We recently published a very positive review on the small dual battery charger by ISDT called the NP2 that can charge three different types of Sony camera batteries (NP-FZ100, NP-FW50, and NP-BX1).
We are not going to repeat the entire original review here (see link above) but after we published it several readers suggested a few important things that we missed on our review and so we wanted to make a quick update and clarify those things and maybe add a few of our own.
We got a second unit of the ISDT NP2 Sony Dual Charger to charge at home as well as our studio
Here are a few extra points worth mentioning about the NP2 charger:
Quick charge
the quick charge function on the NP2 doesn’t work out of the box (despite what we initially thought by mistake). To get quick-charge to work you need to long-press either the left or right button or both for several seconds (depending on the battery or batteries that you are charging) until the green charge bar turn papule (Many thanks to photographer and engineer Wes Perry for the tip – check out his great channel on YouTube).
You will need a wall charger that supports quick charge 3 or better to make this fully work (see an update later on).As to how effective the quick charge is we tried two different wall chargers with QC (our Pixel 2 XL Phone USB-C to USB-C charger and Anker PowerPort ATOM PD 4 to name just two) and discovered that both reduced the charge time but it was more up to the battery setup that we choose.
So for example the NP-FW50 battery charge time had gone from about 2 hours to under 1 hour while the NP-FZ100 charge time gone down from 4 hours to only about 3.5 hours. Dual NP-FZ100 still took over 5 hours, we are not sure why (but it might have something to do with our update later on).Our suggestion: If you are not short on time and to make sure you preserve the health of your batteries it might still be best to let them charge normally whenever possible.
Important new update
After we finished this updated review (and posted the video above), we received a new power bank for testing called Flash which is currently part of an ongoing campaign on IndieGoGo (we got the first version and there is now an even more capable upcoming second one). Unlike all of our Anker power banks and different high power wall chargers we tested with the NP2 up until now (all in all almost a dozen different units from different respectable brands), it was the only one that showed 9V charging (in pink at the lower part of the charger). We have yet to do full testing to see how this affects the quick charge of the NP2 but it is an interesting twist. With that said, this is a battery and not a wall charger. If you found a wall charger that was able to deliver 9V or more to your NP2 charger – please share the specific model with us in the comments.
Changing Settings
One question that we got after the original review was are there any settings to this device and can you turn off the beeping noise. A quick look at the user manual and apparently ISDT has a way to make even two buttons do tricks. All you need is to long-press both buttons when there are no batteries in the charger and you get a simple menu with audio on/off, screen brightness in 3 levels, and information about firmware version. Yes, you can upgrade the firmware of this unit and we have done so.
Firmware update
To upgrade the firmware you need to check the version on your device and see if there is a new one on the ISDT site (check here), if there is – download it and follow the onscreen wizard and connect your charger to the computer. It is always best to be up to date.
USB-C cables
One other thing that really got our heads scratching with the NP2 has to do with cables. The unit comes with a USB-C to USB-A cable that works fine but if you want to use a USB-C wall charger or battery things get much more complicated. We tested at least 10 different USB-C to USB-C cables (from Anker and other known brands), all of them didn’t work with any battery/charger we had (the NP2 simply didn’t work with those cables, all of them worked fine for other devices). Only a single USB-C to USB-C cable we had seemed to be able to supply power to the NP2 so at the moment making the NP2 work over USB-C-to-USB-C is a hit (and mostly) miss game.
So what is our updated conclusion on the NP2 after all of this? well, the charger is certainly even more attractive with the QC function and the settings and firmware updates are a nice bonus, especially if we can find a recommended fast charger and USB-C cables that take advantage of its full potential.
Conclusion and pricing
At the moment, the NP2 might not be the fastest charger on the planet, but it is certainly convenient and flexible in many respects, and for $35 it is pretty much a steal for anybody looking to charge multiple Sony camera batteries of different types.
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Iddo Genuth 
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