Customer Reviews

USB Solar Battery Charger for Mobile Cell Phone MP3 MP4

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought 2 as presents for my sibling over Christmas for their cell phones from "Reliable Merchandise corp aka RMC Bargains" but it didn't look like the one in the pictures (look the photos I' upload). The one that I received didn't not have a built in USB port for for my sibling to hook the charging cable into. They had to carry an extra cable in the box. Another thing was that it didn't have an AC plug to charge the device. The charger was unable to charge my sister's iPhone. It did charge my brother's Samsung Infuse.

Pros: nice and small

Cons: Bad Seller (going to give him a bad review).
Didn't have a built in USB port & had to carry extra cable.

A few words of advice to others looking at a product of this type.

I'm very electronic device savy and knowledgeable, so this is not just a rant of a mad buyer. Read about my experience with this item before you decide wether or not to get this item.

I ordered this item, and like most people I expected to actually get the item as it was described in the add and pictures. The item I actually recieved was not the same as the picture, and was also missing accessories that are both mentioned, and shown in the picture. There was no AC charger in the package. the picture clearly shows a ON and OFF switch on the item, and a full size USB port. Not a mini USB port. The item that I recieved DID NOT have a power switch and also did not have a full size USB port. The item that I recieved DID NOT have a Lithium Ion battery, note the add states that the item has a Lithium Ion battery.To mention all the other problems with the item that I recieved will make it more clear why not to waste your money on this piece of junk! I tried to charge the charger using the mini USB port and the cable that came with the charger, by plugging it into the USB port on a computer. The instructions state that it will charge this way,( the green LED light is supposed to light up ) while it is charging. This method of charging failed totally. the charger did charge up however while being paced in direct sunlight for 12 hours. When I connected the charger to my phone it charged my phone for approximately 30 seconds or less, and then stopped charging. I placed the item in direct sunlight again and it would not charge up, ( green light is supposed to light up )when the charger is charging up its internal battery. This item was not the same as stated in the add or pictures, and failed miserably to actually perform as advertised.

DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS ITEM !!!

For now I can say this product works well, I've charged my movil ok and battery last as long as if charged with a regular charger.

I would HIGHLY recommend this solar charger. It worked straight out of the box and displays a highly visible green light when it's charging from solar or light sources. It's about 3 inches long and is small enough to put in your pocket and not feel much. It came with several extensions to plug into various electronics and came with a cord to plug into any other USB charger (for example a computers USB). This works better than I imagined!

The solar charger doesn't work at all, it doesn't get charge with solar power and it doesn't have enough power to charge a cell phone. I receive a different solar charger from the one shown on sale and it took a month to receive the product.

When I first got this charger it would only charge my cell phone for 20 seconds then stop charging. So I charged the battery in the solar charger via usb and my desktop computer overnight. (big no-no) Should only charge it for a maximum of 5 hours via usb. I couldn't use the a/c adapter because its european not usa plug. So I put the charger back in it's shipping box for about a week. took it out of it's box today, plugged it into my cell phone, charged my cell phone for six minutes then stopped charging. I then plugged my solar charger into my desktop via usb. charged the solar battery for 4 hours,disconnected usb from desktop, plugged my cell phone into solar charger, started charging phone at 12:57am it stopped charging at 1:27am. So it charged my phone for 30 minutes. looks promising now. Will see how well it works in full sunlight. stay tuned.

Wish I had this product during the recent storm induced power outage. This item worked as advertised, I recommend it.

A review of the "USB Solar Battery Charger for Mobile Cell Phone MP3 MP4", available at Amazon.com

The "USB Solar Battery Charger for Mobile Cell Phone MP3 MP4" ultimately provides a complex foil for contemplating the role of consumer electronics in today's post-industrial economies of symbolic manipulation. How do we characterize the role of the user within the force fields applied by user interface on one hand, and function on the other? From the delightfully poor translation of the English instructions, to the joy I took in having to disassemble and reassemble the wall charger because the circuit board was not connecting with its AC prongs, the unboxing experience left me well prepared to indulge in a phantasmagorically convoluted proposition about the interface of tools relative to their "usefulness" that is the important mark of this solar charger. *Spoiler Alert* What is truly special about this device is best discovered over two full weeks of trying to get it to work. But at the end of your sojourn, it is the near total lack of any actual or practical application for this item - especially toward any kind of battery related "charging" activity - that will amaze and enlighten you, your friends, family and geeky colleagues. *Spoiler over*

Directly out of the box the solar panel causes the lovely green LED to activate. Move it away from the light, the green LED goes dim. Re-expose it to the light and the LED reignites! After discovering this, which as it turns out is the only feature of the charger that actually works as described in the SMANUEL, you are well on your way to entertaining questions about your "perceived need" to charge your various information and infotainment devices using solar energy. The action, aka ontological engagement, really ramps up as you attempt to charge some "actual" items with it. During this time the breathtaking world of hard truths that best describe this device begin to reveal themselves in more depth. The "3 method" presented in the "SOLAR CHARGER USER' SMANUEL" are best summarized as: 1) Charge in the sun for 12-14 hours before using one of the many adapters to charge your device. (Personal note, the adapter I needed was not included, forestalling a more complete immediate understanding but forshadowing events to come.) 2) Charge the device with the included AC adapter, and then use the adapter to charge your mobile device. Finally and most importantly: 3) As I will argue is in full conceptual congruence, the "SMANUEL" never really gets around to revealing the mysterious third charging option promised, and further the USB connector, power jack, and green LED similarly yield no clue. This, as you will see, is central to understanding what is really going on here.

