How do you keep power in your Xbox controllers? Perhaps you’re one of the few that swap a set of Duracell’s in and out on a regular basis. Maybe you utilise a bit of USB-C power direct from your favourite phone charger. Maybe you’re still an old-school wired controller fan and game with the PowerA FUSION Pro 2 firmly in your hands.
Well, if you have cut ties and are looking for a new option, PowerA have got your back with their Dual Charging Station, Designed for Xbox (or the Duo Charging Station as it is sometimes known) and additional Rechargeable Battery Pack.
As you’d expect to hear, the PowerA Dual Charging Station is capable of charging one, or two, Xbox controllers at once. It’s a big black slab of plastic, designed well with some decent cutouts to fit controllers nicely. This means that your pads can be slapped on without issue, as things connect up, throw out the charge and ensure that your gaming sessions keep rolling.
This is done thanks to the inclusion of two battery packs – both sitting at 1100mAh – and no less than four battery covers. You may wonder why four are needed, but with the arrival of Xbox Series X|S and the next-gen controller, Microsoft – in their infinite wisdom – decided to change the connectors of their battery covers, moving two tiny tabs. This then meant that all those Xbox One covers we had built up over the years, couldn’t be used with Xbox Series X|S controllers. And vice versa. It’s nice then that PowerA are catering for gamers in both camps, with two door types.
Batteries attach in the usual way, slotting into the controller nicely, whilst the covers themselves slide over with ease. There’s absolutely no issues with the Dual Charging Station in that regard.
There’s also no issue in knowing when – or when not – your controllers are charging. Bright red LEDs emit when a controller is supping charge from the Station, both on the front of the unit and with a secondary light sitting inside the unit cutouts. It ensures that the PowerA Dual Charging Station looks good and allows for immediate trust as to when controllers are ready – those red lights turn white when fully charged. You should find you get around forty hours of power from two fully charged controllers.
The controllers stay put on the Station thanks to some grippy uppers, whilst the bottom of the unit itself is treated to some nice rubberised feet . This certainly won’t be moving in a hurry.
The bottom of the unit is also how you plug this PowerA offering in, thanks to an AC adapter complete with a barrel charger on the end. This is immediately strange, mostly as we’ve been used to plugging our charging docks into the USB-A ports found on our Xbox consoles over the last few years. There’s obviously positives to this, freeing up those precious ports, but on the flipside you will need another spare plug. We’d personally prefer a USB-C connection if only as we’re big fans of how USB-C has started to take over the world and could then just pick up and utilise a phone charger. Thankfully the cable attached to the AC adapter is lengthy enough to cater for most scenarios at 1.8 metres.
In all though we’ve been very impressed with the PowerA Dual (Duo) Charging Station. It’s kept us gaming for hours on end with no fuss and no bother. And when those controllers have needed a boost, it’s been simple enough to just chuck them on the Station for a few hours.
And then we get to the Rechargeable Battery Pack which can either complement the Dual Charging Station, or, possibly be used as a standalone option.
Obviously the best way to make the most of the secondary Rechargeable Battery Pack is to use it alongside the Dual Charging Station, dropping it into your controller just like the two batteries that come with the Station itself, before throwing it on the unit. It works brilliantly in terms of that, however this one also includes an additional Micro-USB port for direct charging. We feel that PowerA are very much behind the game here though and fail to understand why they haven’t now swapped that Micro-port for the now-industry-standard, USB-C. We’ve not got a single Micro-USB charging cable available for use anymore and don’t fancy travelling back to 2015 in order to do so.
Yes, the Rechargeable Battery Pack is good when used with the Dual Charging Station, but it fails thanks to that Micro-USB port. Even if, again, a cover for Xbox Series X|S controllers, and one for Xbox One controllers are included.
At the end of the day though, it’s the Charging Station which is most exciting and what PowerA are delivering to market with their Dual (Duo) Charging Station is good. It works near perfectly, it keeps your controllers fully charged for when they are needed and, honestly, it looks pretty decent as well. We’re not sure you should be ditching any station that you may already use, but if you’re new to the game and want to power up your Xbox controllers with ease, the PowerA Dual (Duo) Charging Station should well be considered.
Huge thanks go out to PowerA for providing us with the Dual Charging Station – Designed for Xbox (you’ll find black and white versions available) and their Rechargeable Battery Pack for review. You’ll be able to pick both up by heading to PowerA direct.
 Charging Station should well be considered. ){kind=link}