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Nice product. I hope.Their Customer service is terrible. no answers, long hold times, forced to full voice mialboxes; no response to written questions. The product is probably fine, but pray you don't need their after-sale help.
While not as environmentally as a plug in charger, it does make it convenient on less sunny days the day before some adventure. A step up from other chargers, including ones in the Solio line. You can charge from the wall or the sun. All in all, a great charger, easy to use. It does get hot when charging, though it is charging from the sun, and I would think it silly for a solar charger to be overheated.
This might change if I were outside or in an area with greater sun.Very well made and rugged. The tips are great. So I can't fault the design or the manufacture - 5 for 5 on that (though bulky, not heavy). I actually wound up using it to charge through the electrical outlet because I didn't have another appropriate adapter. Because of the inherent inefficiency of solar charging, especially through glass, it is hard to use it for daily charging of small electronics. Because of lag times in charging, however, found it not completely useful for the purpose I bought it for - daily charging of small electronics. It might function better on a camping trip or - as I plan to use it - abroad.
Being more environmentally conscious, I purchased this charger mainly to recharge my power-sucking Windows Mobile phone, which has a standard mini USB port. Now the Solio lays in my car to be used only in case of dire emergency, and to remind me of how much money I wasted trying to be more green.If you don't mind the purchase of extra tips, and your device(s) isn't very demanding on power, I'd highly recommend this. They sent me another tip, free of charge (thank you).
I was disappointed to see that it added only 40%, and it took hours to get there. I have a lot of electronics and justified the price tag with the thought of being able to use this with ALL of my devices. I also didn't want to have to wait for my phone to reboot (a few minutes) by physically changing batteries.With my first intent to see how much juice this would add to my device, I charged it with wall power (I know, I know).
This tip worked much better, but still caused me some concern because I thought that the tip it came with would charge ALL of my mini-USB devices quickly, and without issue. If I were using the phone while it was charging, it would have been a losing proposition. I called Solio.
It took me about 2 weeks before I just finally broke down and ordered the extended battery for my phone. Just not the best fit with this geekette power user.
Received this charger about a month ago. Depending on the weather conditions, it charges fine. My initial charge was overnight, AC wall adapter. Since then only thru the sun. So far, here is a brief list of the things I have successfully charged using the Solio Mag & appropriate cables:AT&T HTC FuzeMagellan 1475T Auto GPSApple Ipod (5th gen)Livescribe 2gb penSuunto X9i GPS watchIt also charges my two mini Freedom chargers (Ipod & Fuze) that I had purchased prior to the Solio mag. Only complaint is that it is bigger than I thought, but given the job it has done so far.I can live with that.
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