Joytech Wii Power Station

This product is an absolute must have for any Wii owners out there, it may not be the cheapest wiimote charger on the market but it is definitely the best solution to date. The joytech powerstation allows you to store and charge two wiimote simultaniously as well as provide a handy place for the nunchuck controllers you have.

I was going through a pack of four duracell AA batteries every week to two weeks before I bought this item and since then it has more than paid for itself considering the amount of money that I would have spent on batteries over the past few months

Out of the box:
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The device comes in a difficult to get into blister pack but straight away it is pretty obvious how it works, what goes where and what to do. the instructions clear up any confusion. The Charger takes its power from the Nintendo Wii's power supply directly and so means it must be close enough to the Wii itself. the power cable is about one and a half meters long.

How it works:
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The solution proposed by joytech is to replace the batteries and battery compartment cover of the wiimote with a combined cover/battery pack that has two metal contacts on the rear. Once this is inserted the wiimote will stand smartly upright in the charger with the contacts meeting two metal pins. An LED for each of the two ports turns red to indcate charging in progress and then green wjen charging is complete. There can be a few Problems in lining up the charger with the remote that I will discuss later.

Design: The look and feel
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The design of the device is stylish and functional and I was pleased to see that the colour scheme was inkeeping with the current white/grey nintento wii design. It looks pretty good lined up next to my wii at home by the tele And it doesn't take up too much space even with the nunchuk holders extended the device measures under 20cm wide and under 5cm high not including the remotes. While I am glad they are there the nunchuck holding arms do seem to be not as well thought out as the rest of the product, something of an afterthought.
Also, a negative in the design aspect is the failure to account for the wiimote safety strap. No matter what way you put the controller in, with strap underneath, to the side or up behind, it causes the remotes to sit funny and lean over which isn't great and also can lead to the remote not taking a charge because of poor or no contact. You definitely should wait to ssee the red light come on before you walk away.

Durability:
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This charger does not seem like it will break any time soon but if it did i would buy another one for sure because it has saved me so much already. If any part of it did break i suspect it would be the nunchuck controller arms as they do seem quite flimsy. Also, I bought through amazon and the first one I got I had to send back because one pack didn't take a charge, this is the only example of this fault that I have heard of bit I though I should mention it anyway.

Value for money:
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I paid £17 pounds for this product and have had it for 5 months now. I think i would have paid around £30 at least on batteries in that time alone and this thing isn't going to break on me soon I hope. If it lasts a year it will easily pay for itself three times over. Thats good value for money in my opinion.

To me it makes a lot of sense to get one of these from anywhere. They really do make things tidier around the wii and if you have two remotes you'd be crazy not to. It is a shame for me about the way the missed little things like the strap but this is still above the other products around right now.