Who hasn’t been traveling somewhere or been some place where their cell phone or MP3 player dies and you don’t have the immediate ability to recharge your device? When this happens, you always seem to be hours from real electricity, like a wall socket for instance, and it sucks! Well, we’ve found a great travelling buddy for your gadgets.
A product landed on my desk from a company named BetterEnergySystems out of Berkeley, California that might just help us out with the “out of battery cell phone or dead MP3 player” syndrome. The product they sent me is called the SOLIO Classic and it is a hybrid solar charger that you can take with you anywhere you go to charge your electronic devices.
BetterEnergySystems seems like one of those Environmentally Friendly, eco-type companies, as they have a significant number of pages on their website dedicated to providing content on being environmentally friendly. Even the box that the SOLIO arrived in is made from recycled materials. The SOLIO Classic also comes in four trendy colours and is one of two siblings in the SOLIO family. The larger SOLIO 1000 is a larger capacity version that is due out this month and can hold a charge for up to a year.
On the box there is a sticker that reads, “The C02 produced by the manufacture of the actual Solio unit has been made Carbon Neutral by the planting of sustainable bio-diverse forestry.” Check out FutureForests for more information.
What exactly does the SOLIO do?
As per the marketing bits on the box, a SOLIO will do 3 things for you:
Universal Charger – The SOLIO can replace most or all your AC Adaptors with just this one device. All you need to do is make sure you have the right tip for your device and swap out the charging tips for the device you want to charge. This thing claims to work with a huge range of mobile phones and MP3 players…and yes it will work with no problems with the Ipod for you all you Ipod freaks.
Stores Power – The SOLIO enables you to be portable with power as you can take this handy gadget with you anywhere you go. You can pretty much charge the SOLIO and when you are ready to use the power stored within it, as long as you have the correct tips, you can draw the stored power. The SOLIO claims that it can store power in its high capacity battery for up to a year.
Hybrid Charger – The SOLIO draws its power from both the sun via its built in solar panels and standard wall AC 120v-240v electrical outlets. You will never be without power having a SOLIO around!
Technical Details
For those that want to know…
- Rated Output 1.5 to 5.5 Watts
- Solar Panel Max Output 0.85 Watts
- Rechargeable 3.7v 1650mAh Lithium Ion Batteries
About the only thing that isn’t environmentally friendly are the Lithium Ion Batteries, but they do warn to dispose of them properly.
What is in the Box?
The inside of the box includes a multitude of items which include…
- Charging Cable
- Suction Cup
- AC Adaptor
- AC Adaptor plugs for North America, Europe, United Kingdom, Austrailia
- Instruction Leaflet
Of course, the Solio Classic was also included in the box. We got ours in the Classic Black for this test. The Solio also includes charging tips for the following phones and devices:
- Samsung
- Nokia
- Sony/Ericsson
- LG
- Mini USB (Motorola, Blackberry, Garmin, Iriver etc)
- Female USB (Mp3-iPod)
If you don’t see your tip of choice for your device here, Solio offers a tip kit that will cost you. Hey, they are environmentalists, not pushovers!
First Impressions
Through personal experience with finding myself on some mountain or in some country with no power for my MP3 player or mobile phone, my first thoughts of the SOLIO Classic were , “ It is about time! Cool!!” I am all for a device like this! I just hope it works as good as the marketing propaganda says it does.
I liked the fact that the model I received was geared towards small personal electronics like MP3 players and cellular phones. It came with a magnitude of charging tips for the more popular brands of cell phones and MP3 players. It must be a nightmare for a company like this to keep up with all the different cell phone AC adaptor tips!
I would have to say that all instruction manuals should be like the the one SOLIO provides. It doesn’t give you fluffy stuff and tells you exactly what you need to work the device. The manual is about the size of a square table napkin and is 4 pages long with lots of iconography. In other words it was Stupid Simple to figure out. The back of the instruction foldout has the multiple language Warnings, FCC stuff, Limited Warrantee Info etc.
The SOLIO is also built for world travel as evident by the multitude of tips included. The power adapter auto senses the voltage from the socket and adjusts accordingly. This devices truly does it all.
The Real Deal – Does it work?
