One problem with having a love of gadgets is that you’re always in need of batteries. I’ve been “upgrading” my stock of rechargeables with better ones from Aldi (high capacity, low price), but all my chargers were old, slow, and designed for lower capacity batteries. So the hunt began for the perfect new charger – and I found it!

Step forward the Energizer Portable Charger,(£15 – £30 on Amazon) a nice bit of kit that is the best thought-out battery charger I’ve ever seen. First, the basics – it charges AA and AAA sizes, and comes with a pair each of high-capacity AA and AAA batteries. It has two “pods” for holding the batteries – each pod holds four batteries, and the charger will charge one pod at a time. There are lights on the top of each pod, so you know if they’re charging, waiting to charge, or ready to use. There’s also a flashing red/green signal which means that something’s wrong – either the batteries aren’t fitted properly, they’re not a matching pair(s), or they’re just not chargeable.

I know it sounds silly, and believe me, I feel a bit silly typing this, but this really is a very nice charger. The things I like most of all are that it uses a dock, rather than being a block you just plug into the mains socket, and it charges high-capacity batteries in about three hours. Once one pod has finished charging, you can whip it out and put in more batteries ready to start charging later – it’s kinda like having two chargers for the price of one, really.

Anyway, the Energizer Portable Charger is well worth getting hold of – then nip down to Aldi and stock up on batteries for it!