Ansmann Individual Cell Battery Charger Powerline 4 Pro for NiMH Rechargeable Batteries AAA & AA with USB Port for Smartphone etc. - 4 Bay Universal recharger Plus 4-Pack 1100mAh Tripple A Batteries

New batteries, especially alkalines, are so expensive! And while it helps to buy the bulk packs at the warehouse stores, I still hated disposing of all that material. I bought my first charger at a typical retail outlet--it came with a set of batteries and seemed reasonably priced. Somehow, the recharged batteries never lasted even half as long as the new batteries, and only got worse with time. Frustrated, I did some reading online and discovered that properly recharging lithium cells is a fairly complex process and often done improperly by "budget" chargers. So I finally got this "real" charger--what a difference. I quickly discovered (confirmed) via the display that I had a couple dead batteries in my drawer. And several others performed much better after using the "refresh" operation on them. This charger displays stats per individual cell and the differences I saw while charging were surprising--each battery I had was somewhat unique in the rate & time of charge required. It took a bit of time to find my way thru the menus and all available options, so an improved user interface would be on my "wish list" for this charger, but I appreciate the affordable price so I'm not complaining. I finally have some confidence in my recharged batteries.

I have tested a couple of the modes on this now and it seems to work perfectly. I love all the features.

Nice charger when it worked. Compact and fits where I need it. Power supply died within 6 month though.

I came across this review and notcied I never updated the review below. I've changed my original one star to four, as Amazon replaced the defective charger and it functioned as expected.The original unit I received obviously had a problem that caused a short-circuit immediately upon pluggin in the power supply. I have used the replacement nearly daily since it got it and have few complaints five years later. I took off one star for the original problem and for the occasional annoying instance where the charger refuses to charge a battery that other chargers with charge. Everything starts out fine, but when I return hours later, the display shows --, indicating it thinks the battery cannot be charged (for whatever variety of reasons). Some of these might be attributed to a battery being too drained for the smarts in this charger and it thinks it cannot be revived. Sometimes that it is the case, but other times placing the battery in a dumb charger will revive it enought that it can be charged.The display could be a little larger and I often have to refer to the manual to refresh my memory of changing settings with the mulit-function display and buttons. Otherwise for the price, it has proven to be a very good charger.-----------------ORIGINAL REVIEWDied on first use. I plugged in the wall wart AC adapter and immediately heard a loud electrical pop. The charger never came on. Apparently, the power adapter had a short or something. I've completed a return form and asked for a replacement, but Amazon says it will be several weeks before the replacement ships.

Failed to work shortly after buying. To repair I must ship it to GERMANY with return postage included! Absolute racket! The option to return or replace the item has just expired and now it goes out. Worthless. Surely postage both ways to and from GERMANY would cost more than buying another. GARBAGE. I thought I was buying a quality german-made product, not so, as of course its made in China. AWFUL.

The PL4 Pro has a lot of features, like capacity testing and refresh cycles, but in typical German fashion the interface can require reviewing the manual and repeatedly pushing X button Y times within Z seconds. I only used this unit with Ansmann batteries, and yet it still malfunctioned and would try to charge one battery from a 4-battery set for hours and hours longer than the others, sometimes running it too hot to touch. The unit finally failed and won't start up, it lights up all the LCD display segments "8888 8888 8888 8888" etc… and stays there. Sending it in for repair requires mailing it to Germany (!) and roundtrip postage would equal the price I paid for it on Amazon.

Sure makes it easier to tell when a battery is bad or going bad. We use it every week and it has been very reliable.

Excellent quality battery maintenance pack. It's saved me a lot of money from throwing away batteries that are actually still good. Def recommend!