Review by NLee the Engineer:

Just in case you were looking for the La Crosse Technology BC-900 AlphaPower Battery Charger: please be advised that ths is NOT the same charger.

Except for the color, the BC700 looks exactly the same as the better-known BC900. However, it is actually a “handicapped” version of the old charger. Its charging current can only go up to 700mA in three steps (200/500/700). The BC900, on the other hand, can go up to 1000mA for 4 cells, or 1800mA for 2 cells. Also the BC900 package includes eight NiMH rechargeable cells (4 AA and 4 AAA), eight C/D cell adaptors, and a carrying case. The BC700 does not come with any bonus items.

This is not to say that the BC700 is a bad product. Quite the contrary, it is better than any other NiMH AA chargers in the market except for BC900 and Maha MH-C9000. If you can find it at a substantial saving (like maybe 30% off from the price of BC900), it is still a good buy. But as it is right now, I recommend getting its older brother instead.

[update on June 13, 2008]

Recently the price of BC700 has settled to a level much lower than that of BC900 (partially because the price of BC900 has gone up), so it is now an excellent buy – especially if you intend to buy some low-self-discharge NiMH cells separately. In light of this, the criticism in my original review now seems unnecessarily harsh. Too bad I’m not allowed to change the star-rating for this product.

[Update on April 7, 2010]

I hope my overly critical review above did not discourage anyone from buying the BC-700. As of this moment, it is the best value if you are looking for an advanced battery charger/analyzer. This is because:

- The BC-9009 has been recalled recently due to excessive overheating/meltdown incidents.

- The Powerex WizardOne Battery Charger-Analyzer is more powerful, but costs twice as much as the BC-700.

- The newest La Crosse BC500 has severely limited functions compared to the BC-700 (see my review for details), yet it costs more.

Review by Nuknuk:

UPDATE: (08-11-2010) It has been more than 2 years since I wrote this review. This charger is still working great!

I have owned at least 8 chargers in the past, Maha’s, Panasonic, etc. It is nice to see that this charger shows you the mAh on the LCD panel as the battery charges up. Most chargers you only see an LED indicator to signal when charging is done.

Compared to the specs of BC-900, BC700 can only go up to 700mAH (the max) which means it is somewhat slower than the BC900. But the faster the battery charges, the hotter it gets. And one of the worst enemy of rechargeable batteries is heat. Less heat means longer life.

Pros:

- 3 adjustable charging speeds

- Will show you the actual capacity in mAh. This is good so you know which battery needs to be refreshed. You always want to use batteries with the same capacities in pair or in a group.

- 4 independent charging stations with individual LED readouts. “AA’s” and “AAA’s” can be charged in different combinations. Don’t you hate those gadgets that only use 3 batteries like portable radios? (walkie-talkies). You end up with 1 un-used battery if you bought a 4-pack. How will you charge it if your charger only charges in pairs?

- Reasonable price for an excellent charger

- Small and light. Better portability

- Multi-volt up to 240v. Very useful if you travel a lot to other countries.

Cons:

Now I have to stop myself doing impulse buying on NiMh’s because I enjoy using this charger too much.

Review by NLee the Engineer:

[IMPORTANT NOTICE on Jan 5, 2010]

My old BC-900 has served me well for the past 4 years. But recenetly there is an inrush of reports on ‘meltdown’ of the new BC-9009. I can only assume that La Crosse is having very poor quality control with the new model. My advice is to stay away from BC-9009 for now, until the situation has been rectified.

[Update on Apr 15, 2010]

The BC-9009 is available through Amazon again. But of course it will take a few more weeks before we can be sure if the overheating problem has been fixed. If any brave soul decide to order one to try out, I encourage you to exercise the charger fully (Refresh at the 1A current setting) for a few days, and watch for any signs of overheating (such as hot-spot on the base of the charger). Make sure to let us know the outcome.

[Original review follows]

I have a La Crosse Technology BC-900 AlphaPower Battery Charger since nearly two years ago, and I’m very happy with it. When the Maha Powerex MH-C9000 WizardOne Charger-Analyzer was announced, its looked even better on paper than the BC-900. So I also bought the C9000 one month ago. Here is my assessment for those two chargers:

First, let’s get the similarities out of the way. Both the BC-900 and the C9000 are powerful battery analyzers/conditioners which can also be used as your everyday battery chargers. Both chargers accept one to four AA or AAA cells with independent charging currents. Both come with universal (100-240V AC) adapter.

