Hi,
I recently bought this Panasonic BQ-CC16 NiMH Smart & Quick charger from an online store and I guess it turned out to be a ‘fake’. I wanted a cheap charger that has individual channels for charging AAs and AAAs because the chargers I had only took batteries in pairs.
My options were very limited due to the scarcity of such chargers here in India. Other cheap chargers available with individual channels were
Camelion BC-1012 (Timer control, No △V Cut-Off)
-Camelion BC-1007 (Was originally planning to buy this one but went for CC16 instead)
-Panasonic BQCC17 (out of stock )
-Envie Speedster (Bad reviews, charging at more than 2C and an unreliable charge termination)
Energizer Recharge Compact (Timer Control, No △V Cut-Off)
Other costly chargers available were
-Nitecore D2 (probably fake)
-Panasonic BQ-CC55 (import charges maybe??)
Every other available charger only took batteries in pairs, which I don’t want.
So I decided to buy Panasonic BQ-CC16 since it was cheap and had individual channels along with △V - Cut-Off feature.
The problem starts when I open the parcel box and take a look at the blister pack and the specs.
BQ-CC16 charger according to the spec sheet is supposed to be charging AAs at 550mA whereas the print on the charger says it does so at 300mA. 
That’s funny because it’s the BQ-CC17 that does so.
Here are some pics— open em’ in new tabs to see full size
take a look at the spec print on the charger’s back side 
and now take a look at the spec printed on the instruction manual that came along with it
That’s right. AA 300mA and AAA 150mA on the charger and AA 550mA and AAA 275mA on the manual.
Funny right, because that’s the exact spec for the BQ-CC17 charger according to the manual I found on Panasonic website here
Also a quick 1 minute google search proved me correct. Here are the pics I found on google
I’m Guessing somebody took the effort to re-print either the model number or spec on the charger but got lazy when they got to the packaging and manual part?
The graphics design of the blister pack print also looks different from what’s listed on other sites.
Another thing I noticed is that this charger listed on other sites came with free batteries. Mine didn’t, although it had cavities for AA size in the blister pack.
The blister pack also had been heat punched along it’s sides (beats the purpose for a hinged blister pack I say). I had to tear the pack open because of this.
Guessing probably the importer open the blister pack, took the batteries and sold it loose, closed the blister pack and heat punched it close.
See Photos of battery cavity and heat press.
Here’s a picture of it in operation. Each channel has it’s own LED indicator. Both CC16 and CC17 has this feature.
So is this a CC17 with wrong model number printed or is this a CC16 with wrong specs printed? Only one way to find out-
Took me 2-3 hours to charge 2 Panasonic eneloop AAAs which were half empty. each were 750mAh model.
Took me 7+ hours to charge a Panasonic AA eneloop Pro which was 3/4th empty.
Looking at the time taken to charge it’s definitely CC17 model due to slow charging.
Restarted the charger after power off and it did detect a fully charged cell, took more than 10 seconds but it did.
So it does detect state of charge and not rely on a timer. Both CC16 and CC17 has this feature as they both are smart.
Temperature reading with a IR temperature gun after 2 hours-
AA (channel 4) = 40°C
AAA (channel 1) = 47°C
AAA (channel 2) = 44°C
Charger Body avg= 38 °C
Pics showing comparison with my other chargers
Build quality and plastic material quality is on par with my old Sanyo eneloop NC-MQN04E charger.
Weight is much lighter than the Sanyo (beefy transormer??) but not as light as my Varta. Also slimmer and smaller than Sanyo.
I’m not returning this since I do not need fast charging. For Fast Charging I use my Varta LCD which is even Faster than a genuine BQ-CC16 (sans the individual channels).
My need was fulfilled as what I needed was simply individual charging channels with a △V - Cut-Off feature and this one does the job pretty well.
So folks, look out as there are fake Panasonic chargers floating around online. Just because it is printed something on it doesn’t mean it actually is. If you haven’t learned from those insane ultrafire 18650s out there, then you can surely learn from this Panasonic one.
At least they took the effort to actually print ‘Panasonic’, instead of printing stuff like ‘Penasamic’ or stuff like the usually do. 
If it wasn’t for the the printing error, it could have fooled me easily. But the charging time would have gave it away eventually
Thanks for taking the time to read my post, this is my first post in the forum. Let me know your comments below. 