Maybe this "third technique" actually works - hell I don't know - but by this point in the experience after totally draining the battery on both test phones (read: actually quite the opposite of what I took to be the devices intended effects), I had actually begun to yearn for a more sophisticated - and I will admit - some kind of more artsy, darkly satisfying, vague conclusion with lots of angst and irony and stuff. After all, returns and the shipping involved are universally understood to be much less satisfying in their function as nostalgia than even the darkest moments of any film major's freshman dirge. The solar charger? It did not disappoint! Users are met head on with a tour-de-force of utter refusal to perform as one might assume, suggesting a highly conceptual and aggressive denial of geek technical pleasure.

Which brings me to the point of asking: Laura Mulvey, where are you when we need you? My psychoanalytic readings of cultural objects have always been a little weak, and I have leaned on you heavily for related analysis of the cinema. But this is user interface. Albeit a limited one, (by my best estimates possesing between one and three degrees of operational freedom), and although the tacit assumptions that such cultural devices index "invite" us to perceive them as "available to us" for some kind of operation that is at least generally congruent to the affordances of the Josef von Sternberg classic Blue Angel, it nevertheless seems necessary to formulate an intellectual framework goes beyond simple voyeurism and scopophilia. UI-pleasure objects demand that the user touch them and accomplish selfish tasks with them, which is quite different from the isolated and constrained situation of the cinema, the "user" alone in the dark, with the consequent narrow focus of non-interactive visual attention that is demanded by the cinema. But returning to the main point, another entirely worthless experiment that I tried was to plug the charger into one of the two mobiles I tested it with, and then leave them both in the sun, hoping that the solar panel would directly charge the phone's battery. This turned out to be - of course - just another very cruelly failed side trip that the device both affords and instantiates as its central theme, providing an even more tangible depth to its dismal, minimalist and even existential user experience. Existential you say? Yes, existential in the Heideggerian sense of tool usage and the Dasein as you begin to deeply embrace the ontology of the solar "charger" through its steadfast refusal to "charge." And if this is not the deeper meaning of the device, then tell me, what is it? Laura, anything left in the tank for us?

The final portion of my UI experience was by far the most surprising, and indeed, strangely uplifting. Feeling "set free" from care or concern for "chargers", "charging" and even the "devices" I had intended to "charge" (and also because the green LED was becoming - as all good things eventually do with time - a little less charming), I left it out on a cot in the yard in a final vain attempt to nourish it via solar radiation. Then, I forgot about it entirely and left for the day. And while I was gone, it rained. Upon returning home, my first thought upon seeing it submerged in an inch or so of fresh rain water, gently spooned as it was in the concave reservoir provided by the tightly knitted nylon of the cot, was this: "Oh no, I ruined my cool brushed aluminum thingy that turns sunlight into a pretty green LED glow. Damn, are the rabbits eating my Pomelo tree bark again?" So, you must imagine my delighted surprise as I drew closer to the cot and discovered that the SOLAR PANEL ILLUMINATES THE GREEN LED EVEN UNDER WATER! This charger is, if nothing else, the most dependable little photon detector I have ever owned. After moments of joyful perseveration (green LED off, turn toward sun, green LED on, turn away from sun, green LED off...), I returned the wet device and all the provided cables and adapters back into to the handsomely designed box - complete with cool magnetic latches btw - and put the complete kit in a safe place where I also hide my vintage 1970s pet rock. This is a keeper. I feel certain that both of treasures will be worth their weight in contemplative value for generations to come, even if one displays a grade of intentionality that the other does not.

In the final analysis: Five stars overall. Battery life, well, I lied a bit here because the single star I gave it nevertheless tends to imply that it is capable of some level of actual device charging. It is not, but zero stars are not an option. Ease of Use: Five Stars, as the pretty green "photons detected" LED lights up even under water, a feature which requires no buttons and is entirely intuitive. (Green LED off, turn toward sun, green LED on, turn away from sun, green LED off...) The important obersvation may be that this charger - in a strictly tabular or logical sense - does not require any actual cognitive effort to utilize, because no amount effort to actuate it will actually suffice, at least under my provisional theory. This is the paradox of the "USB Solar Battery Charger for Mobile Cell Phone MP3 MP4", specifically that an appreciation of the deeper waters of its no-feature feature set is in fact so very hard to win.