http://www.xtar.cc/product/XTAR-VC8-Charger-125.html
For review / test I have the Xtar VC8 charger . What we have is a multi battery ( 8 ) , multi charge rate , Nimh / Li-ion charger ( 1.5v / 4.2v ) . Depending on the charge bay used , you have 3000mAh / 2000mAh / 1000mAh / 500mAh and 250mAh charge rates to chose from . These charge rates should cover just about 99% of your charge requirements . The power source required is either 5v USB or 9v USB making this charger very mobile ( any USB source ) .
Charging 18650 :
I really like the way this charger rolls with Li-ion , good quality batteries come off the charger at 4.19v and batteries with higher internal resistance ( older batteries ) come off the charger at lower voltage as the charger does not appear to try and force 4.2v onto batteries of lower quality . I really appreciate modern chargers that are so much safer than the chargers from say 10 years ago .
Charging AA :
I really like the VC8 for it's 8 charge bays . Charging 8 AA at a time really makes charging batteries easy . ( Especially if you have a lot of AA ) Now a lot of chargers terminate AA charging at about 1.46v or maybe 1.48v . The VC8 takes my Nimh over 1.5v , I pulled one battery off the charger at 1.52v and it was still charging . At this time I don't know how high the VC8 might take the AA , but anything over 1.5v is probably a waste as NIMH just don't do what dry cells and Alkalines do voltage wise .
USB Power Source :
I am still waiting on two USB power supplies so I can test the VC8 further . Right now I don't have a USB power source capable of doing the charger justice and I had to resort to using a Y cable , so I could use two USB power sources to feed the charger . I would at this time say that the achilles heel of this charger is the power source . If you start doing some math , you will quickly find that very few USB power supplies can do this charger justice . Which is why I would love to see in the future a better option ( or added option ) , like 12v to 18v DC power supply support built into the VC8 .
Conclusion :
At this time I am not going to draw a conclusion as I don't have a USB power source that comes close to doing the VC8 justice . It's Saturday today , so hopefully I will have some better USB power sources early next week ( locally sourced - I thought ? ) . So there will have to be a part 2 to this . So maybe this was just a preview ?