This is something I purchased only a week or two after buying my 360, and I would consider it essential for anyone who uses the 360 wireless controller. It might cost significantly more than a pack of batteries, but it will not be long before you are saving money, especially if you are a heavy gamer (although I would recommend this product to all 360 owners).
The play and charge kit works by having you connect a rechargeable battery pack into the slot where your normal battery pack would go on the controller. The external appearance of the normal battery pack and the rechargeable battery pack included in this kit are basically identical and you will not notice the difference btween the two. It also follows the off-white colour scheme of Xbox 360.
Once your controller is beginning to run low on batteries, you are informed of this in two separate ways. Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, the lights around the Xbox guide button of your controller begin to flash and spin round periodically, which is generally quite noticeable and alerts you quickly to the fact that your controller is running low. Secondly, if you press the Xbox guide button on your controller, you will see a graphical representation of the remaining battery charge in your controller.
The flashing lights on your controller begin to appear when the battery pack gets below half charge. At this point, although you can continue playing until the battery gets completely flat, you should plug your controller in so it can recharge. To do this you use the cable that came in the pack. One end of the cable is a standard USB connector that fits on one of the USB ports of the front of the console, and the other end has a connector that fits into the battery pack on your controller. Once plugged in, a light illuminates on the battery pack connector to tell you the current charge status of your play and charge kit. It will display red until it is completely charged up, at which point the light will switch to green. From my experience, recharging to full charge from when the Xbox guide controller lights begin to flash takes in the region of 1-2 hours. Considering you can continue playing during this time, I believe this represents a very good recharge time, especially as you get around 20 hours play time before the warning lights come on again.
I recommend the play and charge kit because it is a product which fulfils it purpose perfectly and is very simple to use; you only need to plug a cable in and the cable, being several metres in length, should be more than long enough for 99 percent of users. It does exactly what it says on the tin (play and charge) extremely well, but no more. It will also save you quite a bit of battery money in the long run.
The product is not a perfect one, however. Whilst using the play and charge kit, your wireless controller temporarily becomes a wired controller during recharging, but this is not so bad given the short recharge time and so hasn't affected my overall rating of the product.
What prevents me from giving this product an overall rating of five stars is that, given the fact it seems this product is near essential for any gamer, why was this kit not included with the Xbox 360 premium system? Given that one of the benefits of the premium bundle is wireless controller functionality straight out of the box, it would make sense for this kit to be included.
Despite this, I can wholeheartedly recommend this product to all 360 gamers.
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Recharge your Xbox 360 Wireless Controller while you play and kiss disposable batteries ... more
goodbye! Complete with a charging cable and rechargeable battery pack, the Xbox 360 Play and Charge Kit is all you need to juice up your Xbox 360 Wireless Controlle...
Postage & Packaging: £4.50 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Jul 31st, 2007
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