Our pick
This is the charger we’d buy. It has a fold-out plug—so it sits flush on your wall outlet—and notification lights over each battery slot. And it can charge up to four batteries at a time.
The four-slot Panasonic Eneloop BQ-CC55 is simple to use: You pop in the batteries—any brand of AA or AAA NiMH batteries will do—and then you flip open the AC plug, stick the charger in your wall outlet, and wait for the status lights to indicate that each battery is fully charged. An auto-shutoff feature automatically detects the batteries’ charge level and cuts off power after they’re done charging. The BQ-CC55 is made by a company we trust based on decades of customer experience, and it performed well in our battery-capacity and drain-time testing. It also has a neutral, unobtrusive look that will blend into the background of most rooms.
Also great
This eight-slot charger is ideal for households that use lots of batteries for toys, gaming controllers, and more. Despite holding twice as many batteries as our other picks, this charger is relatively small and compact, and its screen gives you key info at a glance.
The Tenergy TN480U eight-bay charger is the best choice for people who regularly need to charge a lot of NiMH batteries at once. It has eight individually charging battery slots, and it charges AA, AAA, and AAAA batteries. The TN480U’s screen tells you which batteries are charging and how charged they are, on a scale of one to five. This charger is smaller and more compact than most eight-slot chargers we’ve tested, so it easily blends in with its surroundings.
The screen is bright and simple to read when viewed up close, but from a distance it’s pleasantly subtle. The TN480U is powered via Micro-USB or USB-C, and it comes with a Micro-USB charging cable and rubber-band cable tie (though you’ll have to supply your own USB wall charger).
Also great
This four-slot charger measures battery capacity, voltage, internal resistance, and charge time. It can charge AA, AAA, AAAA, and C batteries, including lithium- and nickel-based batteries, all with custom charge rates.
The Tenergy TN456 four-bay charger is the best option for people who want to helicopter-parent their batteries, potentially making them last longer. It lets you set custom charge rates from 300 to 1,000 milliamperes (mA) to charge a variety of battery sizes at their most efficient rates. It also allows you to keep a close eye on your batteries’ capacity, voltage, internal resistance, and charge times. Unlike the rest of our picks, this charger is compatible with both lithium- and nickel-based batteries, and its size-adjustable slots let you charge a wide variety of battery types, including AA, AAA, AAAA, and C (the only one of our picks to charge the latter).
