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I picked mine up on a whim at REI for about $60, marked down from $120.I've experimented with this little thing a bit, and it will charge my BlackBerry Curve easily enough with direct sun contact here in Chicago. I can't seem to get it to work with the iPod Touch or iPhone, however.
I'd bump this thing up to 4 stars now. Haven't tried the battery charger.Edit: WAS finally able to get it to charge the iPod Touch and iPhone via cigarette lighter adapter.
Still working on it. Another thing to carry, but not a big deal.
Looks like this item is being discontinued. It will product some current through a window, but it's not really enough to do much other than give the phone the idea that it's plugged in without actually charging.
Still won't do it off of USB, but that doesn't bother me.
No response from product support guy; won't return calls. It did charge my Garmin Forerunner (a smaller device). I am very disappointed in the Brunton Solarport 4.4. I wanted to charge my iPhone but was unable to charge it; even in full sunlight with the phone turned off. Not much bang for the buck; I wouldn't recommend it.
Due to this I would recommend keeping a good supply of charged batteries on hand if on a long trip out in the field in case of extended times of cloudiness.For the money it works well, just make sure you keep it in DIRECT sunlight. For a long time I thought that it wasn't working. When it is not in DIRECT sunlight, the battery charger indicator lights will show that the batteries are fully charged. When you find a patch of sunlight it works great. I, like many others had a hard time figuring out how to get this thing to work. It has one major design flaw. It needs full on, undiffused sunlight or it just won't work.
Unfortunately, it didn't work that well for me. And it won't work through a window.
As far as I'm concerned, their tech support is non-existent.I returned mine. They have one guy, and you have to call the main switchboard - they don't have a tech support number.
Not very good for $110.Tech support. I left him a message 3 days ago and never heard back.
It's a great concept. Even in the bright sunlight here in Colorado, I could only charge 2 NMH batteries at the same time.
Good luck reaching him.
It is one of my favorite gadgets and I reccomend it. However, it charges really quick in bout 3 minutes i can charge my cell phone 5%. One down side is to charge your cell phone you have to turn it off, which can be frustrating to turn off your phone in the middle of the day. I'm still figuring out new ways to use it every day. The solarport has some really neat features. It includes a cigarette lighter plug-in port and it also comes with a battery recharger for AA and AAA batteries. This is a really good product for camping and hiking also.
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