Solar panels aren't just for pocket calculators anymore. The SolarEFX charger hooks up through a single USB port to mobile devices, including PDAs, gaming consoles and audio players. Although the device works best outdoors in bright sunlight, it will also work in artificial light. Before the panel can charge your PDA efficiently, it must first replenish its own battery, which takes roughly five hours on a sunny day. You can charge your PDA and the panel simultaneously, but it will be a slow process.
We would like to see a status indicator on the solar panel, because there's no way of knowing if its battery is fully charged or not. We had success on an overcast day charging our PDA to 70 percent of its maximum capacity over the course of five hours. However, over the course of two sunny days our device actually lost power while hooked up to the charger and that left us scratching our heads. The solar panel measures six inches diagonally and weighs 165g (roughly the same as a PDA), making portability an issue. Your adapter is lighter to carry and more reliable. While we applaud the concept, SolarEFX still has a few bugs to work out. The mobile revolution will be upon us when we harness the sun to power our gadgets.
