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Rating: 
Summary: A Fine Charger Set
Review: The BQ-390 charger, with its pearlescent white finish and simple lines, is an attractively designed charger. If you were giving this as a gift to your girl friend, it will not look so geeky as the other Sony, Kodak or Maxell chargers you can find on Amazon.com. Like the Sony Power Charger, it has advanced circuitry inside to monitor charging through temperature, voltage drop, or the cell's internal resistance, so that you'll get fuller charges and less damage from overcharging of simpler chargers. In other words, your NiMH cells will give you better performance as well as a longer service life. This breed of chargers also charge each cell individually, rather than in pairs. Less sophisticated chargers charge in series, so one cell in the pair may not receive full charge, while the other, worse, is overcharged. NiMH, unlike older NiCd's, does not tolerate overcharging. Because they have 3 times the capacity of NiCd's to refill, all at under 2 hours, you can see why chargers are so expensive, and why they're worth it. Panasonic has recently shifted their cell production from Japan to China, so you might get Chinese cells in the bundle. Still, Sanyo and Panasonic are the 2 major NiMH makers, and you can't go wrong with either. (Sony and GE NiMH cells are all made by Sanyo.) This charger will only accept 1~2 AAA cells at a time (but 1~4 for AA cells). If you need to charge 4 AAA at a time, look to the Sony Power Charger elsewhere on Amazon.com. It bundles 4 NiMH AA cells made by Sanyo for Sony, but charges more slowly, twice as long as this Panasonic. But that is also why it's somewhat cheaper.
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