Next, the differences:

1. SIZE:

First thing you’ll notice is that the Maha C9000 is HUGE for a 4-AA-cell charger. It is about twice as large as the BC-900 (see my Customer Image for size comparison).

Larger size makes the C9000 less suitable as a travel charger. However, as a home charger this is actually an advantage. Extra spacing between cells allows better cooling, and also makes it easier to remove individual cell.

2. CHARGING CURRENT:

The BC-900 can provide charging current from 200 to 1000mA for 4 cells, or up to 1800mA for two cells. The C9000 can charge from 200 to 2000mA for all four cells. So if you routinely need to charge cells in a hurry, the C9000 is better.

However, due to the complicated key sequences involved (for example, to charge 4 cells at 2000mA, you need to punch in 48 key strokes!), most sane people will probably leave the C9000 at its default current of 1000mA.

3. DISPLAY:

The BC-900 has a 4-column LCD panel that shows the status (capacity, voltage, current, or time) of all four cells either simultaneously, or individually. The C9000 sports a LCD display with back-light. It is BIG, it is BRIGHT, and it works really well – as a NIGHT LIGHT!

The biggest problem with the C9000′s display is that it can only show one status for one cell at any one time. It constantly toggles from one status to another, then from one cell to the next. If you have 4 cells in the charger, it takes 48 seconds or more (depending on the current activity) for the display to cycle through all 4 cells. There is also no way to pause the display. So if you missed one reading, you have to wait for it to cycle through again.

4. ANALYZING / CONDITIONING FUNCTIONS:

The BC-900 has an easy-to-use ‘DISCHARGE/REFRESH’ function that can be used to recondition old cells. The C9000 has a similar function called ‘CYCLE’, but it is very tedious to use (see the USER INTERFACE section for details).

In addition, the C9000 also has a ‘BREAK-IN’ mode which supposedly should be applied to new cells before first use, or to really old cells that have not been charged for years. Beware that this operation takes at least 39 hours to complete, so I doubt many people would actually use it.

5. DEAD CELL DETECTION:

If a cell is completely drained (battery terminal voltage drops below 0.5V), the BC-900 thinks it is shorted and therefore refuses to charge it. This has caused a lot of frustrations among users, but there is a way to work around it (see my BC-900 Customer Image for details). The C9000 is smarter in this aspect. If the battery terminal voltage is too low, it automatically starts charging at 125mA until the voltage rises above 1V, then it continues with the programmed charging current.

The C9000 also measures battery internal resistance when a cell is first inserted. If the user inserts an alkaline cell (which has much higher internal resistance), the C9000 displays ‘HIGH’ and refuses to charge it. This is a good safety feature, except that it also incorrectly rejected most of my NiMH cells bought four or five years ago. So I cannot use the C9000 to charge or recondition those old cells, even though the BC-900 reports that they still have around 1000mAh of capacity left.

6. USER INTERFACE:

With the BC-900, you can select the operation and current for all cells simultaneously, or you can change them indivdually by using the cell-selection buttons. The only limitation is that once the charging current is fixed, you cannot subsequently select a larger current without removing all cells.

The C9000 has four completely independent charging circuits that can be programmed to different currents. This may sound great at first, but in practice it soon becomes a burden, because you often need to press dozens of key stokes to program all four cells.

For example: If you want to recondition four cells on the BC-900, you’ll go through the following sequence:

- insert in all 4 cells at once

- press MODE to select DISCHARGE/REFRESH (2 keystrokes*)

- press CURRENT to select charging current (2-3 keystrokes)

* Note: need to press and hold MODE for 1 second for the first keystroke

On the C9000, you can insert in all 4 cells at once, but you have to program them one at a time. Which means:

- press UP/DOWN to select ‘CYCLE’, then ‘ENTER’ (2-5 key strokes)

- press UP/DOWN to select charging current, ENTER (1-11 key strokes)

- press UP/DOWN to select discharging current, ENTER (1-6 key strokes)

- press UP/DOWN to select number of cycles, ENTER (1-13 key strokes)

Congratulations! You just finished programming the first cell. Now repeat that for the other three cells.

