MadCatz Wii Fit Battery Pack > Reviews (1)

MadCatz Wii Fit Battery Pack

After months of searching we finally managed to get hold of a Nintendo Wii Fit board back in July which was hugely popular with the whole family and used almost every second that the house was occupied.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the Nintendo Wii and the Wii fit balance board I will explain these briefly first. The Wii is a games console which uses a handheld remote for interactive play (simulating tennis etc). The Wii fit balance board is a rectangular board which the user stands on and it links up wirelessly to the Wii and is used to improve health through balance games, muscle and yoga poses and aerobic exercise games. The Wii fit balance board measures and monitors weight, centre of gravity etc and feeds this back wirelessly to the Wii console plugged into your television.

Due to its popularity in my household we were getting through bucketloads of batteries for the Wii balance board. The board takes 4 AA batteries and whilst they were lasting reasonably well, the sheer amount of use that the board was getting meant that it was costing us a fortune.

Looking on amazon we found the MadCatz Wii Fit Battery Pack. At a reduced price of £4 it seemed incredibly cheap and we half expected it to be useless. The battery pack is basically 4 rechargable batteries contained in a plastic case which allows easy charging without fiddling around with individual batteries.

When it arrived we saw that the battery pack was fairly compact and not much bigger than 4 AA batteries put together. It was the same grey colour as the bottom of the Wii Balance board and fitted perfectly into the section under the board that you would usually insert the 4 batteries into. The battery pack comes with a grey wire which plugs directly into the flat outer side of the battery pack and connects via USB to the back of the Wii Console. Being a USB connection - the battery pack can also be charged by plugging it into a computer or laptop. The cable is 2metres long making it easy to keep it connected during gameplay if needed.

One of the great things about this battery pack is that it can be charged whilst plugged into the board and whilst the board is in use without interrupting game play which is fantastic if you are impatient and don't want to have to wait for the thing to charge!

We initially alternated between batteries while the battery pack was charging and then swapping between the two - but now we just use the battery pack either charging it whilst the board is in use or removing it and charging it separately when the board is not in use.

The initial charge time is 2 ½ hours and after this it will require a shorter charge time. The manufacturers claim that the battery pack will last for 20 hours before it needs recharging. I wouldn't say that ours lasts that long but it does come close and we are satified with how long it lasts.Overall we are very impressed with this bargain buy. They usually retail at around £12 but even this I think is very reasonable.

Ours still works just as well as it did in July and it has saved us a lot of money that would have otherwise been spend on endless batteries. I would summarise the main advantages and disadvantages as follows:

Good Points

• Saves you A LOT of money on batteries
• USB connection allows it to take charge from the Wii console or a computer
• Compact simple design which fits well into the balance board
• Holds its charge well and lasts at least 14 hours of gameplay.
• easy to charge both separately and while connected to the board
• low cost makes it great value for money
• doesn't take too long to charge
• easily available at most electronics retailers

Bad Points

• cannot be charged from the mains due to being a USB connection
• doesn't realistically last the advertised 20 hours.

Overall

So as you can see the positives far outweigh the negatives and for anyone who has a Wii fit balance board, I would definitely recommend this as it is such good value for money and it a much better alternative to batteries. They are currently on offer on many websites such as amazon and definitely get 5 stars from me.