Charge your phone on-the-go

Juniper Foo | Nov 13, 2006

Make haze while the sun shines? With the Indonesian fires still smoldering, it should inspire some of us to go eco-friendly with alternative sources of power, like the Scotty Solar Charger. Though at 5-7 hours of sunlight to fully charge (yielding 1 hour of talktime or 60 hours of standby), that's a lot of tan time. So best slap on some Banana Boat if you don't plan to fry. Otherwise, this is one of the smaller solar chargers we've seen that's portable enough to hook onto a belt or backpack. This Scotty distills the sun's energies into a pair of Ni-CD battery cells serving as a power reservoir, with the option to switch to two AA alkaline batts for more instant power transfers. A charging indicator at the back flashes more rapidly the fuller the batteries are charged. Just one gripe: From the images and specs, the adapters look ancient enough to charge that Palm V and Game Boy. So word to the wise: Do sound out Maplin on whether this Scotty's good enough to beam power into today's iPods and cellulars.

Click for what's in the box | rear of charger

Via Shiny Shiny

Price: 29.99 pounds (US$56.90)
Availability: At Maplin
Device: Portable solar charger
Basic specs: Includes 2x 600mAh Ni-CD rechargeable batteries, 20-year cell life, USB charger

Filed under: Gadgets
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