Nyko Xbox 360 Charge Base Review

The charge base and dual-sided batteries come in a clear plastic case, so you can see all of the luscious goodness.  The charge base has the same matte white plastic that odorns the Xbox 360, but has more hard angles in its design (the Xbox 360’s design has a lot of smooth subtle curves).  If you have an Xbox 360 Elite, then you’ll be happy to know that this kit is also available in black.  A 6-foot grey power cord is attached to the back of the base, and plugs into any standard AC wall outlet.

As mentioned previously, the batteries are double-sided.  The inside of the battery has the same 6 pins that every Xbox 360 controller battery has, but the outside (the part visible from outside the controller) has 3 copper contacts that allow it to be charged from the Charge Base.

The Charge Base is shaped like a saw tooth, and allows you to place two Xbox 360 controllers on it. You really cannot charge the batteries by themselves, because the weight of the controller pushes the battery connectors to the base’s pins.  Well, I’m sure you could, but you’d have to put some sore of paperweight on it.

The front of the Base unit has two LED indicators.  The left one is for controller one (the frontmost slot), and the right one insicated controller two (the rear slot).  Once a controller is placed in position, the base senses if the battery requires charging, and indicates its status.  If the battery is charging, then its indicator glows a solid red until fully charged, and then switches to green.

After a short time, the LEDs extinguish themselves.  This is a very welcome feature, as many people will have this unit right next to their console, which is usually located in the living room.  Personally, I don’t want a bunch of annoying lights distracting me while I’m watching TV or playing games, so Kudos to Nyko for thinking ahead.

Using the Nyko charge base is effortless.  The whole point of this kit is that you never have to think about charging your batteries.  Nyko’s batteries easily last over 25 hours under normal use (you might get less if you play games that use vibration features excessively), so unless you frequently play 48-hour Xbox marathons then you’ll probably have to put your controller down at some point.  Since the batteries are still fully Xbox-360 compatible, then you can charge them with a Microsoft’s OEM charger (reviewed here) or even a standard Play and Charge Kit (reviewed here).