Looking for info about the SOLIO Solar Charger

[CommanderROR]

Hi everybody,

I recently visited tribble's webshop (he is the new distributor for the Iliad in Germany) and found an interesting item.

http://www.justread.de/shop/product_...adegeraet.html

This is a solar charger that has it's own integrated Battery and apparently can dock with quite a few devices out of the box (including Mini-USB which makes it rather useful to me) and can be used to recharge the Iliad as well, even though it still takes quite some effort to get that done since you need the bulky car-charger to make that connection work.

I'm not really considering it for my Iliad just now, but I've got a power-hungry Smartphone (Fujitsu-Siemens T830), my STAReBOOK and am planning to buy an iPod Nano pretty soon. That makes three devices that I could recharge on-the-go with this little device, and perhaps someone will develop a more user-friendly way to connect this to the Iliad so that I can use it for that purpose as well.

Now, the trouble is that I've never used a Solar-Charger before, and although the device looks promising from all I've found so far, it's just a bit too expensive to just "buy-and-try", especially since I'm looking at roughly 200€ for the iPod Nano already + some protection for it and I've just spent a lot of money on furniture (and of course that nice new violin) and other stuff for my new flat.
Any info (especially first-hand) about this neat little device would be very much appreciated.

Thanks.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by CommanderROR

Any info (especially first-hand) about this neat little device would be very much appreciated.

This might help: http://www.solio.com/v2/
______
Dennis

[CommanderROR]

Thanks.
I actually already saw that...I was hoping for a bit more...objective info, but thanks anyway.
Does anyone have the device? Maybe Tribble himself can do a review since he has the item in his shop?

[tribble]

I saw the Solio and liked it, just for the idea.

But, there are a few cons:
- it takes more than 8 hours to load in the sun.
- it takes 6 hours to load from the wall.
- it gives the iLiad about 3/4 of a charge (i only tested this twice so far)
- you need a connector from 12V to iLiad. (i used the car charger)

If you are camping with it, and have lots of sun an no alternative energy near by, it is good to use. If you also have a phone or an iPod you need to charge when you are somewhere without wallplugs, it is a good energy source.

So basically i do like the idea, it works nicely, but it is not really working for my reading habbits. But i am selling them anyway And it probably will work alot better for the smaller readers, which can be recharged through the USB connector. That one is already in the Solio package.

If you want to write an in depth review, ill send you one to test

[JSWolf]

Doesn't the Solio have a tip for the Sony PSP? If so, it would work for the Reader as well.

[CommanderROR]

Can't the PSP recharge throguh USB? I thought I remembered something like that...but since I sold mine on ebay a while ago I can't check.


@tribble

I'd be interested in doing a review. Let's discuss the details by PM.

What I'd like to see is whether the Solio could keep a device like the STAReBOOK alive while it's switched on. Recharging it from the battery is fine, but I'd like to see whether it can trickle-charge a device so that it never really needs to be recharged from the wall-socket. I can imagine it has enough power to do that with the STAReBOOK, my mobile would be more of a challenge, but perhaps that too could work.

[tribble]

Originally Posted by CommanderROR

What I'd like to see is whether the Solio could keep a device like the STAReBOOK alive while it's switched on. Recharging it from the battery is fine, but I'd like to see whether it can trickle-charge a device so that it never really needs to be recharged from the wall-socket. I can imagine it has enough power to do that with the STAReBOOK, my mobile would be more of a challenge, but perhaps that too could work.

This would probably work quite well, since the STAReBOOK, the Booken or the Sony all have small batteries (800mAh?) and last for days or weeks. The Solio has an internal 1600 mAh lithium ion battery, which gets charged in roughly 10 hours of direct sunlight. So i assume you could power your device without having to use another energysource than your Solio. (order here )

[CommanderROR]

I'm afraid I won't be able to do a "real" review after all...


Tribble sent me a Solio for testing purposes that I could then buy (for a slightly reduced price) or send back after the review, just as I see fit.

I was all ready and eager to do all that, but when I received the Solio it was raining hard here for two days...so no testing then.
After that we had almost two moderately nice days...and that was it.

What I found out about the Solio is this:

It works fine as a battery-pack. The 1600mAh battery is strong enough to nearly double my PDA-Phone (Fujitsu-Siemens T830) Battery life. That's not bad. It can recharge the Iliad (even though you have to use a slightly annoying go-between (universal car charger) to connect it to the Iliad and gets about 3/4 full charge into the Iliad from the battery alone (that fits with the specs of the two batteries).
It can easily charge the STAReBOOk (and it should be the same for the Sony Reader, Cybook gen3 and similar low-power devices).

BUT:

It's not a battery pack. It's actually a Solar Charger. And this is where I ran into problems...
I was planning to use this thing on a train, to recharge my mobile phone. I thought I could just stick it to the train window and as long as there is a fair amount of light outside it would happily recharge my phone.
Well, that is where I overestimated today's Solar Technology apparently.
While it will recharge itself in direct sunlight, it NEEDS direct sunlight.
As long as you have it pointing directly at the sun, it recharges the internal battery and gives you power for your mobile device. Even then though it only delivers enough power for something small, like the STAReBOOK. The Iliad and my Phone would not even start charging then.
This already ruled out that I'd buy the device for my own use, because it would have been a pretty high price for something that is basically not much more than a battery pack for me.

I could have continued the testing anyway, but since the weather has gone back to miserable again, I don't really see any real chance of getting any useful results in a realistic timeframe.

So, with apologies all round and especially to Tribble who supplied the device, I'm giving up on this one.
It might be ideal for somebody who likes to go camping and/or lives in a sunnier country, but for me it just is not the right device and it also does not work well in a grey german autumn...

I'm sending back the device to Tribble today and will keep watching the scene to see what interesting new developments will arise in this area.
Maybe somebody will develop new, high-output solar cells or something completely new and revolutionary...who knows...maybe somebody will develop an interface that enables your gadgets to recharge from your own body...then all you'll have to do is bring along an extra lunchbox so you don't run out of bioenergy when using your laptop and drop dead while your laptop happily continues running SETI...