One of the biggest knocks on the Xbox One is the fact that it is impossible to track the battery life of your controller, whether you are using two AA batteries or an official Play and Charge pack. On top of that, it doesn’t give any sort of warning like the Xbox 360 did when the batteries were low. However, the Nyko Xbox One Charge Base somewhat helps this predicament.
Whenever you put a controller on the charge base, a status indicator will pop up to let you know that it is plugged in, as well as giving one of three battery level statuses. These indicators are for 25%, 50%, and 75%, so you have a general idea of how fully charged your controller is at the time. I highly recommend putting your controller onto the base for a second to check the status before a long gaming session, especially if you are planning to play online. You definitely don’t want to be caught in an online game with no battery life in your controller.
When I bought a second controller for my system, I ended up picking up an official Play and Charge kit, so it seemed fitting to compare the rechargeable battery packs included in each for a bit. From using both, I can easily tell you that the Nyko rechargeable battery packs work just as well as the official product that Microsoft sells. There is minimal difference between the battery life of the two, so you should be ready for some long gaming sessions moving forward, as long as you have the controller charged beforehand.
Just about the only knock on the charge base is that it is not possible to charge a battery outside of the controller in case you need a backup to switch to while gaming. Of course, you can just charge a second controller in advance or while gaming on the base and switch controllers if you need to. However, not everyone has more than one controller and it is kind of a problem then. You can charge it in advance within the same controller and just set it aside, but it would be nice if there was an option to charge it by itself in some way. There is also no way to charge while playing, unless you have a separate charge cable. As a result, make sure you keep up with that battery life through the status indicators, as I already recommended, so this won’t cause any problems.
As you can tell from this review, the Nyko Xbox One Charge Base is a fantastic product. For a mere $29.99, you get two rechargeable battery packs, which will save you a lot of money over time that you would have had to spend on regular AA batteries constantly. The very sleek charge base allows you to keep your controllers charged easily by just putting the controller in one of the two charging ports. The only downside is that you can’t charge in any way while playing without a separate charging cable, but that is a minimal complaint. If you are looking to get a set of rechargeable batteries for your controller or controllers, this is just about the best option on the market right now.
Looks like a great piece of hardware for the price. When I pick up an Xbox One I might think about doing that. Especially if I have more than one controller.