Nekteck Solar Charger 10000mAh Rain-Resistant Dual USB Port Portable Charger

Very happy with this purchase. I love solar gadgets and I am always in need of a charger. That is why I have bought dozens of different of solar chargers over the last decade. Almost all of the other kinds I have bought in the past were failures for one reason or another. This is the best one so far for me for several reasons. -quality and durability. This is one a the few that has been solid enough to handle the rough treatment and moisture. I have had no trouble leaving it in the car where it freezes or at the beach in the sun or in a bag where it gets knocked around. I am not gentle with my stuff. - easy to use. Some other solar chargers i have bought require flipping switches to put in different modes of charging battery or phone. This just has a simple button to charge phone or use flashlight and it always takes a charge from the sun. I like the little indicator light to see it is charging. -great charger. The charging speed is great. The low output chargers are pointless and i eneded up getting rid of mkst of my slow chargers. The capacity is great. Much more than a full charge for my phone. The size is just right for me. Its just a little bigger than my s7 with its case on. -and the solar charging function. I am glad that in the product discription they clearly state the expectations for solar charging. It is not yet possible to make a solar charger this size that can accommodate all charging needs of a phone just from the sun. The solar function works as good as can be expected. Mostly for adding to the charge and for emergency charging. Overall: best portable solar phone charger I have bought. Great for everyday use. Also makes a great gift. Everyone can use a cool charger.

Charger works fine and the solar panel adds another dimension when no other power source is available (kayaking). Fully charging using solar takes 3 or 4 days outside in Florida but it receives enough power in 1 day to fully recharge my android that night. Rubber tabs effectively cover the connection ports. I have left mine outside to charge in heavy rain and even automatic sprinklers with no problems. When I first wrote this review I mentioned a problem with the flashlight. The manufacturer immediately responded and provided better instructions. Press the power button twice quickly and it lights up. Update 11/18. After about 30 months of use the charging port came loose from the circuit board. Not unusual in my experience. I will replace it with non-solar charger of about the same size and weight. I will use solar chargers as back up but not integral to the battery (more money/better results) Four days to recharge in the sun was too long for me. It worked as designed though and the quality was good although they should be built to "ruggedized" standards to last longer

Worked once. Then, when used for the second time, 3 days later, this would not charge the same phone. Not at all. I was able to get this exchanged. The new one arrived. I discussed the whole deal with my wife, so she could look over my shoulder to make sure I was plugging things in, help me recall how long phones were allowed to recharge, etc. The replacement charger did charge. We then used it, again, to supply charges to phones that were getting low. Again, we got decent performance - jumping a lot in charge if you leave it for a convenient half hour. I did a third charge. Gain, not full, but like from 25% to 70%. This went fine. By that point, I had run out of charge capacity, as shown by the four blue dots. So, I plugged this in to recharge. When you plug it in, the four lights briefly all light up, and then go back to showing the current charge level - in this case, the one blue dot. After an hour, I noticed the charger was still at one dot. I re-plugged cords, doubled checked. Fine. After another half hour, still blue dot. So, this had done an initial charge, but was not re-charging. I swapped the supplied cord out with the USB cable I use for copying data from phone to laptop - apparently, some cords are only good for charging, but others can transfer data. **Typical USB has four connections / cords: 2: positive and negative power supply, and 2: data back and forth.** --The charger began getting charged up as I expected, and on up to four blue dots. [I did not watch the time, but not more than a couple hours; probably around an hour.] So, we are back to using this, with a different cable. Looking back, this may have been the problem the first time. Possibly, I did not know I should have had four blue dots before trying to get any charging, after the first charge or two I did. I may have plugged the charger in for a couple hours, assumed it had been recharged, and then had no charging happen = because I did not use a cord that was special enough, in some way. Also looking back, the first initial charge or two may have worked, with both of these, because the pack may have had some charge already. So, I am now proceeding to use this, with my own cord for recharging. If I get a few cycles this way, I may go back to the original, supplied USB cord. Other thoughts: maybe it is the fit of my substitute cord, not some quality of the cord. -But I do know that my Android smartphone will not be seen as a data device - just as something needing to be charged - unless I use a certain USB cable. This is very obvious, as I did swap-tests. Apparently, this is known. You can search for "are all USB charging cables the same," and you will find it noted that they are not. So, I suspect that the charging USB cable has been a weak link both times. So, how might the company be sending out lousy cords with fine charge packs? They may be testing the charge packs before shipping out, but when they pack them, they just pull a cord form some supplier who apparently has sent good cords in the past. The company may need to audit and see if they can replicate my problem with any of the cords they have made or bought. So, in summary, if you can deal with the challenge of finding a strong cord, the battery pack seems to be working, and is a great form factor. It is a little bigger and thicker than my 3" by 6" android phone, and so can be easily carried hiking, etc. where you really might need three, maybe four, recharges if you get in a tight spot. -No test of the solar capacity yet - I do have d-lights I recharge, habitually setting them in the same window every day, and use almost daily (as night light), for years, so I am hopeful. Will update! Update: I have been intentionally using this charger to see if it is reliable enough to depend on, like for a camping weekend. It has been reliably recharging with the original cord. I have been getting our two phones charged up off of this regularly - like from 25% to 75 or 80%, and this will take it from 4 dots to 1 dot. Like others have noted, the solar part goes really slowly. I have left it in a window where I charge my two d.light solar lights. I have not seen this thing go from one dot to two dots, but I have only left it there for a day. So, it seems that this is working reliably, and it is a good charger to be sure you have power all through a weekend, or on a long trip, when you may not easily have access to plug your phone in. The size is good.