Triax Power 6178 battery charger

When I recently bought a digital photo camera, I needed a good battery charger for it because it uses 4x AA cells. I was visiting a friend and saw this Triax Power 6178 on his desk.

Now, I am not the WISIHTB (What-I-See-I-Have-To-Buy) type of person but this time I made an exception because, well... lets just say that I exceptionally liked what I saw.

I asked him about the charger features, and I learned the following:

• It can charge both AA and AAA batteries
• For 25 € you also get 4x AA 2,800 mAh batteries with it (see note below)
• It has CAR KIT so you can charge batteries in your car
• It has 4 channels so you can charge and/or discharge at the same time
• It has rapid charging (it takes only 3.5h to charge 2,700 mAh batteries)
• It features nice LCD display and 4 LEDs
• It has audio indication of a faulty battery

I mean, what more could you possibly want from a charger? It even looks nice:

The only complaint I have is that the batteries you get with it are of lower quality (made in China). They quickly get drained even though they are declared at 2,800 mAh. That number sounds especially suspicious when you consider that even renowned manufacturers do not sell batteries with more than 2,700 mAh capacity.

The device itself works perfectly. Moreover, for those 25€ you really can't complain about the quality of included batteries because you get them for free. Remember, you can always use those batteries with some less power hungry devices.

For my camera I was using Varta Professional System Rechargeable AA (2,700 mAh) which are not available anymore. If I needed rechargeable AA batteries today (say to power a flash) I would probably get Varta Rechargeable Accu AA (2,600 mAh) instead.