New BB Solar Charger

purpleberry218 · Thread Author #1 07-23-2008, 12:30 PM

Found this on pinstack, a solar battery charger for your berry! I know this will come in handy!

Hardware Review: Solar Charger for BlackBerry Wireless Handheld - PinStack.com - BlackBerry forums

borisshnitkin · #2 07-24-2008, 01:04 AM

I just read that article and was also about to post it here. The only thing that concerns me is that the product is in china and I don't really trust buying a product from china and sending my info there. Has anyone purchased it yet? It seems like an amazing price

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

funkym · #3 07-24-2008, 02:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by borisshnitkin

I just read that article and was also about to post it here. The only thing that concerns me is that the product is in china and I don't really trust buying a product from china and sending my info there. Has anyone purchased it yet? It seems like an amazing price

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

It's Hong Kong dude

No, seriously, they do serious business in HK I don't have a problem with those guys from HK. However, I would be careful if they would come from mainland china - be aware of the communists

JazzeeJEF · #4 07-24-2008, 09:10 AM

Thats a cool invention.

cutdacheck2003 · #5 07-24-2008, 09:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by purpleberry218

Found this on pinstack, a solar battery charger for your berry! I know this will come in handy!

Hardware Review: Solar Charger for BlackBerry Wireless Handheld - PinStack.com - BlackBerry forums

Purpleberry are you going to buy that for me since I did that favor for you?

MBW · #6 07-26-2008, 01:58 PM

My publication just reviewed that charger a couple of weeks ago:

Special Report Bonus Review 3: Brando Solar Mobile Charger

Brando is a Hong Kong outfit with some very clever USB gear; this is the first of 4 reviews of their products, which often carry multiple other brand names, too. For starters, we asked Brando to send their 2600MAH Solar Mobile Charger, aka P110 Versatile Solar Charger. We love this thing. Think about a flat panel with about the same footprint as a paperback book, but only about 30-50 pages tall. The top panel is a solar cell array rates at 0.7W; underneath is a 2600mAH LiIon battery accessible through a USB mini-5 port with a 5.5V (10% over the USB spec) output. If you’re in a “hurry” you can charge it through a USB-A wall wart & matching cable (all the extras mentioned here are included) in about 8 hours. Using the sun alone, you can reach a full charge in about 12 hours (maybe 15 in Cleveland); a green LED on the edge glows during charging & goes dark when charging is complete. It also has a cable for going the other way, mating the mini-5 to a female coaxial barrel connector that can fit any of 5 tips designed to cover most phone models. Bottom line: We like this device a lot for those times when a sunny day can lead to too much time away from a charger (like biking, camping, or some kinds of bus or car travel).

ballinsol14 · #7 07-26-2008, 02:06 PM

Who knows how good it actually works though

funkym · #8 07-26-2008, 11:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MBW

My publication just reviewed that charger a couple of weeks ago:

Special Report Bonus Review 3: Brando Solar Mobile Charger

Brando is a Hong Kong outfit with some very clever USB gear; this is the first of 4 reviews of their products, which often carry multiple other brand names, too. For starters, we asked Brando to send their 2600MAH Solar Mobile Charger, aka P110 Versatile Solar Charger. We love this thing. Think about a flat panel with about the same footprint as a paperback book, but only about 30-50 pages tall. The top panel is a solar cell array rates at 0.7W; underneath is a 2600mAH LiIon battery accessible through a USB mini-5 port with a 5.5V (10% over the USB spec) output. If you’re in a “hurry” you can charge it through a USB-A wall wart & matching cable (all the extras mentioned here are included) in about 8 hours. Using the sun alone, you can reach a full charge in about 12 hours (maybe 15 in Cleveland); a green LED on the edge glows during charging & goes dark when charging is complete. It also has a cable for going the other way, mating the mini-5 to a female coaxial barrel connector that can fit any of 5 tips designed to cover most phone models. Bottom line: We like this device a lot for those times when a sunny day can lead to too much time away from a charger (like biking, camping, or some kinds of bus or car travel).

mate, the weight is 30g more which is nearly 50% mor than the one I reviewed - kind of heavy, huh?

well, the capacity quite high but it is bigger as well. i prefer the smaller one because just fits into my pocket ...

benzworm · #9 07-26-2008, 11:42 PM

we sell something like that at my work

Solio - Portable Hybrid Solar Charger

funkym · #10 07-28-2008, 01:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by benzworm

we sell something like that at my work

Solio - Portable Hybrid Solar Charger

This looks nice too. I guess the features are the same, just the shape is different

MBW · #11 07-28-2008, 07:48 AM

There are other differences - let's see if I can draw some lines.

Initial charge time with some of these can be up to 11 sunny hours. You're dealing with a variable Voltage, internally converted to nough to charge the battery, at varying but generally low current. The bigger and more efficient (ergo expensive) the panel, the better the performance.

The size & electrical power capacity of the internal battery can also make a difference. Most of these use LiIon or LiPo (lithium polymer, not the fat-sucking plastic surgery thing), the latter offering more energy density & a little less fade (both are pretty good at not fading).

Another key difference is charging alternatives; many of these let you initially charge from a wall, which makes the task of maintaining a charge run a lot more quickly than starting from scratch.

Some of the other differentiators are total size & weight and immunity from wear & tear.

The strangest kit I've seen has both a solar panel and a small (about the size of the bottom inch of a coffee cup) wind turbine, so you can clamp it to your bike or hang it out a car window.

My personal advice: Take a look at Tekkeon.

(Especially if you're doing anything that involves 3G - it drills a hole in the battery's boat and drains a lot of capacity from any battery).

funkym · #12 08-05-2008, 10:56 PM

Hey guys, I got some awesome, wicked, wicked, wicked, awesome news!

My last review was so good that the manufacturer contacted me and asked if I would want a free device because I wrote such a nice review. Well, of course I said “Yeah man!”

Though I already have the black one with an orange stripe (seems to be kind of limited as they don’t have this anymore) I could use another one as well to charge my BlackBerry and my Bluetooth GPS receiver at the same while I am hiking or biking and tracking my GPS positions.

The new Solar Charger they sent me is black as well but it comes with a nice grey stripe. So it doesn’t have this “limited feeling” but who cares… Anyway, I thought it might be a nice thing to just post some unboxing photos of this one. So here they are:

Fancy layout inside

Everything in there: extension cord, power adapter for charging the solar charger’s battery in an emergency at your power plug, adapters for all supported phones (incl. BlackBerry, Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, SonyEricsson).

Solar Charger connected to my BlackBerry Curve 8320.

Solar Charger connected to my old BlackBerry 8700v.

If you want to know more: