XTAR Battery Charger from Indiegogo Better and Worse than OEM

The XTAR 7-in-1 Multiple Camera Battery Charger is a fantastic idea. The guts of the charger reside in a central module, and different sized battery bays can be added to either side to provide charge. This means you can charge your NP-550s at the same time as you can charge your Canon LP-e6NH batteries.

Camnostic purchased a charging set with the original Indiegogo campaign.

The charging appears to be pretty intelligent, with differing levels of charge applied at different stages of charging, and also managing the charge depending on how many batteries of which sort are demanding power at the same time.

The unit is small, adequately built, and the modularity of it makes it perhaps the best travel charger produced yet.

The big downside we found was that it didn’t charge Canon LP-e6NH batteries to full consistently. About two thirds of the time, the intelligent battery features caused the charging to stop at about 85 to 90 percent charge (as indicated in the camera). Putting a battery that wasn’t fully charged back on the charger sometimes brought it to 100 percent, but sometimes did not.

Pergear has been contacted to see if this is something that is unusual, or is an issue that may be addressed in the future. A response has not yet come as of this writing.

While this could seem a fatal flaw, it isn’t for some people. For shooters looking to charge a half dozen batteries at a time during long shoots, the charger works great for rapidly charging up to 4 batteries (if you purchase two of the relevant charging bay accessories, each of which will charge two batteries). Another charger can be employed for topping them off, multiplying the number of batteries that can be charged at a time. More likely, such shooters would slam the batteries back in the camera at 88 percent full and not bother.