BOTTOM LINE:

The Maha MH-C9000 is, without a doubt, the most powerful NiMH AA battery analyzer/charger in the consumer market. However, certain design issues (such as a single-status LCD panel and ridiculously long programming sequences) make it difficult to use for multiple cells. For most of my routine charging and maintenance of NiMH cells, I’ll continue to use my old La Crosse BC-900.

Nevertheless, I don’t regret buying the C9000, because it was a lot of fun for me to try out all its functions. Plus I now have a really cool (but expensive) night light.

Review by esanta:

Ni-MH batteries have become ubiquitous over the past decade. Their low cost and ever-increasing capacity make them a great alternative to alkaline batteries. Of course, you need to keep these batteries charged… And that’s where things get complicated.

Charging Ni-MH batteries is the result of a compromise. A low current is gentle on the battery and maximizes its lifespan, but a full charge takes hours.

A high current will recharge the battery much faster, but put more strain on it, causing it to wear out prematurely. It also requires careful monitoring of the battery’s electrical characteristics to prevent damage.

Most of the chargers you can find on the market today use one or the other of these methods. The fast chargers, especially the cheap ones, excel at one thing: destroying perfectly good batteries, because they lack the monitoring circuitry to control the charge current and detect when the battery is full. The slow chargers are usually better, mainly because it’s harder to design a really bad slow charger. Unfortunately… they’re slow.

The BC-900 is a completely different breed: it lets you pick the charge current for each individual battery, has very sophisticated monitoring circuitry that controls the charging process, and is also capable of “renewing” batteries by running full controlled discharge-recharge cycles.

I was a little skeptical that a fairly inexpensive product would be so thorough, but after reading all the 5-star reviews on Amazon I decided to give it a try. I’m glad I did: it’s all it’s cracked up to be, and more. I ran all my AA and AAA batteries through it; some of them had been destroyed by my previous charger, and it weeded those out right away; some were in pretty bad shape, but a refresh brought them back to life at almost full capacity.

The pleasant surprise was to find out all the freebies that come with the charger: four AA and four AAA batteries to get you started, four C-cell adapters, four D-cell adapters, and a nifty carrying case.

The less pleasant surprise: it can take several days to refresh batteries. I suppose this explains why the box didn’t contain a cigarette lighter car adapter. Also, different batteries will take a different amount of time to complete a similar charging cycle. The charging slots being individually powered and monitored, it’s not a real issue, since you can yank out any cell that’s finished charging and insert the next one that needs recharging as soon as the little LCD screen warns you it’s done.

As far as I know this is the best charger you can buy. It’s reliable, gentle on the batteries, has useful capabilities not found on other models, and comes with a lot of extras. It’s more expensive than your ordinary cheap slow charger, but the increased battery lifespan more than makes up for the price difference.

Highly recommended.

Review by J. Tetreault:

This memory upgrade is fantastic for the price, considering just a few years ago something like this would have set you back several hundred dollars. I easily installed it in my netbook the other day, which is a Asus EeePC 1005HA.

The installation for the Asus was simple: you unscrew the panel on the bottom of the netbook labeled “memory”, unclamp your installed RAM, and then push this one into place. Make sure you ground yourself before installing it, and DO NOT get any moisture or food in the netbook or on the RAM, it will ruin it! If the clamps are not snug to the side groves, you’ve installed it wrong and need to go back and push it in further. This will be quite obvious when you turn on the computer and it doesn’t start or you get a blue screen of death. You can check if the module is properly installed after you startup your system (if you have Windows XP) by right-clicking on “My Computer”, selecting “Properties” in the menu, and seeing if the memory changed under system information. If you don’t want to go through booting the OS, press the key that brings up the BIOS (typically F2) when you first start up the computer and check the system information. The specifics for other models are all available on Youtube. Just do a search for your model and “memory installation”, and some kind soul will have posted some video instructions.

