vote/discuss!

Dragon rechargable battery pack. Only lasts about 6 months till it wont hold charge for over a few hours but for $18 you cant go wrong.

sanyo eneloops from costco. they were running a great deal on them this past summer.

and when i forget to recharge them all i steal batteries from other remotes/toothbrushes through out the house.

Actually ... the official kit costs 82$ ... where I live..
so I'm sticking to 2 Official kits.. and the rest of the x6 controllers ...
regular Alkaline AAs

offical play and charge all the way

Madcatz Play and Charge kit.

Also have a wired Game Stop controller

I have 4 eneloops, awesome batteries! And 6 energizer recharables, also great. Last a long time before needing recharging

Rechargeable AA's here. Had a play and charge kit but the batteries don't last nearly as long as regular or rechargeable AA's and plus you always have that annoying wire hanging from the console so I gave it to a friend. I hear some people leave theirs hooked up to the controller all the time so why not just get a wired controller if that's the case?

if your not using a wired controller your not a true gamer.


Edit: you forgot M$ Quick Charge.

I never understood the point of the play and charge kit when rechargeable AAs are so much cheaper and more versatile. Though I usually use a wired controller, I have a wireless one too, and I use the same rechargeable AAs for that as I do for my wiimotes. Why would you limit yourself to batteries that only work in one device?

No option for MS Rechargeable battery and stand alone quick charger so had to choose play & charge kit... not the same thing but the closest on the list.

MS battery & charger charges much faster than standard rechargeable AAs and price wise, are around the same, that's why I use this.

Gave up charging mine and bought a wired pad and never looked back

Wired FTW

You can pick up the ni-mh battery-packs pretty cheap now (usually in the twin packs). If your running a decent rapidfire mod u need to have the charge cable in while u play for voltage prescision aqnd consistency.
I also use recharge-able AA's (Hi Current output 'alkalines') They sometimes out-last the older packs. :-)

The only thing that sucks with having the cable is that they don't have good strain-relief and as a result the inner wires work-harden resulting in undesirable effects such as not-charging all the way to stuffing the controller/battery (alltho dead controllers don't seem to occur as much as they used to with the newer design M$ are putting-out)

Voted for rechargeable AAs.

A relatively minor question, can the play and charge kit be used without any sort of batteries/battery pack installed? MS says you can't but I'd like to hear from gamers who use it on a da-to-day basis

wired controller is the way to go, it's lighter the cable is long enough and u won't ever need a power supply of any kind the cost is around 25euros, cheaper than a wireless so is the way to go if u spend too much hours in front of ur xbox

I use rechargeable AA from dollar store but I would rather be useing a wired controller if I had one.

Play and charge kits are for nubs! . I use 2500mAh rechargeable AAs from Aldi's @ £1.99 for a 4 pack. They last for ever!. I also have a wired controller for the homebrew console .

I use my modded wireless with M$ play-n-charge for live console and wired for xbr box. Both are M$ brand controllers.
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/3351/janky.png
No it's not rapidfire. Duke thumbs with shaved down holes so it hits 100%, heel liners and silicon skin for comfort.
I prefer wired controllers. I dont sit far enough away from my tvs to be bothered by the length of the wires. That and the weight of the wireless is better/lighter. Though those energiezer lithium are very light. If I had another set of duke thumbs I'd do it to the wired.

Rechargable energizer. I have four so two are always charged never have to wait or look for batteries. I was thinking of buying a wired controller maybe I'll get one soon.

the problem with NIMH battery's is if you store them with a full charge not inside a device that uses at least a small amount of power like a wiimote or 360 controller they go dead, so if your don't plan on using the battery for a wile ether put um in something like that or drain them first.

I had a total of 6 AA's and now I'm down to two because of this. since I'm more concerned with the real world and I only play video games every few months or so.

2500/2700mAh rechargeable AA's for me.
I've been using them for a few years in all manner of things, so the 360 controllers weren't even a question. They last a good long time and charge quickly overnight. If they die on me while playing I just use a couple regular AA's that I have on hand for that.
The only thing I don't like is the bulging battery pack on the back of the controller, but that would be there regardless.

Yes it can. I sometimes use it when I don't have batteries to use.

Rechargeable Energizers from 2300 to 2500mh. I have one controller with a play and charge that wouldn't hold a charge so I took the battery pack apart and stuffed some brand new Energizers in it. Take longer to charge high capacity AAs but it's worth it.

Therealpeppers:

Thats the reason why i went with teh rayovac 4.0 batteries. they are low self discharge nimh, kind of like eneloops but not quite as good. However they were only a buck each. I also use a slow trickle charger this way i can just swap batteries as i go and leave them in there until needed. I do the same with the AAA's in the turtle beach headsets.

