Here's one for you I-phone users, wish they had one for my Droid.

http://www.novothink.com/products/

Wow that is cool.

Would that mean leaving your iPhone lying out to get charged?

I use a Brunton Solo 3.4 when I go camping. Will do a review later. It recharges my iPhone about four times on one charge (in my tent while I sleep). I will eventually get a solar charger for the Solo.

yes your iphone would have to be lying out. As a product developer I feel this is a pretty bad solution.

1) your hand covers the solar panel in use
2) you might have to have your iphone out in the elements while it charged
3) it is not weather-resistant. In places I have lived, it can rain quite suddenly.

There are a lot of portable power options that are MUCH cheaper. Many of them are solar. If you are going on a short camping trip, you can have a battery backup, and just turn your phone off when you aren't using it.

I would have a hard time investing $80 on this "gadget". The money would be better spent on a solar panel/battery storage device that you could use for more than just your phone. For example, a solar AA charger that would help power your GPS, recharge your phone, steripen, and etc etc...

To survive without electronics is, of course, a completely different story. I'm surprised nobody has jumped in here already and bashed it because its an electrotoy

It has an internal battery so you can leave the charger outside then plug it into your phone.
But a panel that size is going to be less than 100mA so you are looking at 12-15Hours in perfect conditions to recharge (and that means moving tit to face into the sun)

I would get a cheap AA solar charger and an iPhone AA emergency charge adapter for a lot less money and a lot more versatile.

yeah that internal battery worries me more than it consoles me.

I use portable solar now. The panels and the batteries are different units. I have the option of charging direct from solar or charging a backup battery. That sort of redundancy can be really important.

Don't mean to hijack but what external solar charger is worth a grain and packable? I honestly don't know and am interested.

That's not true.

Quote from the tech specs says:
"When your iPhone is fully charged (or when it is not inserted), the Surge transfers the charge to its internal battery."

So it's developed properly The trick is - it's always with your phone, not in some BOB bag. I'm just wondering why nobody (except for some Chinese crappy-phone clones) integrates solar panels into the phones yet?

Someone did - Samsung with it's S7550 Blue Earth. But it's exception.

These things may look neat but they are really just gimmiky as solar panels that small really can't put out enough power to charge much unless you really don't use your phone. Plus you would have to leave the solar panel out in the sun to do anything.