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Review: Shinobii Blue Sphere Charging Dock
Shinobii Blue Sphere Charging Dock
Manufacturer: Shinobii
Site: Buy from Shinobii / Buy from Amazon
Price: €39.99 / $39.99
Overview : The BLUE SPHERE Charging Dock from Shinobii allows you to charge up to 4 Wii Remotes™ at the same time. It comes with 4 Powerful NiMH battery packs where each one provides up to 20 hours of play time and is perfectly designed to fit the Wii Remote™.
The BLUE SPHERE Charging Dock features 3 top LED lights that indicates the charging status in three steps: 33%, 66% and 100%. BLUE SPHERE is powered by the official Wii™ AC adapter and includes a pass-through powercord which is simply connected between the Wii™ AC adapter and console.
The BLUE SPHERE Charging Dock is fully functional even with the Wii™ console powered off.
Features :
- Charge up to 4 Wii Remotes™ at the same time
- Top LED lights that indicates charging status in 3 steps
- Includes 4 rechargeable 1200mAh NiMH battery packs
- Powered by the official Wii™ AC adapter
- Connected with a pass-through powercord
- Fully functional even with the Wii powered off
Quality/Usability : At first glance, the Blue Sphere Charging Dock looks like an obese flying saucer from an alien space ship. The Blue Sphere charges up to 4 Wii Remotes simultaneously. To charge your controllers, the Blue Sphere does not use a separate power adapter but rather gets its power from the Wii itself using a pass-through plug. With this, the Wii does not have to be ON. It can be in standby/sleep mode and it will still charge your controllers.
Rather than have one LED that has 2 colors (one for charging and one for when its done), Shinobii has included three LEDs for each port. Each LED represents how much it has charged. First LED is 33%, second LED is 66% and the third LED is 100%. Included in the package are four NiMH battery packs which replaces the batteries and battery cover on the remote. The batteries are said to provide up to 20 hours of gaming on a full charge. I don't play for 20 hours straight but with playing games here and there, I would say its about right.
Like the blue light in the disc slot of the Wii, the Blue Sphere Charging Dock also has a blue ring around the dock that lights up blue when plugged in. However, when this is plugged in, the color makes reading the charging LEDs harder to read. However, Shinobii has informed me that on the final product the three top led bulbs will be transparent (not blue) when light is OFF so you can tell more easily if light is turned ON (blue).
Conclusion : Overall, the Blue Sphere Charging Dock is a solidly built charging dock for the Nintendo Wii. The look is appealing and different from some of the other docks I have seen and reviewed. It takes a bit of fiddling to get the contacts to touch in order to charge but is not a big hassle. If you have a rubber skin whether it be aftermarket or from Nintendo, you will either need to remove it or lift the bottom half so that the controller fits into the dock.
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