Review: Insten Battery Charger Kit
Never run out of camera battery power (January 5th, 2006)
The Good
- You can charge your batteries almost everywhere you find yourself. Never miss a moment because your battery is drained. 3-year warranty.
The Bad
- A pouch to hold the three elements would have made a nice touch.
If you’ve recently started using a digital camera, you’ve probably run into the new dilemma. Now that we digitally record the important moments of our lives, we no longer face the out of film dilemma, but run out of storage media or battery power instead. Insten produces a number of must-have digital accessories, including chargers, cases, cables, and batteries.
One of my favorites is the Insten BNIKENEL5CS1, a battery charger kit that handles most digital camera, camcorder, and digital video batteries. Each charger kit is specific to a camera manufacturer, such as Nikon, Minolta, Sony, and Panasonic. The real difference from other chargers is that it’s not just a wall charger. The charging unit comes with two options for power, a wall plug adapter, and a cigarette adapter. You can charge your batteries en route to the big occasion you want to capture instead of moaning you forgot to charge your camera battery.
The unit is surprising lightweight (190g) and accepts AC110-240V. My digital camera batteries charged quickly and properly retained their charge, plus it is protected from overcharging. After charging from the wall outlet or cigarette lighter, the unit displays a green light indicating that the battery is fully charged and reduces voltage to a trickle charge. If you don’t leave home without your camera, you should look into Insten chargers.
