Solar Power phone chargers

[Pulpfan]

Is it worth getting one of these. Back in 2007 my phone lasted the whole duration of the festival. Was a bulky Sony Ericsson phone but battery life was great on it. Now I have an LG which hasn't so good battery life and i know will have run out by Friday evening.

Are these solar power chargers any good. Think it would be a better option than having to queue and wait at the chill n charge tent

[ukslim]

Is it worth getting one of these. Back in 2007 my phone lasted the whole duration of the festival. Was a bulky Sony Ericsson phone but battery life was great on it. Now I have an LG which hasn't so good battery life and i know will have run out by Friday evening.

Are these solar power chargers any good. Think it would be a better option than having to queue and wait at the chill n charge tent

[denzilbrown]

Try one of these, I know the battery one works well and is v/easy to use

http://www.iwantoneofthose.com/searchSite....=phone+chargers

[ukslim]

By the way, I have a wind-up charger. It's a total waste of time.

[nu-marc88]

i just get spare batteries off ebay aswell. a few mates lastyear bought one of those AA batteries phone chargers from the shit camera stalls, worked ok but just takes ages and you need a good few AAs

[joshwarrr]

By the way, I have a wind-up charger. It's a total waste of time.

[Dukeicon]

I bought a couple of cheap and cheerful phone batteries on eBay. Charged them up before the weekend, bundled them up in a freezer bag, and changed batteries when my phone died.

I'm fairly skeptical of the solar ones - would love to hear otherwise though.

[mandypants]

I do the spare batteries thing too, it's so much easier than faffing about with gadgets and wasting time and money on things which don't work, or have limited effect.

[sowfpig09]

I do the spare batteries thing too, it's so much easier than faffing about with gadgets and wasting time and money on things which don't work, or have limited effect.

[daggermouth]

if its the lg viewty or iphone they have built in batteries so the spare battery thing is pointless, anyone taking an iphone would be crazy to do so. so this might be why pulpfan was asking about solar chargers, problem with solar chargers is you need sun and also take an age to charge up. plus if your walking around all day when would you charge it up as the only time you would be back at your tent would be at night, if you tried charging in the morning i dont think you would get enough of a charge to keep the phone going. i will clear up that ive never used one but i remember seeing them being tested on the gadget show and they said they wernt good if you needed your device straight away.

[MJMilz14]

Ive got 2 old mobile phones. I just charge them both up before I go, and when my battery gets low, put my simcard into one of my old crappy phones

Does the trick.

[ramragon]

i bought a freeloader to take away with me last year, i fully charged it through the usb socket and used it to charge my phone, however once i was down at glastonbury it was really hard to get enough sun to charge it. the solar panels have to face the sun for about 8 hours to charge fully, you couldnt really walk round with it in your hand all that time, i couldnt leave it on top of the tent in case it either rained (rain ruins the solar panels) or stolen. the freeloader would be great if you were in a quiter area with plenty of intense sunlight, like a foriegn country, but not the most practical for the uk and glastonbury.

i also took battery operated mobile chargers, which were similarly crap !

this year i've decided the best option was to go on to ebay and buy 2 spare phone batteries (£9 and £1postage for the 2 from china) and fully charge them before i go.

the freeloader was £29, mobile battery charger £4 and batteries to work it cost around £12 for 2 of us for 5 days. wish id just bought the spare batteries last year and charged them before i went. much easier, smaller to carry and easy to swap.

that would be my advise

[stuartbert two hats]

I've still got some old phones lying around, so I take those. I love my N95 dearly, but it's battery is unlikely to last the journey down

[glastonburynoodles]

Ive got 2 old mobile phones. I just charge them both up before I go, and when my battery gets low, put my simcard into one of my old crappy phones

Does the trick.

[r0cky]

+1, I also take a powermonkey fully charged which can charge phones, ipods etc. It also has a solar panel attachment that worked for a bit last year. Worked a treat when we had a casualty wander into our camp in the early hours of Monday morning. She hadn't been in touch with her friends for 24 hours and we managed to squeeze enough charge to retrieve the number and for 1 call.

[grumpyhack]

When I'm at Glasto I don't want calls from the outside world. I go to festivals to leave that world behind.

All I use my mobile for at Glasto is to arrange with other mates at the festival about meeting up through the day. So we all agree to switch our phones on for five mintes on the hour in case there are any messages. The rest of the time we leave them off. Doing that a full battery charge will last the week.

If you get really desperate you can always go to the Orange tent for a recharge.

[ramragon]

When I'm at Glasto I don't want calls from the outside world. I go to festivals to leave that world behind.

All I use my mobile for at Glasto is to arrange with other mates at the festival about meeting up through the day. So we all agree to switch our phones on for five mintes on the hour in case there are any messages. The rest of the time we leave them off. Doing that a full battery charge will last the week.

If you get really desperate you can always go to the Orange tent for a recharge.

[r0cky]

So we all agree to switch our phones on for five mintes on the hour in case there are any messages. The rest of the time we leave them off.

[Tommy]

I use a Solio and it works a treat. Was a freebie from when I worked at Ethicalsuperstore.com, and I love it. I charge it before a festival so it has one full charge in it, and then use it to top my phone up as and when it's needed. I tend to strap it to the top of my camera bag so it can pick up some sun during the weekend, and it does the job fine.

Edited May 1, 2009 by Tommy