I've got a Mio P350 loaded with sections of Memory Map 1:25000 OS maps.
Battery life is a claimed 4.5 hours, I'm getting 3 to 5 depending on how often I tap the screen in to life.
Battery is rated as 1300mAh, so I take it the machine is drawing roughly 250 to 400mA.

If I was to buy this charger, it's got it's own 1600mAh battery, so that would more than double the battery life of the PDA to start with, then the 200mA solar cells would recharge the batteries at about half their discharge rate, extending the now 7 to 12 hour battery to about 10 to 18 hours.

Have I understood that right ?
Probably not, so can someone explain it to me slowly and carefully.
Is it worth the expense of a solar charger for such a minimal gain, or would I be better off just buying a couple of cheaper external batteries that plug in to the USB port ?

At the moment, I'm just looking for something that will last a long day with frequent checks of the map on the screen.
I may, in the future, want to do a multi day epic, where recharging the batteries without access to mains supply is more important.

I've got one of those free loader things, and TBH its a bit crap. opened up, each solar panel is about the size of one and a half cig packs. I had it on the dash all the way from bradford to scotland and it barely put any juice in my ipod (it was a gloriously sunny day). perhaps the glass makes a difference?

http://aldi.co.uk/uk/html/offers/special_buys3_14399.htm

is there a charger adaptor on this that would fit?

(druidh here)

I got a £30 solar charger from Madison for supplementing the battery in my Edge 705. When touring, I have it mounted in the map pocket of an Ortlieb handlebar bag. On a full days riding, the Edge goes down to around 50% battery power and there's enough juice in the charger to top that back up to full again (we're talking about Spring Scotland here – not the Sahara).

The lithium battery in the charger can also be recharged from a USB or mains socket. Sorry, but I don't have any specs to hand for it.

Hello, not sure if it's compatible – I would imagine so as there are dozens of adapters available, have a look at the Power monkey Explorer.

Mains / solar chargable battery, mains leads, and solar panels that are easy to stick on your daysack. I've found it to be great.

As it happens Trail magazine have a review of solar chargers this week – the monkey came out top, FWIW.

If you do decide to buy one, then don't pay 65 quid for it, but it off the website, put in the code TROOPS at checkout. Bosh, 30 quid off. It's a promotion my mate in the forces told me about, should still work.

HTH

+1 for the Powermonkey Explorer. very very good.

Thanks Giant, especially for the discount code, I got it for nearly half price. 🙂
It's a 2200mAh battery, which will give me a total of about 2.5 times my current battery life on its own, plus a 200mA solar charger, which should roughly double that again if it recharges the batteries at about half the rate they are discharging.

I got a power monkey in the bargain bin for £20 at Comet. Great little thing.

dont buy the freeloader, i bought one and it was crap,even bought the extra solar panel to charge it quicker and it was still terrible,the battery capacity is small, after reading lots of bad reviews it seems common with them.I got given another one as a present and thought i would give it ago in case my first one was duff, and guess what it was just as crap