In households where battery powered items are a necessity; from wireless controllers, TV remotes and other electronic devices it's always convenient and often greater value for money having a good quality battery charger available.

I don't exactly know where to start with this charger but I want to press the issue that it is not a terrible charger itself and works just like it should do and is a nice compact size as I've often seen chargers that are unnecessarily bulky and sometimes don't fit in normal socket spaces - so the size was nice as it slotted in between other plugs on the extension cable. It looks smart and sleek with a china white design and minimal exterior detail.

However, the disappointing part of the charger is that it only accommodates apples' own batteries supplied with the charger and refuses to charge any other brands of batteries despite them being the same type of battery as the apple branded ones. Obviously apple has developed some way of identifying their own batteries within the charger as I tried several different types of rechargeable batteries and it rejected all of them.

I noticed that there wasn't much life in the batteries also and required regular charging. Perhaps this was due to the capacity of the batteries - however they were plain in design and had only "rechargeable batteries" printed on them and no information as to how long they'd take on average. A red light on the charger indicates that the batteries are either not in correctly or that it is rejecting the batteries/not charging them, orange light indicates charging in process and of course; a green light shows that charging is complete and you're ready to go.

The life of the batteries lasted only a couple of weeks; for instance I am on my xbox literally every day, whenever I have any time spare whatsoever - whether it's having film and tv on in the background or playing games and music, I always need my controller and it's on for quite a few hours in the week and I found that I'd have to charge the batteries fully again after about 2 weeks, which in theory isn't particularly bad but since apple claims the life of the batteries are supposed to be longer than this you aren't really getting your moneys worth with this charger.

Personally I'd opt for a more efficient brand such as duracell. I recently purchased a mini coloured duracell charger for just £5 and my batteries are lasting twice as long as the apple ones and cost a third of the price too! I'm not impressed with this charger from apple and I'm glad I got my money back!