I need advice on buying battery charger and rechargeable batteries?

if alll you need batteries for is the Wii, go with the Wii charger...

ALL batteries are different. SOME are made to be recharged overnight (10 hours, 14 hours) some are made for 2 hours and some are made for 15 minutes...

It all depends on the battery construction. You cannot put a standard charge (14hr) battery in a 15 min rapid charger and expect the battery not to explode.

Higher the mAh is better

You spend the same if you recharge in 15 min as you would in 14 hours. You are stuffing the same number of electrons into the battery, just that one is made to be over heated.

A great unversal charger is made by a company called MAHA. I have the Maha 777 charger, and now they have the Maha 888. It is a microprocessor controlled charger with sensors to know if the batteries are too hot. Ham radio stores carry the chargers www.gigaparts.com, www.aesham.com, www.hamradio.com

Rechargeable batteries are a good idea. They of course can be recharged and used multiple times. However, over a course of time you will too need to replace rechargeable batteries as they hold less charge over time. Energizer now makes rechargeable batteries if you are brand conscious. If not there are a number of other brands out there that do a similarly good job.

First, about a 2-hour rated charger, you really don't want any time-rated charger. A set of drained AA batteries will take around 8 hours to charge. To charge them faster means a higher voltage is switched in to increase the charging current (forced charge) which, as you said, causes heat and shortened life. Whether it's a 1-hour quick charge, or a 2-hour not-so-quick charge, it's still a forced charge. So what if it kills your batteries more slowly? It's still killing them. And if the batteries are not completely drained, then they'll charge faster anyway, without damaging them.

For AA batteries, there is little difference between 2500 and 2800 mAh. It's a nominal rating, anyway, as it tries to define the typical discharge rate. Problem is, that rate changes, depending upon actual current draw, so it's just a general rule of thumb. The higher the rating, the longer it lasts for the same job before becoming drained. And even usage life will affect that, regardless of rating. So, as long as the price is the same, go for the highest rating.

As for electrical cost for the chargers, fast chargers use higher voltage, which forces higher current into the batteries. Trickle chargers use lower current, but for longer time, so the overall cost of electricity breaks even. Besides, when you pay 10¢ per 1,000 watts per hour, the watt or two that you use overnight doesn't even register in 1/10ths of a penny. That little light in your refrigerator is a bigger hog than your battery charger will be.

For battery cost, itself, I shop around and get Duracells or Energizers (both are good batteries and about equal in quality) for about 50¢ per battery in quantity. Typically, though people will spend more like 75¢ - $1 per battery for alkalines. At $2.50 for a rechargeable AA, it costs more initially, but it lasts like 100x longer, so it's more like 2½¢ per battery. And like I said, the charge time doesn't even cost 1¢ overnight.

The drawbacks to rechargeable batteries are:

They're 1.2v rather than 1.5v, which causes problems for some devices,

You need more than one set, for charging while using the others, so that you can do an immediate switch when needed,

The hassle of putting them in the charger and taking them out of the charger, over and over (convenience factor),

And they tend to drain faster than alkalines when sitting on the shelf. Not like overnight or over a few days, but for six months, you'll find that they've drained a little like 10% or so.

What you might consider, too, is the Energizer lithiums. I think they call them the E³ Max or something like that? They cost 4x - 5x as much as the alkalines, but they last 8x as long. And they last for years on the shelf. Rechargeables are still a LOT cheaper over the long run, but the lithiums avoid constant changing and recharging, plus they're still a little cheaper than the alkalines for usage life.