I have rechargeable in everything I own. The new precharged batteries hold charges for a long time and are much better. I have multiple chargers, some charge in 15 minutes, some 12 hours, but the one I normally use is around 2 hours for normal rechargeable and 15 minutes for 15 minute batteries.

Energizer suck, they are the only batteries ive had fail on me (besides 2 that looked chewed on). I usually go with rayovac, rayovac was also the first with 15 minute batteries and the first with pre charged.

I do it all the time. Works fine

Rechargeable Energizers, though I was using a wired Mad Catz controller until something went wonky with the dead zone on the left stick.

Use the same exact batteries in my Wii remote. Well, I have 4 of them, so not the same exact individual batteries at the same exact time. Usually it's two in the charger, and two in the controller for whichever system I'm currently using the most (right now that'd be the 360, a couple months back it was the Wii).

$10 for the play and charge kit and $5 for each rechargable battery from the M$ store.

cheap ones on ebay last longer than you would expect and for $1.99 u cant go wrong

Duracell 2000mAh-DX1500NiMH
Works great, lasts a few days, Chrages in 6 hours but comes with 4AA, i just charge while sleeping


You sure you not confusing them with the NI-Cd batteries, cause those die if you dont use them, but i have some NIMh that i haven't charged or used in 4months, i charged them two days ago, and they're still going strong

Nyko Charge Station.

Takes a little bit longer then the Official M$ Charge Station to charge the packs, but they last about the same, a little shorter. You get 2 packs instead of 1 for the same price as official. I bought Official M$ packs to use in the charge though. The Official packs have lasted over a year and still hold a charge for quite a while.

yup i am on sanyo enelops to best rechargable batteries ever ,and got some some nimh sanyos 2700mah to

rechargeable AA duracell batteries all the way. I use them in my 360 controllers, my mouse and my keyboard. had them years in these, still hold charge as good as new. last weeks before need charging in 360 controller, and in my charger charge as quick as lightning. allways have 2 charged on the side for those 12hour cod days just in case. cant believe people buy those play and charge kits lol.

i use duracell 2650mAh and a panasonic BQ-395 quick charger. nothing but the best

all you guys who use energizer, seriously buy 1 pack of these and you will never go back. i tried a pack of energizers and the last no where near as long as the duracells.

just annoying having to have 2x wireless headsets as you cant put batteries in them. cant stand turtle beach's, got full 5.1 surround sound setup anyway.

wired all day long

Used to use P&C kits but recently bought a load of 2800MAh AAs from Amazon and using these now. I found the P&C battery packs die too quickly and some won't charge on certain controllers of mine!

No, regular NIMH batterys without a feature to prevent it will break if you store them with a full charge, this can be prevented by ether putting then inside something that uses at least a very small amount of power at all times or by draining the charge b4 you put them away

Oh thats why mine still worked, they weren't charged when i stored them.

I use the $5 play-and-charge knockoffs from DealExtreme:

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.17811

wired FTW

I use Sony 2500 mAh rechargable AA I have one of those Sony LCD chargers I wanted to have a MAHA, but those are very hard to find in my country

Sony 2500mAh. 2 pair for my 2 controllers. They last around 1 year of considerable use... can't say the same of the OP&C Kit. Although the kit is more comfortable because you can play while charging.

Cheers.

I use the offical MS batteries with quick charge kit. At first I was using that play and charge USB wire, but after a few charges that thing messes up the battery and it will only last a little while before you need to plug the cable back in.

With the quick charge, battery goes in the base and is fully charged in 5 minutes. No complaints now.

I used to use duracell rechargable 2650mah batteries, now im using duracell active charge 2000mah, they are awesome and they don't lose the charge even if a year has passed...

And now duracell has a 15minute charger which is pretty awesome together with they'r active charge rechargable AA's, if u run out of batteries (I never run out of batteries), u fully charge them in 15 minutes..., but it's not recomended, because it will reduce the 1000 rechargable times to like 500 (i use the slow charger)...

ps: i have duracell 8x 2650 mah rechargable batteries, duracell 4x 2000mah active charge, and a few more of other marks, but for the gamepad i use only the active charge, they last very long and dont lose the charge for a long time...
Keep Cool

Why isn't there an option for the quick charge kit?

It's a first party charger.

Any way, that's what I use. I have one battery in my controller and two in the quick charge kit. Makes it really easy and I never have to connect a cable to the controller. Just swap the batteries.

Eneloops FTW

+1 haha i think im the only one using a white wired controller on an elite? the whole wireless controllers lost its appeal when i wore out 2 battery packs in the first year of the console's life...

the wise choice is ... Rechargeable (NiMh) AA's.

because those are much cheaper and work just as good as official battery packs etc.

Powerex(maha) 2700's...with a nice 8 battery maha speed charger.

worth every penny.

Official Play and Charge Kit [39.40%]
Regular AAs [16.09%]

Well, this certainly explains all the moronic posts in every news thread.

gotta be all original stuff