Product Description: With this ergonomic rechargeable Power Grip for Nintendo DS Lite, you'll enjoy longer periods of gaming without having to recharge. It's great for road trips or flights.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Item is discontinued
I experienced similar problems that others have described. The charger will stay on charge all day long but give only a few minutes worth of extra power to the NDS when switched to play mode. It also gets noticeably warm, almost hot, in that center battery area while in play mode.
I called NYKO for support and was informed that the item has been discontinued. There is no other similar product offered by the company for the NDS. I was offered a measure of credit towards any other product on their web site but the only items for NDS amounted to a light-up stylus and a camouflage carrying case with a matching car charger. Hardly a replacement for a charger grip that would have been amazing for that upcoming 11-hour overseas flight.
So I'm out ten bucks because the retailer has no more for exchange. I can either hack the device to try to fix the battery or take a chance wasting another ten bucks for a possible working device. Now where's that tri-blade screwdriver?
Rating: - Second one works fine
The first Charger Grip we received wouldn't charge. NYKO customer service advised exchanging it for a new unit. Returning it through Amazon was very easy as postage and mailing label printed easily from the Amazon website. The replacement Charger Grip arrived faster than the first and has worked flawlessly to provide on the fly recharges to my son's Nintendo DS lite. It was definitely a better choice than buying a generic replacement battery for the aging original equipment Nintendo rechargeable battery. I have no hesitation in recommending this product. Excellent value.
Rating: - Works pretty well as a grip -- bad as a battery
Upon someone's suggestion I decided to try one of these. I didn't see any other similar products that didn't look to be of a really low quality, so I went ahead with this.
First of all, as you'll note others saying, there are issues with the built in battery. It doesn't charge well (and gets worse very quickly over time.) More importantly though, it tries to force too much power through at once or shorts out or something, so drains the battery even faster (and getting it even hotter) and even has been reported in some cases to damage chargers (I did not test this much, so can't comment on how true this is or is not.) In the case of mine, it was already so bad by the time I got it as to make the charger part useless. It would not even hold enough charge to power the DS for more than a second after the orange light came on before it would quit (and this is even with the DS turned off.) After some deliberation I decided it wasn't worth trying to send back as I bought this for the grip rather than the charger and simply cut that part off (though if you have the security screwdriver it would be better simply to disable it as that part works very nicely to help hold the DS in place -- despite that it seems to have been intended for that though, my DS seems to stay in well. If I need an emergency charger, I have a USB charging cable and there are many devices that can power USB devices via a battery. Now I just use it as a grip. Which brings me to my second point.
As a grip, it's not so bad. I wish it were a little thinner in the middle to give the sides more roundness. Also, it still doesn't perfectly solve the problem that some games can be a little rough on the hands (particularly Mario Kart) so it may not be ideal for everyone (but then it doesn't help that my hands are just the wrong size apparently -- small for an adult, but large for a child.) I do still get some discomfort from time to time and can see some room for improvement here and there, but, overall it does succeed in making using a DS Lite easier on the hands by a fair margin. One thing I like is how it uses the stylus holder to help hold the DS in and provides a stylus holder in itself to compensate. Sadly though, the stylus can be really hard to pull out of the provided holder with this grip which might be a problem in some games requiring one to work quickly.
PS. Remember people, even lithium ion batteries loose capacity as you use more recharge cycles. If your DS has been used for a long time, you may just need a new battery more than you need any sort of backup charger. I would suggest that if you are considering this product, you should consider it more on the merits as a grip than any sort of backup power system. I do rate it a 3/5 because it has a decent amount of room for improvement as a grip, but overall I feel like it's worth the relatively small amount I spent on it.
Rating: - Everything I was expecting!
My NDS is my number one companion on trips, specially per plane. So this has turned out to be an excellent purchase for my ever growing collection. It will give me extra battery when I'm unable to charge my DS making it much easier to carry around without worries
5 to 8 extra charge hours? Who could ask for anything more?!?!?
Rating: - Great stuff
It combines very well to things that I was looking for my DS: more time to play and in a comfortable way.
- Item is discontinued
- Works pretty well as a grip -- bad as a battery
- Everything I was expecting!