So, what’s the difference between this and the 667 Mhz model? Not much. You’re not going to see a massive difference in speed from the upgrade, but it’s worth the extra if you can use it. The difference will only be obvious if you plan to overclock–which is possible on my Asus. I’ve noticed about a 5% or so increase in speed over PC2-5300 modules in other systems. Of course, your system has to be able to run 800 Mhz, or it’s just going to run at 667 Mhz. It will not hurt your system to install the 800 if it can only use the 667, so don’t fret if you’re not sure what Mhz your system takes.

Buyer beware: make sure that your laptop, notebook, or netbook is compatible with the memory module you buy! Obviously, the EeePC 1005 netbook line takes this upgrade, but some don’t. This is a DDR2 200-pin SODIMM module, so if your system does not take DDR2 it won’t work, and if it doesn’t take 200-pin modules, it won’t even fit in the first place! Most new computers do take DDR2, but always check for compatibility before you buy hardware. Don’t take it for granted and wind up with a useless module!

Overall, I recommend this. It’s great for the price, and you get a free 1-year warranty with it. Until you open up your system and spit on the module, it’s very rare that wouldn’t know something is wrong with it after a year of use.

Review by Johnny Chan:

I have never had any problems with Crucial Memory modules — and this holds true for this 2GB 800MHz DDR2 PC2-6400 laptop memory.

I recently purchased this to upgrade my Toshiba NB205 to 2GB of memory. Installing it is a piece of cake… just remove the one that’s in there now, and put this in its place. My netbook immediately recognized the 2GB of RAM.

This module will work well with pretty much all the Intel Atom-based netbooks on the market. Even if your netbook comes with slower memory, this will still work as it’s backwards-compatible in speed but you’re better off buying the speed of memory that matches what your system came with as it will cost less.

Review by I. J. J. Nieuwland:

Away on a conference, it turned out that I had forgotten my stylus (a Pogo, which I’d selected after trying a number of styluses), so grudgingly I bought a new specimen – this Griffin stylus. I could not believe what an improvement it was. Although I was certainly not unhappy with the pogo stick, it sometimes had the habit of not picking up my input, and the writing (I mainly use the stylus to make notes on my iPad with Penultimate) was not always what it ought to be. This is so much better. It is slightly heavier (we’te talking grams, though) but that makes it a better rather than a worse writing implement. More importantly, it allows you to draw much thinner lines than the pogo did. The best of the bunch, AFAIC.

Review by Nick Preuninger:

Just starting out as a DIYer, I’d been looking into code readers but was put off by the price of many scan tools that can do more than pull the trouble codes. I was skeptical about this at first and spent weeks searching the internet for reviews. Then my SES light went on after doing some work myself and I finally decided to purchase this little cable. I couldn’t have been more pleased.

Why I love it:

Totally easy plug and play technology. Plug it in to the OBD II port and the iPhone, turn on the car, the iPhone vibrates once it has made the connection, start the app. That’s it. Awesome.

Reads and clears DTCs. So instead of going to a mechanic and spending for him or her to tell you you forgot to plug a sensor back in (or your gas cap is loose), you can find that out yourself. Scan your car and clear the codes twice and this thing has paid for itself.

It DOES charge your iPhone–or at least provide A charge to your iPhone. If the iPhone is plugged in and you’re not running the app, the phone charges. If you’re running the app, the charge decreases, but very slowly. My assumption is that due to how resource heavy the app is, the drain on the battery is more than the incoming charge and so even though the phone is being “charged” you’re still going to loose some.

All in all, this is a great little tool(/toy), and I look forward to it getting even better with updates to the app in the future.

Review by Matthew W. Hixson:

I was verry impressed by this product. It’s easy to use and just plain fun to have at hand.

Check and clear engine codes with ease! If your a car enthusiast I would recommend this to you, and I do!

