May be a little small for that. 200mA charging rate (max) charging a 2000mAh battery is going to be 10 hours (assuming full discharge and assuming full sun, probably won;t be fully discharged but probably won't be full sun so it evens out)

I've been pleased with it. It seems to be well built and I like the way it folds up neatly. Putting a multimeter to it shows 7 volts. It comes with a battery box that holds 3 AA batteries. It's supposed to be able to charge those three batteries by plugging the panel into the box, but I haven't tested that.

Have you seen this thing?: http://www.powerfilmsolar.com/products/portable_remote/index.php?cat=pr_charger

Anything that charges in pairs or multiples you really should avoid, thats not a good way to charge. If used for an emergency then they are ok to use but don't use ones like that for normal charging.

You mean because each cell should be charged individually versus in series or parallel? How it charges the batteries depends on the design of their charging circuit. It's impossible to know without looking at it, but the descriptions of the device I've read imply that there is some intelligent charging going on.

Yes, you can still do somewhat intelligent charging but charging in pairs you still can't insure each cell is charged exactly where it should be, Doesn't cause a lot of harm but does decrease the overall life of the cells, and if you charge in pairs over and over again the difference becomes greater each time, it adds up so you'll see shorter run time and will need to condition them more often. Thats why i say its acceptable for emergency use but don't use a pair charger all the time. If you do that and one cell starts to get weaker then when an emergency comes up you'll already be starting out in poor condition.
Individual chargers are cheap enough now a days there is no reason to charge in pairs. I'd buy a small individual charger such as the c401fs which can run from 12v in and get a panel that puts out 12v. Decent chargers make all the difference in the world, I have 10 year old NiMH's that out last brand new "15 minute charge" ones.

Just to clarify, I think Eugene means each cell should get its own charging circuit. There are lots of chargers that can charge multiple cells at once -- but each has its own charging circuit.

I think the key phrase to look for is "independent charging circuits".

I strongly agree with Eugene. If you have one mostly dead cell, and one mostly charged cell, you can't get a good result if both are charged with the same circuit. Either one is undercharged, or the other is overcharged.

There are also other issues with chargers such as charging too fast and basically cooking the cells.

This review on CPF breaks some of the better ones down:

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=70935

-john

Its those little tricks in terminology that get you. If the page had said charges up to two batteries then they would be independant, but when they say charges a pair of batteries then they are charging in series in parallel which not real good.
The other site where you see the AA battery holder with the little 9v snap on thing is probably doing the same and is probably a simple trickle charger with no charge termination.
Ever notice how when you buy a cordless phone for your home the battery pack dies in a year or two? They are typically series pair charging with a trickle charger. SO you must be careful if your going to rely on rechargeables in emergancy gear to charge them properly. You don't want to be using a trickle pair charger like those all the time then have an emergency and find out your batteries last 1/3 as long as they should. You want them to be working as their best at the start of the emergency so any damage/loss caused by those kind of chargers is minimized.
I switched to a digital camera over 10 years ago so I learned a lot about taking care of batteries along the way. I started out with not so great chargers and then after a while you find out the camera shuts off when you wanted to take a picture and you start to wonder why. Now my camera/GPS/radio/etc all run nice and long, usually my run time tests with rechargeables beat alkalines and are about even with lithium's.

Back on the subject of cell phones. My new one seems somewhat smarter when out of signal range, it doesn't drain the battery in just a few hours, it survived overnight and then some.

Heh. That might be because it doesn't have analog capability at all.

:-)

-john

My last one didn't have any analog either but would go dead in a few hours. There still is analog coverage, my parents have an older phone that uses analog.