September 24, 2010
| The Amp Solar Charger is one of our new standalone chargers. We are excited because it has about the 4 times as much solar power and twice the battery power as other solar chargers on the market and 8 times the Highgear Solar Pod. It is not just the specs either. In field tests between the Amp and Solio, we ran our devices 3.8 times longer for every hour in the sun. |
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We think part of the problem is that these other solar chargers were designed pre-smartphone, when batteries were 35-40% smaller. In the end there simply isn’t enough solar cells on these other chargers to work effectively. Who has 12 hours to charge their phone? What if you have any other devices? Plus, the Amp and all our other new 4 Watt bags switch between 6 and 12 Volts which lets you charge your DSLR camera battery.
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| Here’s how we stack up: |
| Solar Charger |
Voltaic Amp |
Solio Classic |
Power Monkey eXplorer |
Highgear Solar Pod |
| Solar Power |
4 Watts |
< 1 Watt |
1 Watt |
< 0.5 Watt |
| Battery Capacity |
3,000mAh |
1,650mAh |
2,200mAh |
650mAh |
| Charges 7.4V DSLR batteries |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
| Price |
$99 |
$79 |
$109 |
$49 |
| Pictures of the field test. The cool building in the background is Brooklyn Tech. We admit that the Solio is very cute and the three fanned panels are a great piece of visual design. |
 
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Solio specs are here. Note that the stated Watts are a bit misleading as these are the battery output, not solar panel output. PowerMonkey specs are here. |
nice product!!
how does it compare to Solar Joos product?
We like the Joos. They’re actually pretty similar in terms of solar power and charge times – JOOS didn’t skimp like a lot of the other products in the market. The Amp has a smaller form factor, but we think they’re both good products.