Charging and Inserting the Battery

The Sony battery for the DSC-RX100 IV Sony camera is the NP-BX1. The standard procedure is to charge the battery while it’s inside the camera. To do this, you use the supplied USB cable, which plugs into the camera and into the Sony charger or a USB port on your computer.

There are pluses and minuses to charging the battery while it is inside the camera. On the positive side, you don’t need an external charger, and the camera can charge automatically when it’s connected to your computer. Also, many automobiles have USB slots where you can plug in your RX100 IV to keep up its charge. And, you can find portable charging devices with USB ports, as discussed in Appendix A.

On the negative side, with this system you cannot charge a battery outside of the camera, so you cannot be charging a spare battery while using the battery that is inside the camera. One solution to this situation is to purchase at least one extra battery and a device that will charge your batteries externally.

With the RX100 IV, unlike some previous models, you can use the supplied battery charger as an AC adapter that will power the camera. So, if your battery runs completely down, you don’t have to wait until you have recharged it to start using the camera again. You can plug the charger into the camera and into an AC outlet or USB power supply, and operate the camera directly from that power source. I discussed batteries, chargers, and other accessories in another post on this blog.

To charge the battery, insert it into the camera and connect the charger. You first need to open the battery compartment door on the bottom of the camera and put in the battery. You can only insert it fully into the camera one way; what I do is look for the 4 gold-colored metal contact squares on the end of the battery and insert the battery so those 4 squares are positioned close to the front of the camera as the battery goes into the compartment, as shown in Figure 1-1.

 

Figure 1-1 - Battery Lined Up to Go into Camera

You may have to nudge aside the small blue latch that holds the battery in place, which is seen in Figure 1-2.

Figure 1-2 - Battery Secured by Latch

With the battery inserted and secured by the latch, close the battery compartment door and slide the ridged latch on the door to the closed position. Then plug the larger, rectangular end of the USB cable into the corresponding slot on the provided AC charger, which is model number AC-UB10C in the United States. (The model number is very hard to read; you have to hold the adapter up to the light at a certain angle to see the number.) Plug the smaller end of the cable into the micro USB port on the upper part of the camera’s right side as you hold it in shooting position, as shown in Figure 1-3.

Figure 1-3 - Battery Charger Connected to Camera

Plug the charger’s prongs into a standard electrical outlet. An orange lamp in the center of the power (On/Off) button on top of the camera will light up steadily while the battery is charging; when it goes out, the battery is fully charged. The full charging cycle should take about 230 minutes. If the charging lamp flashes, that indicates a problem with the charger or a problem with the temperature of the camera’s environment.

To charge the battery using a USB power supply such as a USB port on a laptop computer, just plug the large end of the camera’s USB cable into that power source and the small end into the charging port on the camera, while the camera is turned off.