Review: 3600mAh Rechargeable Battery Pack

[bandit]

3600mAh Rechargeable Battery Pack
Manufacturer: N/A
Site: Buy from BudgetGadgets
Price: $7.48 (use coupon code TM5OFF8 and get 5% off site wide)

Overview : Why spend more money on regular alkaline batteries that harm the environment when you can get a rechargeable battery pack for a fraction of the cost?

Features:

• Compatible with Xbox 360 wireless controller
• Extend your playing time
• Use USB port to charge using USB charging cable
• LED light indicator will light up when charging
• Rechargeable Cable: USB to DC 2.35* 0.7 DC cable with direct plug
• Battery Pack: output voltage = DC 2.4v
• Capacity: 3600mAh

Quality/Usability : Having used regular alkaline AA batteries for a while and going through them like no tomorrow, it was time to invest in a rechargeable battery pack for the Xbox 360 wireless controller. Not to mention to help the environment. This 3600mAh Rechargeable Battery Pack was from BudgetGadgets and came with no packaging. You may or may not receive packaging with any item you purchase from them. Even if you wanted packaging, you would have to pay an additional cost. I'll get into this more in the Conclusion at the bottom.

The battery pack will not match the color of your white Xbox 360 controller. The battery back has a little off-white or a bit of beige color to it. Fitment of the battery pack on the controller is a perfect fit.

The 3600mAh Battery Pack comes only with a USB cable. No instructions or anything. You can plug the USB cable into the USB port of your computer, monitor or Xbox 360 to charge the battery pack. When plugged in, a green LED on the battery pack will light up to show that its charging. I charged this for 5 hours and the green light was on. I decided to let it charge to see if it will turn off. Another 5 hours and the light was still on. I didnt want to charge any further and possibly damaging the battery so I decided to stop charging. I charged two ways...first being the battery pack connected to the controller and once the inital charge depleted, I disconnected the battery from the controller. I wanted to see if the battery would charge. The LED light lit up and after 5 hours, light was still on. I waited another 2 hours this time instead of 5 and light was still on, so I unplugged it and put the battery pack back onto the controller.

I was able to get a good 4 days of moderate to heavy play. In total, I would say I got about 10 hours of gameplay total before the battery needed to be recharged.

Conclusion : Overall, the 3600mAh Rechargeable Battery Pack for the Xbox 360 works as it should but the lack of notification that the battery is fully charged is a big downfall. I dont know if it takes 3 hours, 5 hours or 15 hours to fully charge. The color of the battery pack isnt a big deal but its worth mentioning for those potential buyers and it wouldnt be a surprise.

Now, back to BudgetGadgets packaging issue. Under their FAQ, this is what is stated about packaging:

For some of the products we offer the 'Package' option. By default, the package is not selected so that we can save shipping cost thus we can offer lower price to our dear customers like you. If you choose the 'No Package' option, we will NOT ship the package to you.

And, to avoid potential quality issue, we always test each item when we get them from suppliers, and then we test them again before we ship them, thus sometimes we need to open the packages. And some items come without the package when we get them from supplier, so sometimes you will also get the item without the package, but all items we sell are in BRAND NEW condition, please don't worry about that.

For those items that gives you the 'Package' option, I dont know if its worth it or not to pay extra when it should be included. Than again, its going to get thrown away when you receive it and bust open the package but I would like the satisfaction that it was from a sealed package and I'm the one that opened it. I can see how BudgetGadgets is offering free shipping by cutting back on including packaging. However, other online stores include the packaging and also offer free shipping.

Images via comments