Solar Mobile Chargers, review and competition

This competition is now closed

I was sent four solar mobile chargers to review from www.mobilesolarchargers.co.uk
The models I am reviewing are:
The Lite
The Buddy
The Pocket and
The Classic.
Read on and find out about our fabulous competition where you could win the Pocket Solar Mobile Charger.

Now the first thing that you will think of when you hear the word solar mobile charger is how will they work in our wonderful practically sunless country? The idea is to move away from thinking solar and think more of them being portable chargers. Each one can be charged in several ways, in sunlight or by USB via your pc or laptop, in-car, or mains. Once fully charged they hold the charge until ready to use. Take a charged one with you wherever you go and you’ll never had a ‘dead’ mobile phone again. Just plug the mobile into the charger and it will charge.
My partner is forever forgetting to charge his phone and he’s there desperately trying to charge it up five minutes before going out. Now he can just plug it into the charger and take both with him. The chargers are small and around the same size as most modern mobiles, so it’s like taking two phones with you.
We like going on day trips, our hobby is Geocaching. This means our mobiles are used not only as phones but also for their GPS, camera and internet access. The mobile is a brilliant device, but even when taking two phones with us we still end up losing one or both because of the battery dying. With one of these chargers we can now charge both phones back up while still out, and if the charger starts dying we have the added bonus of solar energy to keep giving it a little boost.

Pop one in the kids school bags and they’ll be able to contact you even if they go out straight after school and the battery in their phone has died. If you have a teen you’ll know how much this happens, before mobiles you’d worry where they were, then mobiles came along and you are worrying even more because they haven’t called you or you can’t call them because their battery is dead.

You can also use these chargers to charge other devices. Most chargers will charge a wide arrange of phones including iphone, Motorola, Blackberry, Samsung and Nokia. Some will also charge up your ipods, mp3 players and even your ipad. The Buddy has the most adapters and we put it to test with the Nintendo DS, the PSP, the Wii sensor bar.

Now I won’t go too techi on you but here’s the bits you need to know about each charger and what I discovered about each one.
One thing I did look up was the meaning of Mah, it is milliamper hour, or measure of a batteries energy storage capacity!

The Lite Solar Mobile Charger (1500Mah)

Specifications:

• Capacity of battery: 1,500mAh
• Solar panel input: 120mA maximum
• Micro USB input: 5V DC ± 5%, 500mA
• USB output: 5V DC ± 5%, 500mA
• Dimensions (W x D x H): 120 x 65 x 13mm
• Weight: 108g

This is a compact and lightweight charger with a handy little flexible LED light. 

This is a neat little charger which still does the job. I love the little LED light which you can pull out and twist around. It comes with five interchangeable connectors and can give a smart phone a full charge. I charged this phone by a USB power adapter for 2 hours and used to  to charge up a Blackberry phone. There was enough charge left for a small MP3 player. The back of the phone has a handy light up capacity checker so by pressing the button you can see how much power the charger has. 

The lite retails at £19.95

The Buddy Solar Mobile Charger (2000 Mah)

Specifications:

• Solar panel 100Mah
• Battery capacity 2000mah
• Charging time by AC-DC adapter: 2-3 hours
• Charging time by PC USB:3 hours
• Charging time by direct sunlight: approx 15 hours
• maximum load current:500Mah
• Lithium-ion batter:2000Mah

This is a sturdy looking charger which comes with 12 interchangeable connectors, so you can use it for practically anything. I tried it on an Mp3 player, the Wii Sensor bar, the PSP, the Nintendo DS as well as a couple of different mobiles (HTC and Blackberry) It has a handy bar on the back which by pressing the buttons will tell you how capacity and charge there is left. It also has a little torch fitted in. The case has a rubberised feel which gives it a sense of strength so you feel happy about sticking this charger in your pocket or your bag. In fact this little buddy has been everywhere with me.

The Buddy retails at £19.95

The Pocket Solar Mobile Charger (2500Mah)

Specifications:

Specifications:

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