Topic: Charging docks etc

Hello,

Not sure if this is a UK or US based forum but came up on google as UK based.

Bought a wii u for kids for xmas.... I'm an old timer who remembered having a NES 8 Bit for xmas and since then forayed onto various consoles - kids use my xbox 360 at moment.

I have seen in GAME the starter packs which include a dock charger which appear to get mixed reviews but not seen anything made by Nintendo specific for this cause? Does the wii u ac charger also charge it so if it's flat you can't charge the game pad and run the consol at same time?

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If you bought a Wii U Premium edition, this should come with a Gamepad charging dock as standard, but even the Basic system comes with an AC adapter to charge the pad itself. The docks you see (even Nintendo's own one, which is available) are just a plastic stand that this AC adapter plugs into, so it's not even needed to be honest. You can use this GamePad AC adapter while playing as well.

It was the Mario Kart bundle which I think is Premium. Will open it up and have a look later

Yes, the Mario Kart bundle would be the Premium bundle. It probably says "32 GB" somewhere on the box.

I bought an 8GB and never missed having a charging dock for my pad, I guess it's useful to use as a stand if the gamepad is being used purely to display information and isn't being used to play on, but I haven't used it in that way before, so I've been fine.

I bought an el cheapo dock off of Amazon - like LeeGar says its just a pass-though for connecting the Gamepad charger to and it acts like a stand otherwise. For me it's convenient to just drop the Gamepad on it, but really not necessary.

For a more useful stand during non-Gamepad games like Pikmin 3 (I'm a remote-Nunchuk guy), Mario Kart or Smash with a group Im thinking of getting one of these: http://www.amazon.co.uk/GamePad-Rotating-Stand-Nintendo-Wii-U...

Very good idea. My partner brought her Wii U over because I have a fibre broadband connection. We hooked it up and it was 4.0.0 out of the box. Due to weather-related issues my broadband was up and down so the initial system update took a full hour to download and install. Mario Kart and update/DLC was another hour this morning and Smash was like four hours to download/install/update.

Also set up accounts and parental settings, so yes absolutely people should try to set this stuff up before gift wrap or you'll have some disappointed kids come Xmas morning! This was the Party Basic bundle (remote, 8GB unit and discs for Nintendo Land and Wii Party U) with an external 500gb hard drive and y-cable.