I don't own an IPhone, instead I have a Android based HTC Hero phone.

As some posters have already pointed out, these small solar chargers require a lot of time for recharging.

Many people, espcially in the US (due to high coverage in many locales) take their phones out on the trail backpacking. When would you time to charge the phone for hours at a time during the day and in the strongest sun hours?

For those who do not have an Iphone, you are better off purchasing a spare battery for your phone. For example, the battery for my HTC phone is about $20.00. With 2 batteries and judsious use including keeping the phone turned off when not needed, this amounts to 10's of days of run time before both batteries would be drained.

Ad for car camping and car travel in general, you are much better off getting a small 12 volt to 110 volt inverter that has an ac plug outlet and an USB power connection for charging your gadgets. The invertor I have cost $24.00 and will charge almost anything including my HTC phone battery, netbook battery, DSLR camera battery, GPS battery, AA batteries etc with barely any drain on the car battery even when the engine has not been running for hours. I have been charging my gadgets and batteries with this method for a couple of years with no problems.

Teslinhiker. Simply put: it's not about hiking or camping. It's about survival of something unexpected. So it must be EDC solution. It might look gimmicky for everyday use, but laying out in the sun for 4 hours (or so) it will give you that 5 minutes of juice which should be enough to make a distress call, or to get your GPS fix, or check the drug use instructions, or identify poisonous/edible plant - you name it.

Simpy put. If one allows themselves to get into a situation where they need to get the phone battery charged for any of the reasons you listed then they have failed to plan.

What good is a solar charger when a person(s) is incapacitated and is under dense tree cover, when is raining, snowing, overcast which can often last for days.

I am not saying you are wrong by thinking of the usefulness of the charger and it is always good to see technology that has a useful purpose, I just would not bet my life on a solar charger nor would I bet my life on a phone in general.

There are 2 sides of cell phones and lives saved, unfortunately one side does not have a good outcome and many of those people were ill equiped for the environment and terrain they were in to begin with.

I use the solio classic and like it very much. A few reasons I think one should have an alternative charger like the solio is that when a large scale event happens such as the Hatti earthquake the first line of comunication to come back up were cell towers and the few who had power were charging for minutes at a time to recharge cell phones. Secondly the solio can charge other small devices(i.e.... camera, gps).

Another feature i like about the solio classic is the storage time it can hold a charge for up to 3 years according to manufacture, and multiple charging methods of the charger itself from car out let, wall socket and solar.

I purchased mine from the manufacture on a closeout deal for like $49 This is the link to the closeout section. http://store.solio.com/s.nl;jsessionid=0a0105501f43c67ebdf62b494ff4b8da88947270389f.e3eSc34OaxmTe34Pa38Ta38Tbhz0?sc=7&category=2596

While I don't have one yet, I've read the reviews of a fair number of portable solar chargers, and it seems if want something that will reliably power your device, you need to heavily discount the "rating". Even more so if you plan to use it somewhere that isn't overly sunny.

I've had my eye on the Brunton 26 Watt foldable array.

It seems that the six to seven watt units get pretty mixed reviews. It seems you need to get up to 12-26 watts before you get a reliable power source for small devices.

The Brunton 26 was the first unit that more or less unanimously got good reviews.

When you look at the size of the Bruton 12 or 26 watt unit, I suspect most "integrated" solar panels aren't really going to work very well, if at all.

I've also recently become fond of the Tekkeon MP1800 portable power source. It has two 18650 lithium ion batteries, giving it a pretty good amount of juice for portable devices like phones with a reasonable size and weight. Using USB for both charging and providing power works pretty well too.

Tekkeon also makes some larger battery packs which might also be interesting.

-john

The Brunton 26 Watt panel is pretty darn good but it does have a most annoying problem. Being folding up for storage you need a couple of rocks or some paracord (tensioned at each corner grommet) to hold it out flat in the direction of the sun.

For smaller devices such as GPSs and Cell phones, the Solar Gorilla used in conjunction with Mini Gorilla seem to fit the bill.

The Solar Gorilla gives around 10 watts output power and seems to work well in overcast conditions. The only downside of the Solar Gorilla is the weight which will be more than double that for the comparable 12 Watt folding Brunton and Sunlinq CIGS panels.

The Mini Gorilla looks to be an excellent bit of kit, it can deliver more than 25W power from a device weighing in @ 265 grams.



Are the 18650 cells replaceable in the MP1800?

I carry a USB battery in my laptop bag; it's good for two full charges of my iPhone. It loses about 10% of its charge over three months.

My BOB contains a AA-powered iPhone charger along with a bunch of Energizer Lithium AAs. If I have to make an emergency call, I should have power. If on the other hand I'm faced with a long-term emergency that keeps me from using AC, 12-volt or USB power sources, I'm going to have to keep my phone turned off most of the time and use it sparingly.

No, they are tab soldered. It is a toss up tho, if it had replaceable cells it would probably need to be larger.

I had opened one up to see if I could reasonably mount the electronics to a 18650 battery holder. While it could be made to work, it would end up being a lot bigger -- they really optimized the space in there.

Of course, if you are just looking to replace the cells when these ones die, it would probably be a pretty trivial fix to get some new tabbed cells and solder them in.

-john