Review: NiteCore “New i4” IntelliCharger
The New i4 Intellicharger by NiteCore is a better general-purpose battery charger than pretty much anything you will find in the big box stores. You might think it’s trivial to obsess over differences among $30-40 items, but as a reviewer I consider that companies which make quality products deserve attention and custom. The i4 looks good (design award winner), has a solid build feel about it, and even claims to be made of fireproof materials. It can charge NiCD (Ni-Cad) or NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) cells in sizes AAA, AA, C and D and a large range of Li-ion (Lithium ion) types including IMR (Lithium-manganese) and LiFePO4 (lithium iron phosphate) cells in several voltages (here’s an explanation of the various Lithium-Ion combinations). It runs off either 9–12VDC or your 110/120/240 wall outlet. The fact that it runs directly off a wall outlet without needing a power brick confirms what you can already tell just by looking at the specs: the company has competent electrical engineers at work designing this stuff. That theory, which is my own, is backed up by the fact that the device is certified by the FCC, CEC, CE and RoHS (the last one is about hazardous materials not power, but it still checks one good box). Not only that, it says right on the box that the unit is “insured worldwide by Pin An Insurance Group” of China — presumably for the implausible case of it setting your house on fire — though there are no details given on the policy coverage or limits. The company also makes an i8 — rather like two i4’s back-to-back, and an i2 whose size I will let you guess.
The i4 can hold and charge 4 cells at a time, controlling the charging of each one individually. Except if they are D cells — those are too wide to fit four across. You can charge a mix of D and smaller cells though. Charging 4 C cells can be done but it’s a bit tricky.
I am being pedantic in referring to cells by their proper name — a battery is composed of multiple cells, and what is often called a “AAA battery” when it’s by itself is an ‘AAA cell’. The general public used to know this but the terms seem to have become blurred in the last few decades due to bad product labelling. One is a cell; two or more is a battery. But I digress.
The i4 features just two controls, a C (Current) and a V (Voltage) button. For AAA through D cells you don’t need to adjust these, because they are all 1.2 or 1.25 Volts. However, Li-Ion batteries come in several voltages — 3.7, 4.2 and 4.35V are supported. Just press the V button and hold it until the voltage you want shows on the LED column above the cell you are charging.
Did I mention LEDs? Well, yes. There is no textual output — as you can see from the picture, there is a bank of four columns each with 4 LEDs, one red and three green. When one of the green LEDs is flashing, the cell below it is being tested or charged. One cell indicates 30%, two shows 80%, and 3 shows 100%. Two greens on steady means testing; all three greens on means fully charged. All four LEDs flashing means the cell is rejected (but see below). Like most microcomputer-controlled chargers, this measures the starting voltage of an inserted cell, puts in a little electricity into it, and then measures the new voltage; this gives a go/no-go test as well as a measure of how long a full charge is likely to take.
The i4 tries hard to optimize the charging current based on the number and type of cells that you put in. They call this “Active Current Distribution” since it adapts as different cells take up power at different rates. The C button lets you adjust the charge current if the default isn’t fast enough or you need one cell topped up sooner than others.
I made good use of the “over-discharged cell recovery” feature. I found a box of NiCD and NiMH cells at home that had been stored for five or ten years in a closet without being charged. They were pretty much dead! The old, worn-out charger this was replacing just laughed at them. The i4, indeed, started by claiming they were off the scale, but has a documented recovery feature: hold the Current and Voltage buttons together for a second or two, and we’ll give it another try. In fact some of the NiCds were so badly discharged I had to apply this “reset” mechanism a dozen or so times. My take is that each time you do that, in testing, it has to add a little bit of charge, because after a dozen or so tries, all but one or two of the long-neglected NiCad or NiMH cells came back to life and accepted a full charge. Some of them needed a few cycles before they’d hold a charge for long, but the charger is there 24/7 so “just use it” is a no-brainer. Nitecore presumably doesn’t advocate my “reset until it works” procedure, but hey, it works for me!
My only issues — all of them minor — are the following:
- the AC power cord doesn’t fit precisely: the socket at the back is too shallow for the cord to go in to the groove, and it doesn’t feel solid as a result. It does work fine and seems OK otherwise; this is just an aesthetic issue.
- No support for 9V batteries (which BTW are actually composed of multiple cells). It’s not advertised as handling these, so I will have to go on a scavenger hunt for the one 9V charger I have someplace, since there were some 9-volters in that pile of non-charged NiCads.
- The fact that you can’t fit 4 D cells at once. Not a big deal for me since those are only used in one or two devices here.
Overall, I’d rate the Nitecore Intellicharger “New i4” as 9.5 out of 10. Oh, BTW, why is it the “New i4”? Because it has “twice the charging speed of the [original] i4 charger”.
Disclosure: I did not receive any compensation for writing this and, in fact, purchased my i4 charger for my own use from Flashlight World Canada.
