The FreeLoader Portable Solar Charger is a neat little gismo which supplies you with power for your mobile devices while you're outside, or when you otherwise don't have access to a power socket. It is versatile though, and can even be used without sun, as long as you have a computer.
The FreeLoader works in three ways, and can:
* Charge its internal battery from the sun (as is obvious from the name)
* Charge its internal battery from a computer via a USB connection
* Charge your portable devices without wait time either by solar power or USB if you hook them in when it's charging.
The only flaws are minor ones. First, there's a kind of slack charge time if you're utilising the solar option. It took about 8 and a half hours for me to charge my FreeLoader Portable Solar Charger immediately after I received it on a mostly sunny day in Los Angeles. Still, that's no trouble, because if you want a prompter charge time you can just hook it into a USB port (three hours, roughly) or charge the device directly by hooking it in while FreeLoader charges.
The only claim I don't trust from their advertising rhetoric is that it will charge "any hand held device." There are two plugins on the device itself, and a further twenty two connector tips that you get with it. That is a lot, no fault, but I'm not sure it's enough to justify the "any hand held device" label.
Still, these are pretty much the only downside with this neat charging gadget. If you have a few mobile devices that need charging on a regular basis, its many adapters are superb. If you spend a lot of time outdoors away from power sockets, it's superb for that too.
Definitely worth checking out!
