When I first got my Xbox I picked up a pair of play n’ charge kits to deal with battery charging. I found that after a few months neither pack would hold a charge for more than an hour (if that), and out of sheer laziness I ended up leaving the charge kit wire plugged in all the time, essentially giving me wired-wireless controllers. Laziness trumped actually sorting it out however, and I have been putting up with these damned wires for years now. My annoyance level has finally peaked over my laziness level for some reason and I’m sorting this out.
Given the grief I’ve had with these play 'n charge things I’m not going that route again and am actually thinking about just getting some regular rechargeable AA’s and a charger. I’ve seen Duracell commercials on TV lately for 15 min chargers that might do the job nicely, though I’ve heard they can ruin a battery over time. That said now that I’m looking into it there are a lot of choices, and some of the newer rechargeables are apparently best for “high drain devices”… not sure if an xbox controller would qualify.
What are you guys using for batteries in your 360 controllers, and how is it working out for you?
I’m using Rayovac Hybrid rechargeables. It made a lot more sense to me to spend $10 on four AA batteries that can be used in a ton of things than to spend around the same on a battery that can only be used in an Xbox 360 controller.
Huge battery packs from Sam’s. They’re dirt-cheap, and I don’t have to worry about recharging. The recharger packs could never keep up with the overall console use (spread between 4 members of the family), so we stopped using them some time ago.
I’m using rechargeable duracell batteries (2650mAh) and they last for ages… Not problems whatsoever, just keep a spare set around and everythings good!
The normal battery packs are still working fine for me with the quick charge kit (as opposed to the play and charge kit, which seems to suck the life out of those battery packs faster for some reason). Plus with the quick charge kit, I’m never in a position where I’m playing with a “wired” controller. It just feels better all around.
However, I can’t put the battery packs in my guitar controllers. So I got this charger from Amazon and those batteries have been working great for me for my guitar controllers. They last a really long time. (But that’s to be expected, since what really drains batteries fast is controller vibration, and guitar controllers don’t vibrate).
I used to use the charge-n-play kit and battery pack, but had the same problem with it not holding a charge over time. In my case it seems to be because the controller never actually completely shuts off when using that battery pack – after turning it off, there’s still a very faint glow to the green ring, so power is still being drained.
That doesn’t happen when I use plain old AA rechargables, so I’ve switched to them for now and they last much longer.
I use the packs with the quick charge kit, although I did use the play & charge thing for a while at first. No problems with the battery life on either of the two packs I have, and one of those two packs is over two years old now.
I used to use NiMH AAs and a fancy charger, and if I were still using it, I’d recommend it highly, as it works with no problems.
But a few years back, I got the quick charge kit and a few 360 batteries as a gift, and that has been so vastly much better that I spit on AAs now. You’re never playing wired, and if your controller runs down, it’s the work of 5 seconds to swap it out with a charged-up battery sitting on the tree. Battery life seems perfectly fine, even with years-old batteries.
I use the rechargable batteries and base from Nyko - been using it for years and never had a problem. Holds a charge for hours at a time (I’ve never run out), and seems to charge pretty quickly. Using white batteries with black controllers kind of sucks, but I don’t even notice most of the time.
This. Those batteries are so damn great I use them for everythnig now. I have a robot that drains AAs in about 5 minutes and these let it run for about 2 hours.
Play-and-Charge kits are a scam. I’ve had the same problem. They last for about a year or two at best. Someone opened up the battery pack awhile back and discovered that Microsoft was just putting regular old rechargeables (cheap and crappy ones apparently) inside that casing.
You’re better off with many of the options listed above for regular old rechargeable batteries. As a bonus, you can use the same rechargeables you buy for your 360 with the Wii Remotes or Gamecube Wavebirds. We rotate through a pile of Duracell rechargeables for all those controllers.
I used a rag-tag collection of about 20 no-name NiMH AA rechargeable batteries that I purchased, 2 at a time, at various sales and liquidation events for next to nothing. I charged them in a bottom of the line Ray-o-Vac charger that I think I got for $2 on sale somewhere. The charger took more than 24 hours to charge an empty pair of batteries, but with 20 batteries lying around I didn’t really care. As Dave Long said, the standard rechargeable batteries give you more flexibility. I could use them in Guitar Hero and Rock Band guitars (but for some reason rechargeable batteries won’t power up the Rock Band drum set) and various Wii novelty controllers in addition to the 360 controllers. Despite the fact that the batteries were highly mismatched and all off-brand, they never gave me any problems, and I recall getting about a week’s worth of use out of a charge on the 360.
Mine lasted about 2 months before a “full charge” would deplete in an hour or so. Complete rip off. Switched to decent branded rechargeables and a plug-in charger and just rotate the batteries. I now get much, much better life out of each charge.
Picked up an Energizer charger and some 2500mah AA batteries as the suggestion of having the flexibility of regular batteries was a great thought. Almost went for the Duracell “15 min charge” thing but those were only 200mah (which would give me less run time if I recall my battery info correctly) but also I’ve heard the 15min charge thing can kill your overall battery life. On top of that, I’ll just rotate what I have as suggested and charge them up overnight if needed (6 hour). If I ever find myself in a position of needing MORE POWER NOW I’ll just slap in the stupid play n’ charge thing again while the AA’s recharge but I don’t think that will come up.
The play and charge is worthless. If you’re going to use the rechargeable packs, get the quick charger that can handle 2 batteries at a time. I’ve used this to revive battery packs that the P&C cable rendered unusable.
