Chinavasion have a range of solar chargers, but I chose this one as I liked that it didn't attach directly to the phone and that way I could keep my iPhone safe from the weather while charging it. It not only comes with a wide range of adapters, but also allows you to plug any UBS device in, making it very flexible.

The Review

Before leaving home I charged the device from a power outlet. The first night away (in a cold tent) I attached my half dead iPhone and by morning it was fully charged again. Unfortunately, the charger doesn't have any charge indicator, so I wasn't sure whether I had much power left. Assuming I would need to charge the phone again that night I decided I needed to catch every bit of sun I could that day, and showing my true nerdy colours I set about proudly attaching the charger to the top of my pack. Nothing a snap-lock bag and a bit of gaffer tape couldn't take care of.

Later that day I was frustrated to find that the GPS tracking app I was also trying to review had consumed most of my battery power and I was at risk of losing my tracking. Solar Charger to the rescue! Again plugging in the phone I was happy to find that my charger had been working away catching power for me and sure enough, my phone started to charge again. The phone's battery percentage increased a little over time but it seemed the phone was using the power to quickly. It made it through the day and as soon as I had finished walking I turned the phone off and left it charging.

The next day there was still only a little charge in the phone and I knew that the tracking was a lost cause. I turned the phone off, but left the solar charger going.

Later that day I turned on the phone again and plugged in into the charger. The phone started to charge again and I was able to continue tracking for the rest of the day.

The Verdict

The charger does charge the phone if it has enough power. The charger does capture energy from the sun. What the charger doesn't do is capture enough energy to maintain the battery through intense operation, even on really sunny days.

If however, you weren't trying to constantly track your position and were just using it occasionally I have no doubt that it would do the trick as it did effectively charge the phone. It also charged the phone very well from the power it had stored from AC.

At it's price, I think it would be a great buy even if only as a backup battery. The fact that you can get power from the sun too is a bonus!

The iPhone has amazing travel-related apps, but what good are they if it dies after the first day of your power-less trip? Given that my trips usually involve much outdoor walking I figure I have two options; kinetic or solar. Until these guys refine their ideas a bit better solar is the go.

As such, I have done a bit of searching and found the following options:

Novothink SolarCharge Series

Novothink Solar Charges are a range of iPhone and iPod accessories that clip right onto your phone as a case covering the back of the unit. They come in a range of colours and the iPhone model costs US$79.95.

There website says:

"2 hours of direct solar exposure provides about 30 minutes of talk time on a 3G network or 60 minutes of talk time on a 2G network"

They are very sleek and stylish units, but I can't help but wonder if it's slightly impractical to have the panel right on the back of your phone. In everyday life my phone is usually in my pocket and I don't think it would get much charge in the few minutes I have it t5o my ear. When I'm travelling I don't really want to have to leave my phone lying around outside to charge either, so how does it work.

To me, this just doesn't make sense. As such, I started looking for solutions that didn't have to clip right onto my phone.

Voltaic Backpacks

Voltaic Systems are selling a range of backpack that include solar panels capable of generating from 4.5 to 15 watts of power. They also include batteries that can hold a charge generated from the panels, or charged by USB, car or AC adapters (optional). The bags look great quality and I'd quite proudly wear one.

The bags range from US$199 to US$499 and the website says:

"The Backpack, Converter and Messenger produce 4 Watts, meaning 1 hour in the sun will power 3 hours of iPod play time or 1.5 hours of cell phone talk time."

The downside of this approach though is that it is tied to the bag (obviously). When I go on a multi-day hike and need a bigger backpack I would wish I had a more portable solar solution. The company do also sell components for those wishing to retrofit their own bags (or anything else) and the thought did cross my mind of creating a system that would strap onto any bag from their parts, but then I remembered China.

Chinavasion

I discovered that Chinavasion stock a number of solar products perfectly suited to my need for a fraction of the cost that I could even buy the components for. Again, many of the solar chargers were attached directly to the iPhone, but there were a few that were independent units and I decided to go with this one, as I figured it is compact and can be strapped to the outside of my bag. While the unit comes with a range of adapters for other phones it also has two standard female USB ports, into which I can plug the iPhone charger cable (or many other devices I have). They are not waterproof, so a ziplock bag will be necessary. The advantage of this approach though is that I can strap the unit to the outside of my bag and have my iPhone tucked away safely inside (or in my pocket). Also, at roughly US$30 it's WAY cheaper than any other option.

Their website says:

"The recharger's high capacity (2000mAH) internal battery can be recharged by the sun, car power adapter, or a standard AC outlet."

More specifically they say that it takes 5 hours AC power or 10 hours solar to fully recharge and that it has a switch to go between 4.5v, 5.5v, 6.5v and 9v output.

I've already testes charging the phone from the external battery and charging it from the sun and so far so good. What is left to determine is if the solar panels will generate enough charge to keep my iPhone charged over multiple days, even when it is being heavily used (such as when I track my journey's GPS coordinates). Over Easter I'm going hiking in the Victorian Alpine Region, so I'll give you a full review soon.

Until next time - Happy travels.

My Thoughts

Places - Although I'm a little annoyed that Aperture users had to wait so much longer than iPhoto users I do love this feature. I usually end up sorting my photos into folders manually anyway, so this feature saves me lots of time. I especially love that it can import a track and then assign photos based on time, as this takes out the middle step of syncing tracking data with your photos before import.

Faces - I'm glad it's there, but it doesn't work particularly well. I'm sure there are very complicated algorithms that go into face detection, but I would assume they could differentiate me from a tree. I have found that even after I have tagged many photos of a person there are still many of that same person that don't get recognised.

Brushes - This is where the update really pays off. To have this kind of retouching control in photo management software is amazing - to have it completely non-destructive blows me away! Some of the logic behind the brushes needs a little work (retouching the sky once picked a spot with a branch in it to patch with) but generally amazing. I love that it is so easy to make drastic, yet subtle changes and I know the presets will come in very handy.

My Review

Aperture 3 still has a few bugs to iron out (including the whole app crashing) but the features it offers make it absolutely worth every cent (and I'm sure Apple are working tirelessly to fix them). Whenever I travel I can't wait to get my photos into Aperture and it is then such a quick process to organise them. The practically automatic location and name metadata continue to add to the massive list of reasons why it is so easy and so fast to organise, edit and find your photos. iPhoto does do many of the things that Aperture can, but if you're dealing with high volumes of photos you need the uber-streamlined workflow that Aperture makes a breeze.

Apple is soon to release the iPad and I'm wondering if this could perhaps solve various issues, allowing me to backup my photos, upload to the internet and also preview shots on a bigger screen while shooting. There is no doubt in my mind that the iPad will be a brilliant device for viewing photos but its usefulness for professional/enthusiast photographers will really be defined by it's ability to display the plethora of RAW formats that many cameras can now shoot in.

The iPad Technical Specs page lists a Camera Connection Kit as one of the available accessories but unfortunately no information is given on the supported formats. Apple does give very good support of RAW formats on the desktop, with updates regularly distributed on OSX, but with the limited resources of mobile devices it is yet to be seen as to whether the iPad will have the support or the necessary grunt to convert RAW images.

UPDATE

12 April 2010 - The Apple website now states:

iPad supports standard photo formats, including JPEG and RAW.

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