[Music] Hi I'm Dustin Abbott there are a lot of Different battery chargers and Third-party batteries on the market at This point I've spent time I think with At least four different thirdparty brand Batteries for my Sony cameras and a few For my Canon cameras at this point the Alano concept that I'm covering here Today is in theory just a better way to Ensure your batteries are always charged And also to have plenty of power backup This is a kit that come with a really Impressive dual Bay charger along with Two different batteries that come with It and so you have lots of power backup For either your Canon or Sony cameras And they both come in a couple of Different configurations depending upon What Sony or Canon camera that you need This is a really well equipped kit that Comes in for a little under $100 and so This review is going to break down how Well does the charger work and how well Do the batteries work starting with the Charger itself as I unboxed it I was Impressed with the presentation but even More so with what all is included in the Package you've got your batteries you've Got your charger there's a manual There's a wrist strap I don't know why You'd want to carry this around but who Knows maybe you would there is a pouch To store everything in a charging cable
Uh the one thing that you don't get is a Power brick for AC power to plug into The wall so it's assuming you have a way To plug a USBC cable into something and If you don't obviously that could be an Additional purchase for probably most of Us at this point we have multiple ways Of plugging a USBC cable into power Through some way I was also impressed by The overall design it's kind of a clever Design for Wei photographers and that It's designed to look essentially like a Camera instead of the actual um lens Here you've got an LCD screen that will Show the state of charge individually For each of the two batteries you've got A button here that in this case I can Press it and it will power up the LCD Screen to show me what is going on with The state of charge inside very very Nice materials soft touch materials Everything is very nicely made up to Including even the way that the Batteries uh click in it's a very Definite there's nothing loose there They're not going to fall out and so you Have a really nice feel of precision and The way that it it all comes together They've even got a slot here for an SD Card to actually lock lock in just as it Would in kind of locking into your Camera and so you have the place to Store a backup SD card now of course if Your camera uses something other than SD
You're out of luck but most of them Still have at least a single SD card Slot There this one of the interesting things I found is that as expected when you Have it plugged in it obviously is going To show you the state of charge while They're charging but I also like the Fact that it will allow you to draw just A tiny bit of current off the batteries Themselves to show the LCD readout for The state of Of charge if you click the button there And so obviously then after uh 30 Seconds or so so the screen will power Back off and so it's not wasting battery But you do have the the opportunity even If you're not plugged in to evaluate What the state of the charge of the Batteries inside are so how accurate is That readout uh I've tested with both of These I actually think that the Canon U Version may be very slightly more Accurate than what the Sony was but as Far as what the Sony was I did multiple Tests and when I had the B battery Inside the charger it showed the state Of charge at either 78 or 80% I ran it Multiple times and I got 781 80 another I put the battery into the camera and The camera showed a state of charge at 92% I would say that was pretty Typically the case that the case maybe Under uh maybe slightly under reported
What the camera itself did and so I I Actually would probably prefer it that Way I'd like to be pleasantly surprised When I put the battery in the camera and Show a little bit higher state of charge There than what I saw um Elsewhere so I was interested in seeing On paper this is rated at 18 watts and So interesting to see how that actually Played out so I used one of my blue Addie power stations actually a model That I'm currently reviewing right now And I wanted to see what these were Actually pulling and then compare it to The Sony charger the trickle charging in The camera itself and see how it all Played out and so uh initially when I Plugged this in with one battery inside It was drawing at 13 watts and it took About 170 minutes for it to go from 0% to 100% So why is that well when you get up to About 80% of charge as is typical with Most quality you know battery management Software powering and charging devices You get to about 80% and rather than Trying to cram the top end of the Battery which actually starts to Decay Battery life quickly it will start to Slow down and trickle charge so towards The end it was 5 watts and then 3 Watts As it slowed down to almost nothing at The end to allow that to give you as Many recharge Cycles as possible in the
Battery itself and so you know I tried Then using the just using the actual Camera to charge in camera in my uh you My Canon or Sony cameras I have the Ability to charge in camera and those Drew at about 12 to 13 watt so a pretty Similar state of charge compared to the Alano charger now of course the Advantage is is that I can put two Batteries into this and then I'm drawing 17 to 18 watts and that's where the Actual 18 Watts come in and then so the Advantage there is that I can actually Charge two batteries for not much slower A time than what I can charge a single Battery and that's where probably the Genius is of this is that if you need to Charge multiple batteries you can do so Much more quickly and of course you have The advantage of being able to charge Two at a time versus one at a time so How' that compare to the Sony charger Now this Sony charger this is the BC uh Qz1 charger so I will note about this I Have it because I have multiple of these Because they came included with my Cameras I do know however from reviewing Sony cameras that they tend to only come With the high-end reate expensive Cameras so you may not have one of these Included with your camera when you Purchase it if you're going to CH buy it Individually it costs a hundred bucks so It costs as much for just the charger as
