i have an iphone 3gs and going away camping and been thinking about a solarpower charger for it for when im away.
any one got/used one
and what do you suggest?

Powermonkey explorer. pricey but very very good. excellent customer service. british company.

free loader? have worked very well for me before. remember you have to have the unit charged and it wont charge direct from the sun.

I've got a little thing that charges from a single AA. It was only a couple of quid. You could take a couple of pre-charged re-chargable AA. I never had much joy with a solar charger even in the African sun, it was a cheapy, though.

I've never had much joy with the freeloader. Might be that I've got a duff one but it doesn't seem to retain charge

if everyone starts charging their iphones from the sun will there be any left for the rest of us….

Tried the freeloader worked ok but you need to leave it out for a while

We've got a Powermonkey which works great. Usually leave it poking out of the tent while we're out for the day (except at festivals in case it gets nicked – then it goes with us and stays in the sun where we're sitting) to charge up the unit which you can then use to charge the device. If it's full, you usually get a couple of decent iPhone charges out of it.

Having that intermediate battery and charging system is the best thing about it – few portable panels will deliver enough power to convince a USB-charged device that it's actually charging, and if it does it'll take ages.

Not cheap but not bad value when you consider it's effectively a mains charger for every type of plug as well as doing all the various devices too.

You anywhere near a car? 12V USB adapter might be a better option?

The new trail magazine has a round up of about 8 of them…

(dont judge me, I had a lot of time to kill this weekend!)

Not for an iPhone, but I have one of these from Madison…

I've used it a couple of times to recharge my Garmin Edge 705. The panel lives on top of my bar bag, in a map case. There's enough charge built up during the day (and we're talking about spring-time Scotland here) to get the Edge fully recharged (from about half way) and some left over to boost the charge on my Nokia phone.

The lithium battery in the charger itself can also be charged from the mains or a USB socket and will trickle that charge through to a connected device, so it's also a handy "all-in one" charging solution.

I think it's time someone invented solar panel bike helmets

What about the folk that don't wear them?