Buy Suntactics sCharger-5 High Performance Solar Charger, Quickly

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I have been trying out different solar USB chargers for over a year and the sCharger-5 is the best so far! It is thin, convenient, lightweight, has a built-in universal USB port for any device, and folds up to fit in a small bag or large pocket. You have to understand that Solar power does fluctuate throughout the day and is most powerful between 11am and 2pm, so you need a very powerful charger like this one that can charge up your phone or any other USB device in a few hours, especially if there are lots of trees around you and the sun only shines through briefly. I got mine about a year ago and it still keeps working rain, shine, or falling off my bicycle! The funny thing is that some devices do have some trouble charging directly from solar energy, but that is not the fault of the sCharger-5. For example, some USB batteries and even the iPhone show some error messages, but this is because the designer of the device was too stupid to allow the electrical current to throttle efficiently as the solar power changes throughout the day. The iPhone in particular requires a special circuit to charge because Steve Jobs wants to license the technology and steal money from anyone who wants to make an iPhone accessory. The sCharger-5 compensates for this by resetting the solar power every few minutes and in effect unplugging and plugging back in the solar panel automatically in order to return the device to normal charging and charge the iPhone at record speeds! However, recently, battery and phone designers are becoming more advanced to take advantage of variable current from the sun and now they are able to accept any power from the sCharger-5 at even faster rates. This is actually a happy coincidence in design because all USB ports do not have the same power output. Your laptop from 4-years ago may have 2.5 Watt USB ports while the new 2011 Macbook Pros have 10 Watt USB ports. Because of this trend, designers had to come up with new ways to accept various USB power from all the different laptops and desktops and by chance, the new devices they design are actually more solar friendly. So in conclusion, the sCharger-5 is way ahead of its time and will be around forever while the devices that plug into it are evolving to take advantage of the huge solar charging power output of this panel.

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Took this on a backpacking trip in July with my 3g iPhone and I was the envy of my camp mates. I did "opportunity charging" any time we stopped, including typically about 1 hour for lunch in full sun and was able to keep the phone battery adequately charged (Note to iPhone users: DON'T plan on running power hungry GPS apps all day unless you plan to allocate a fair amount of charging time during peak sun hours). I found that I could get a reasonable amount of charge in (about 1/4 full) even if I started when we started to make camp at 5:00 pm.

Driving home, I was even surprised to find that the phone charged (albeit at a slow rate) with the panel on my dashboard. This was surprising as I thought windshields blocked out most of the UV energy.

It is quite durable and held up to some rough handling

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It is the only way I charge my Ipod now. I bought a CD case and take this solar charger with me where ever I go. It is high powered and charges at the same rate as plugging into a wall socket. If a shadow or interruption stops the charge, it resets itself without having to unplug and replug it. Like I said -FANTASTIC!

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I bought this to charge an Iphone and a USB charger for speaker/camera batteries for RAGBRAI, which for me amounted to a 640 mi. bike ride around Iowa.

I echo the comments of others here generally and those of Isaac and Jason specifically. You may need to be patient with your Iphone if you are moving through shadows or it's a cloudy day but the circuitry will reset to begin charging in direct sun. It's disheartening to see the "Charging Not Supported With This Accessory" message for the first time but it will work. You can hear the tone clicking in when it has enough direct sunlight. The USB battery charger seemed to work fine in the shade so it must be an Apple thing. That said, direct sunlight gives a fast charge to an Iphone.

I also worried about the connection between the two panels. Rather than opting for the company's fabricated bike rack ($$$$), I used my existing rack, put two flip flops down soles apart and bungeed the panel down, with a thicker one over the middle and a tiny one that covered the metal between two rows of panels towards the back. Result: one side of plastic stretched a little after over 600 mi. of county roads (ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum). It can withstand shock.

I tried buying some cheap Chinese crap last year of the trickle-charger variety that wouldn't charge above 3.7V and broke (no Iphone, sorry). Bite the bullet and buy this made in USA product if you want something that works.

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After having several power-outages in quick succession & being without my cell phone, I decided to get a solar charger for my emergency kit. I have had the solar charger for a while now & am pretty well pleased with it overall (thankfully, no extended power outages to have to test it out in an emergency), but the solar panel does need to be in full sun & doesn't really work through windows, even in direct sun. For piece of mind, I'm happy to have it, but this won't work as a full-time replacement to wall charging.