What you get the Alano charger and two Batteries as well for so from a value Proposition this obviously makes a lot More sense this charger is rated at 150 Minutes to charge a battery so remember It took about 170 minutes here now when I compared them side by side it was kind Of an interesting result because I Started off two batteries fully depleted One in here one in the Alano charger Initially this Drew at 26 Watts when Plugged into the AC power of the the Bluetti charging station that I was Using whereas this is only drawing 13 Watts and so in theory it should charge Twice as fast that's actually not the Way that it played out um when I I got To a place where I was as I was Monitoring to them neither of them was Drawing any measurable current at all so It was right at the end of of topping Off the very top of the battery that was About 2 hours into the process and Neither one of them showed 100% yet but When I took the batteries out and put Them into the camera they were like 98 99% so interestingly though this starts Off a lot faster it didn't necessarily Charge the battery faster overall I Would say that it is very slightly Faster but not any kind of big Meaningful way so my conclusion on the Charger is that it's probably a little Bit a bit little bit slower than this
Dedicated Sony charger but your Advantage is obviously you've got dual Base your connection source is USBC Which is going to be much more flexible Than this kind of old school proprietary End here that is only for a certain Charge cable Whereas with the Alano you can go with a A smaller overall package even though It's to dual Bay and then also you have The chance of charging off of anything That provides USBC power which obviously Is a lot of devices compared to that AC Power this using DC um allows you just More flexibility for that whole charging Process so anyway I like that point and Of course obviously I like the value Proposition I like the cleaner interface Uh with the Sony charger all you're Getting is just the three green bars so A very kind of sloppy way of showing State of charge this is you know down to A single percentage Point that's Obviously much more precise and more Useful to let you know where you're at In the whole charging process so how Well do the batteries work I've been Using these batteries exclusively for The last 5 weeks now as is Pretty common With third-party batteries they're Actually rated technically at higher Than what the first party Sony battery Is the Alano battery is rated at 2400 Mah the Sony battery at 2280 Mah so you
On paper 120 Mah Advantage for the Alano Battery what I found in actuality in Using them is that when I did a runtime Test I I decided to do a real world test Using one of the most kind of high power Draw things that you can do in a modern Camera and that is to shoot higher Resolution 4K video so I shot 4K 60 Video in my a7r mark 5 started off first With the alarm Alano battery at 100% state of charge And I used 160 GB uh it's a CFA card in There and so I had lots of room to Record so I started the test for the Alano battery at 7:22 a.m. and at 8:57 The battery died on me and so that was An hour and 35 minutes at that point I Was it was kind of a moot point anyway It was showing that my 160 gig card was Essentially just about full and so the The battery went first but the card was Just about to go so after allowing time For the camera to cool down I did a Sony Test started the Sony test at 9:20 a.m. Using a fully charged Sony battery same Parameters and it ran till 10:56 so That's an hour and 36 minutes however a Difference being is that here it was the Card that showed exhausted the battery Still showed about 5% battery life left and so my Conclusion is is that even though the Alano is higher capacity it actually in Terms of real world use it is very
Slightly about 5 to 6% it is very Slightly less capacity for real world Use than what an oem Sony battery is so Is the Sony battery better I would say Yes but on a positive note I've used These batteries exclusively for the last 5 weeks I've not seen one warning so Zero compatibility issues at least at This stage so that's huge I will note That I think that there is the camera Was maybe a split second slower powering On probably some kind of power check That it runs it takes a little bit Longer with the Alano battery but it's It's so slight that it was just an Impression I had I can't verify it Because the time is still too short but A very I think just a split-second delay Longer and powering on the camera but Outside of that zero compatibility Issues an oem Sony battery cost $78 per Battery so you get two batteries 160 Bucks if you were to get two Batteries Plus the charger that's 260 bucks Whereas here we have $100 for the Dual Bay charger and two batteries to go with It so you can question other things I Mean obviously the Sony stuff is Probably just a hair better but the Alano is very very close within a few Percentage points you can question how Long the reliability is going to be fit And finish seems to be good but Obviously I've only used them for 5
Weeks so I can't answer that question I Can say this though on the value Proposition ah there's no question that This is a very strong value and it's Also a really well executed package in Terms of the materials in terms of the Functionality I've really liked it I Probably will continue to use it and That's really the best endorsement that I can give I'm Dustin Abbott and if you Want more information you can check out The link to the Amazon listing for the Elano uh battery charger and kit and as Noted you can get this in either Sony or Canon configurations and a couple of Different battery options and the price Will vary a little bit smaller capacity Batteries are going to cost a little bit Less obviously these batteries cost just A little bit more so check it out there If you want more information as always Thanks for watching have a great day and Let the light in [Music]
