Solar/wind-up phone chargers.

Boohoo

Hello.

My brother and i go fishing for the day and during the summer we sometimes go overnight and for 2 nights/weekend.
We used to have normal mobiles that would last 4/5 days on a full charge but in the last 3 months both have got smartphones. A samsung galaxy y and htc wildfire.
The last time we went overnight the phones nearly died before we had time to get home. As some of who go fishing you can be miles from anywhere and its good to know that if needed you have a mobile with you and in an emergency you dont have to go looking for a phone box.
What i want to know is what is the the best way to charge them up when away from mains power.I have been told about wind-up and solar chargers but it would be good to get some feedback from people who have used them.

Thank you.
Vince

Duk

Hi,

I have been informed that these are pretty good

Click Here

Just bring a few batteries with you.

Also sometimes you may be near an electrical hookup (like at camping sites)

If there is one of them near by you could get this.

http://www.newquaycampingshop.com/tents/tent-carpets/camping-electric-hook-up

Good Luck

P.S. as from your original query re solar chargers, they need a good long change with them, I had one and it would charge up 5% in about 2 hours. I didn't think it was so good, That was for HTC Desire

S0litaire

solar chargers has been hit and miss in my experience.
They never seem to be able to charge a smartphone long enough to get good use out of it (1 day to charge the battery 20%)

I assume wind-up s to be a bit better but you have to put the work in (1 min of winding usually get a few mins of talk time on modern phones)

I'd suggest a Battery pack that can charge the phone 2 or 3 times on a single charge.

Heard lots of good things about this new Trent 11000mAh battery. You'll probably get 2 full charges each out of it for both phones. More than enough for a weekend away if you use some power saving tricks for your phones.

Check out the reviews! people are using it while camping and reporting their phones (like to your samsung) keep going for 3-5 days with this battery pack.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Trent-IMP1000-Thunderbolt-Blackberry/dp/B004CHMP50/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340796537&sr=8-1

andy2004

I have one of those AA chargers i bought from Ebay, i use it with my nokia,
I also have some cheap AA batteries bought also from ebay, not very good with the charger as they seem to die out quickly even when not being used.
aka place fully charged battery in, dont use to run phone in emergency, not to recharge phone, so just sitting in coat doing nothing. dead within a couple of weeks.
These types of chargers are for emergency use and cannot be used to recharge the phone completely.

as for the battery pack solitaire mentioned you could just buy a cheap mobile phone for £24 fully charge it before you go or use with the £1 emergency charger if the battery runs out which it shouldnt. Or keep it turned off until your "decent phone dies" and then turn it on.. One with a decent battery in standby like mine which last 1 week even with being used pretty much daily. a PAYG from asda.
Or cheaper option this one here, £15,
http://groceries.asda.com/asda-estore/search/searchcontainer.jsp?trailSize=1&searchString=phone&domainName=Products&headerVersion=v1&_requestid=102744
samsung E1080i battery standby upto 550-560hrs according to their website.
22days on standby which would be long enough.

mchale

google: "eton scorpion"

Boohoo

Thank you for the replies.
Some ideas to look into there.
I have seen them wind-up torch/phone charger combi's in some camping shops but i dont know if the would be of any use. I know i would use the torch part ok but not seen many reveiws of the phone charger bit.

Vince.

pww2004

Or get one of these:

http://www.unlocked-mobiles.com/sim-free-mobile-phones/samsung-b2100-solid-extreme-sim-free-unlocked-mobile-phone-p-15267.html?gclid=CIv4x9CR87ACFQwjfAodMxxFPQ

I have its predecessor and that has a week + battery life, and has proved immune to snow, 4 hours rain and evrything else you can think of.

paddyrg

Smartphones chew through leccy as they're doing all kinds of background activities, have huge screens, data services, GPS, wifi, etc. What I would suggest is taking a cheapo basic phone to be a phone (also, those solar/wind-up chargers can top those things up way more effectively), and turn the smartphone on one every couple of days for email etc., so you still have some capacity for GPS if you have an emergency/need to get unlost on a mountain top etc :-)

bap98189

If you switch off the data in the phone's settings you will find they last for days. They will still receive calls/texts but obviously won't download Email.

Notmyrealname

bap98189 wrote: »

If you switch off the data in the phone's settings you will find they last for days. They will still receive calls/texts but obviously won't download Email.

Bluetooth is the biggest killer of batteries.