Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony BCG-34HVE4 Quick Battery Charger with Car Kit and 4 AA Ni-MH Rechargeable Batteries

OK it is a little pricey but for a unit with both an AC and a DC charger and 4 2500mah batteries included it isn't too expensive. However there are two things that caught me by surprise.

1) It will charge up to 4 AA NiMh batteries BUT ONLY 2 AAA NiMh batteries. The design doesn't have a way to insert 4 AAAs.

2) The photo at the top of the Amazon page make it look like there is an LED charge indicator for each battery; not so. There are four holes to see if there is a battery inserted, but just one charge lamp. No big deal. Just a bit misleading.

Otherwise this product does what I wanted.

I have used the Sony BCG-34HE4 Battery Charger for many years. I consider it an ideal travel charger since it is really compact, and works with worldwide voltages. Unfortunately, the charger offered here (Sony BCG-34HVE4) is NOT the same unit.

Looking from the front of this package, the new BCG-34HVE4 appears exactly the same as my old charger. But when I flipped the package over, I'm shocked to find another unsightly AC-adaptor wall unit (see my 'Customer Images'). This completely ruined the original compact design. Worse yet, the wall unit only works with 100-120V AC. This renders the charger useless for most part of the world outside of North America continent.

With a bulky AC adaptor, I would at least expect a faster charge time. No such luck. The charging current is exactly the same as that for the old charger, as shown below:
1-2 AA cells: 1050mA each
3-4 AA cells: 525mA each
1-2 AAA cells: 640mA each

I'm tempted to open the case of this charger, just to see how much empty space is in it (since the AC-DC converter has been moved to an external wall unit). But I can't even do that - because this charger is going back to the vendor.

This charger works great with the included batteries, but only works with about half of my other NiMH batteries. The light blinks indicating that the battery is too old or of the wrong type, even with brand new name-brand batteries, and it refuses to charge them. Sometimes taking them out and slowing re-inserting them in a specific order helps. My other battery chargers (even the smart chargers) charge every NiMH battery I throw in them. I've relegated this thing to only charging my universal remote batteries, which are the ones that came with the charger.

This item would have been great, had we not read that it would work at 110 (USA) and 220 (European) electric current...and we wanted it for travel purposes. Returned unopened! It was convenient to read before opening that the product would not fulfill what was written in the online product description.

This charger for AA Ni-MH batteries is comparable in function to other similar products. The 12 VDC adaptor for recharging batteries in the car is a plus. Although the product was advertised as a "quick" charger, it still takes 5 hours to fully recharge a set of four 2500 mAh Ni-MH AA batteries.