I first charged the SOLIO with electrical current from a standard 120v wall outlet. When the SOLIO is charging the red light stays on, when the SOLIO is done charging the light goes green. The instruction manual mentions it takes approximately 6 hours via electrical current to fully charge the internal battery of the SOLIO. I just left it over night and unplugged the SOLIO in the morning.
The first electronic device I charged was my Samsung MP3 player. This was a pretty straight forward process as the Samsung MP3 player utilizes a mini USB connection. You pretty much just pick the correct tip, plugged it onto the charging cable and then plugged the tip into your electronic device. In this case it was my Samsung Mp3 player and like magic, my MP3 player was charging.
It is tough to say how long it exactly takes to charge a device, as it depends obviously on a number of factors (Temperature, how much charge is in your device to start with, how long it typically takes your device to charge etc). The instruction manual says anywhere from 6-10 hours. The Samsung MP3 player I was charging had absolutely no power in it to start and wouldn’t even turn on. I wasn’t going to stand around and watch the time go by, so I plugged the Solio onto my Samsung MP3 player and came back the next morning where I found it fully charged and ready to go.
Next I tried to charge the SOLIO via solar power. This was pretty straight forward as well. I fanned opened the SOLIO unit, found a pen/pencil and stuck it through the middle and left if in my car while I was at work for the day. Again charging time varies from 8-48 hours for full charge in the SOLIO by solar power.
When I’m driving, I would use the suction cup mount. The SOLIO stayed in the car window for a couple days until it was fully charged.
You can gauge how much power is in the SOLIO by pressing the button. If the green light flashes once, it is 25% full, twice = about 50% full, three flashes = 75% capacity and four flashes is 100% full.
Concluding Remarks
I really like the concept, portability, convenience and eco friendliness of this product. The concept is a great one. Unless the sun falls out of the sky and we live in a forever dark work solar energy will always be a clean and renewable energy resource. It is also good to see that BetterEnergySystems is Eco Friendly and cares about our environment.
The portability and the convenience of the Solio is second to none. It doesn’t take up too much room in your bag, and it comes with pretty much every AC power adaptor for any AC outlet in the world. Everyone that has ever had a personal electronic device ie cell phone or Mp3 player has had that device die on them at some time. With the SOLIO, if you find yourself away from electricity for any extended amount of time, you can recharge this device with no problems assuming you have the right tips for your devices! This is perfect for people that enjoy the outdoors, ie campers, hikers, adventure sports etc. you know you will always have power with you for your devices with the SOLIO around.
As mentioned above in the article, the SOLIO takes a bit of time to get power stored into it via solar energy. It also takes a bit of time to charge an electronic device from the energy stored with in the SOLIO. If the engineers at SOLIO could figure out how to expedite this energy transfer process, this product would be even better!
The other detail I noticed with my SOLIO, is regarding the barrage of tips I received in the box. It is great that SOLIO gives you a whole bunch of the more popular tips for mobile phones, and other electronic devices, but of the mobile phone tips I got in the box, none of them fit my Nokia or Seimens celluar phone. This is sort of an annoyance as now I have to go onto the SOLIO website and purchase the correct tips for my phones. At $9.95 per tip plus tax , shipping and possible duty, this may become a bit of a barrier for people looking to purchase the SOLIO.
With the magnitude of different electronic products on the market the vast number of new cellular phones each year, companies that produce adaptors must go bananas trying to keep up making the correct adaptor tips. I know it is sort of a catch 22, for the manufacture, as they have to include tips in the box, but maybe a company as “Eco-Friendly” as BetterEnergySystems could include in the box a one time “trade-in” program for the tips you don’t use for the tips that you need or do use. Just a thought.
Other than this, the SOLIO Classic is a great device that I can see myself taking with me on a business and personal trips to locations where I may find myself away from AC power for extended periods of time. I would defnitely recommend this device to my gadget toting friends and family.
Pros
- Never be caught without power for your personal electronic devices ever again
- Solar power is a renewable, environmentally friendly clean resource
- Solio comes with every adaptor for worldwide usability
- Suction cup to windows for solar charging is handy
Cons
- Getting power in and out of the Solio takes a long time
- My Solio kit didn’t come with tips that fit any of my mobile phones
- Extra tips are $9.95 plus tax and shipping
- Not too sure if it is weather proof (ie water, snow, extreme temperatures)
Overall Rating: 9.0 / 10.0