Review by Buckeye Sam:

Pros:

Excellent Range – even with existing Wireless G clients

Gigabit ethernet ports

Network Attached Storage

VPN Endpoint

Excellent web interface with help along the right column

Our house is like a wireless black hole. We have tried multiple Wireless G routers and cannot get a strong signal throughout the house. If the router is in the center of the house, we usually get a 11 mbps connection from our Wireless G clients. If we put the router at one end of the house, we do not get a signal at the other corner. We don’t live in a huge house by the way. With this router, we get a full strength signal through the house, regardless of whether it is placed in the center or in one corner. I assume it’s due to high gain antennas plus the built-in power amplifier. The range of our Wireless-G network has been extended greatly without even having to upgrade our computers to Wireless-N adapters. Most Wireless-N routers transmit in the 100 mW range (e.g. Linksys WRT610N, D-Link DIR-825). This router transmits above 800 mW, close to the legal limit of 1000 mW. You can look up the transmit power of all routers on the FCC web site. Excellent product!

Update on September 1, 2009: Buffalo has confirmed a bug in the router. It sometimes loses the ability to connect to wireless clients. It seems to happen to me once every 1-2 weeks. I have to reboot the router to correct. They assured me that the first firmware update will correct it. The significant speed and range improvement for me makes it worth dealing with this minor issue.

Also, a positive review from Small Net Builder (formerly Tom’s Hardware): [...]

Update on October 29, 2009: Updated firmware (v1.65) is available on the Buffalo Technology website. My router is running it, and so far I have not seen any issues.

Review by Matt B.:

I bought this router after considering EVERY other one on the market as of this review date regardless of price… Literally EVERY other router, from Linksys (610) to Netgear (3700) to D-link (855, 4500, 4300) to Belkin… I do NOT regret it for a second. Every other router seemed to have it’s minuses and was more expensive than this one. After a small setup glitch with my comcast modem I’ve been up and running for weeks with a full signal everywhere in my 2-story house. I have the router in my basement and I still get a full signal on the opposite end of the house on the second floor. For (…) this was the best purchase I’ve made this year.

On top of this with the newest (1.70) firmware everything seems to work very well and the news just keeps on getting better… Buffalo just announced last month that starting this summer all new firmware for all of their wireless routers will be based on the awesome DD-WRT firmware! This is an industry first that should not be overlooked. Buffalo tech just shot way up on my tech list of best brands. Here is a link to the press release: (…)

The only complaint I have about the router is that it only supports drives with a fat, fat16 or fat32 filesystem… This sucks if you’re downloading (or want to share) any files bigger than 4gb.

Overall do NOT hesitate to purchase this router, you will not be disappointed.

Review by A. Stagg:

Thins is a great charger for the iPad! Remember, the iPad requires a 2amp.charger and most previous iPhone chargers are an amp or less. This particular charger seems to charge the iPad a bite quicker than the one supplied for the iPad by Apple. Construction is very solid and this is a high-quality product. The led light that indicates the charg is plugged into the wall out light is not too bright. Overall, highly recommend. Also charges my iPhone without issues.

Review by edge7:

Unlike some “iPad Chargers” which are actually iPhone and iPod chargers, this one has the amps needed (2.1 amps) to recharge your iPad. It also has a separate cable with a USB connection, so the charger can be used for other devices such as mp3, phones, etc.

Review by G. Ware Cornell Jr.:

There are a number of reviews for this charger that say things like “works great.” And those reviewers are right, it does work great. However, the central question ought to be “why do I need this product?” I have a car-full of chargers for my iPhone and iPods. They all work great-for charging iPods and iPhones (at least up to the iPhone 3GS which is what I still have due to the upgrade prices ATT charges one of its good customers). What those chargers don’t do is charge my Apple iPad Tablet (64GB, Wifi + 3G).

The iPad has an amazing battery life. And it has some pretty interesting applications for traveling, games for the kids (or your bored wife), navigation and GPS programs with turn by turn, contact managers, Google Earth, et cetera. The likelihood that you or someone in the car will want to use your iPad when traveling is high. So an iPad charger is a necessity. The “old” chargers do not deliver enough wattage to recharge your iPad, something I found out when after a long flight watching a movie from Florida to Newark and a drive through Tony Soprano country with the Navigon GPS directing me and Jimmy Buffett cranking out in the background, I suddenly found I had no where near enough power to watch a second movie on the way home at the end of a thirteen hour day. The charger I thoughtfully brought from home was not charging, as my iPad cheerfully noted in the small print on top of the screen.

So this is the solution-an iPad charger that incidentally “works great.”