Cute as the Original, Even Better at Charging

Review by Erik Vlietinck

The original PROCUBE was a charging cube with multiple wired charge trays and a separate tray to charge four AA NiMH cells at a time. The new PROCUBE2 is a smaller cube, but the battery tray system has changed and the unit shows more information on its clearer LCD display.

Hahnel’s PROCUBE2 exists for various camera brands, including Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, Sony, Olympus, and Fujifilm. Some of these brands have many different camera types with their batteries sharing the same charging requirements, which made Hahnel decide to bundle multiple trays together with the same cube. In the original PROCUBE, the system to switch the trays was not very simple nor was it easy to switch those trays; it involved fiddling with a couple of thin, breakable wires.

The new version of the PROCUBE has wireless trays that you can just click in place. This saves time, but it’s also more difficult to break an essential part of the device. And there’s more. Once you start charging a single battery or two of them, the PROCUBE2 will now show you how much power has been added, which allows for a quick top-up charge.

Strangely enough, it won’t show you how much power you still had upon inserting the battery. It will check your battery’s health with a pretty accurate result, though (I checked with a multimeter). The new model will also charge with more specific care for your brand’s batteries, although the first version was good in this respect as well.

The PROCUBE2, which comes with a 12 V car adapter and 2.4 Amp USB charging port, is a bit smaller than its predecessor, but there’s still a AA battery tray that will charge four AA cells at a time. ■