I’ve been toying with the idea of buying a Solio solar charger or almost two years and I finally gave in to temptation and bought one a few days ago. I thought I’d blog about my experiences with this nifty looking solar powered charger. The Solio charger came out a few years ago and has developed since its release through user feedback and further innovation and product development by Bette Energy Systems, the company behind the Solio charger.

The first day I used the Solio turned out to be quite sunny. The internal lithium battery was already half charges so during my journey in to work I placed the Solio in direct sun light whenever I could. To the left you can see a picture of the Solio on a bend at a train station basking in full direct sun light. There’s an LED on the underside which turns red when panels receive enough direct sunlight to start charging the inernal battery.

Through the day I managed to catch some direct sun but when I got home the battery was still only half charges.

I decided to charge my Nokia N82 off the Solio. I was down to three out of six bars on my phones battery life. Charging was simple. I attached the Nokia tip to the power cable, plugged one end in to the Solio and the other end in to the Noka N82 and pressed the red LED button. There was a short pause for about five seconds and then my phone lit up and went beep. The battery started to charge.

When I next looked at my phone the battery appeared to be fully charged – at least the phone screen showed six bars which indicates maximum charge. This took about half an hour to achieve off the Solio. I checked the charge left in the Solio and it must have been almost empty as I only got one flash of the LED. The LED flashes once for almost empty, twice for half full, three times for two thirds full and four times for completely full.