Video: Freeloader solar charger review

Martin Slater 29 December 2007 07:07pm

Freeloader.... Great bit of kit! I used my lap top to charge it up the first couple of times which it did in less than four hours. Charging it with the solar panels proved to be more time consuming. 12 hours near enough, (each time), but that said, each time I charged it with the sun, there wasn't much of it. I am amazed at what I can charge and power with this thing. Virtually anything that uses USB, plus every phone I or my friends have, all three of my cameras, my satnav and my GPS and my son was really chuffed when it powered his Nintendo DS aswell. (all the adapters were provided with the unit). In strong sunlight it will power most gizmos and charge the internal battery at the same time. (obviously its solar powered so the stronger the sun, the better it works). The battery lasts really quite well considering it's only 1000mAh. It would be great if it was 2000mAh but then it would take longer to charge. I've used mine whilst out walking, camping and on my motorbike and each time it worked faultlessly. It's compact and light enough to easily slip in to my jacket pocket or other halfs handbag.
Recommended?...... DEFINATELY. It's an excellent product and saves having to take all your gadgets chargers with you.

Available now for less than £20.

Pete 08 January 2008 01:27pm

It doesn't work and by the time you include manufacturing, shipping costs plus use of resources to make the thing the best you can do for the environment is *not* buy it. Contrary to the previous comment it can only power devices through the battery - not at the same time. On a sunny day here I got almost no charge (2 mins on my phone). Yet another product using the 'environment' to sell

stripyshirtguy 26 February 2008 02:05pm

I have an M&S version of the same thing, with all the different connections like this one, minus the apparently cool colour of pink. I'll give it a proper work out when travelling across an Australian desert in a few weeks.

Anonymous User 22 April 2008 07:13pm

I bought one for my Dad for Christmas and it's proving very disappointing. Even in strong sunlight it doesn't charge properly - it might charge my mobile by 10-15% at best. If you use your computer a lot, then it charges well off that but because it's been so ineffective charging itself from the sun, I can't test the claim that it holds a charge for 3 months.

Anonymous User 22 June 2008 12:19am

I purchased two of these, one for myself and one for a friend. the plan was to use them on a trip to Europe to keep cell phones charge on long days out. Well both failed...somewhat dangerously. I charged the first unit and it seemed to charge fine but when I plugged it into my iphone to test its charging ability it failed. After about a minute of charging the iphone, the freeloader pack mad a little pop sound and then would no longer charge any devices.

I decide to test my friends. Well it did about the same thing but i saw what made the pop sound. while charging a device, i saw a spark in the usb socket of the freeloader and smelled the smell of burning plastic. After this the freeloader would not longer charge devices.

It seems that the freeloader battery pack overloads when charging devices. This could be dangerous if the pack were in a bag or something during charges

I would not recommend the freeloader to anyone...in fact if they all have potential to faile the way mine did, then they shoudl be pulled from the market. I would report this directly to Solar Technologies but they have no contact info on their website.