them wouk right and clearly know nothing about customer service or relations. For now, buy a Navman, I did and while it's not 100% perfect, it's pretty good and I'm happy with it. See my review for that product.

The unit installed very easily. The 12v connector worked very well and did not disconnect. Both the gps unit and the pda were powered from the 12v connection. The software loaded easily on the laptop and transferred to the iPAQ with no problems. The maps require a little forethought. However, loadiing all of the state of Indiana still left lots of room on an SD card for other things. The system takes about 90 seconds to acquire satellites and then routes very well. Have only used it for local routing, but that is where I would need help most anyway. I already know how to use the interstates to get from one large metropolitan area to another (i.e. Chicago to Cleveland is relatively easy get on the interstate and stay on it). Sometimes it tells you about an exit just a little to close to the ramp. The voice prompts are very helpful.

after using for only a few times,the power supply burnt out.bought another power supply,burnt that out after unit got very hot.need to be a professor of engineering to figure out the led light system,very confusing..would not reccomend this is.... this is a totally crap product all the way...sakar sucks.....

This unit charges batteries very fast (Hence the name Rapid Charger), It does make the batteries very hot during charging, I believe that it might damage the batteries in the long run, But so far it seems to work correctly, The provided 4 batteries are only 2000mAh (*New Updated*) which are worthless, My 4 year old Creative 1800mAh Batteries are better even after all these years of use.(You get the point?) The A/C adapter is good for only 120V AC, wish it had dual A/C selection switch for use in other countries, Car Charger adapter is added bonus, But that is rarely used. There are better products out there, But for the Price I think it does it's job okay.

This charger is super fast. The batteries get hot, so you need to let them cool down a bit before use, but they seem to last as long as any other rechargeable I've used. Didgital cameras suck the power out of batteries. I have a Canon C-740, and I can easily take these newly charged batteries out hiking for a few hours and they will perform great. I use them every day, and I have had them for about 6 months. They don't seem to be charging any differently in all that time. I have an older Ricoh digital camera that eats the batteries much faster, but for my situation now, I find these to be a perfect fit.

Try buying a Delkin RCR-V3 lithium-ion charger and battery. So far, I've taken about 40 pictures with my Coolpix 3200, many with flash, and I see no sign of low battery. Lithium-ion batteries do not have a "memory" and also keep a charge and will take more pictures. And, right now, it costs less than the Nikon battery and charger kit. One warning: Technically, if Nikon decides that the battery causes a problem with your camera, it would invalidate the warranty.

Unlike all other bad reviews, mine works perfectly.
when i bought the coolpix 3200 cam, it came with the charger and batteries.
I took more than 100 pictures with flash and didn't have to replace batteries.

I don't know what these other guys are talking about! I have had no problems with them. These batteries have lasted A LOT longer then regular AAs. They are definitely worth buying!

I've had the very same problem as others. Obviously the Charger is crap.

As others have stated, this charger is a piece of garbage. I have a 10 year old cordless Skil that keeps working, and a 7 year old DeWalt that just don't stop. This is very expensive junk that is better to look at than use.

Drill is nice and works well. But, I have blown through 2 chargers now. Batteries keep working. P/C should realize that this is no better than generic and 10x the price! Do yourself a favor and don't buy another charger. Just buy a new drill but a DIFFERENT brand than Porter Cable! Obviously the company is going after profit RATHER than quality.

I have owned my PC 14.4 1/2" hammer drill for nearly two years - while I do tote my drill around a fair bit, the charger has mostly lived on a shelf in the basement. With no inkling of a problem, it just quit. The drill is great, the batteries are above average, and the charger just plain stinks. (My DeWalt 12 volt of six years has gone through two pairs of batteries - and the charger keeps working.) Perhaps the "diagnotic" feature on this charger is a little too fragile.