[GIVEAWAY + REVIEW] CHOETECH Foldable Solar Charger Panel

“There are only two certainties in life – death and taxes.” – Benjamin Franklin

While this certainly holds true today, in our modern technological era there is another certainty – charging your tech.

No matter how many extra battery packs you carry around, how many volts you undervolt by, how many apps you Greenify, you’ll eventually run out of juice and need to replenish your device’s battery using a charger. What this usually means is that you’ll need to stop and find an electrical outlet (alternatively, you can carry one of these behemoths around if you’re a masochist).

But what if you’re out and about where neither of these options are feasible? Say, you’re out camping or hiking and you would rather not have to rely on a finite external battery pack? In that case, you can turn to the power of solar by using CHOETECH’s dual-port, foldable solar charger panel.

I tested the device out for a few days this past week, although I should note that even though I live in a pretty hot and sunny place (Houston, Texas) we haven’t yet hit the full brunt of summer yet so I didn’t see the full capabilities of this charger. Nevertheless, I was able to collect some pretty consistent data to show that this charger is indeed the real deal. First up, here are the specs as listed from CHOETECH:

Solar Panels :	Highly-efficient solar cell 6V/19W
USB Max Output Current :	3400mA
Output Interface :	USB female socket with auto detect technology
Solar Energy Conversion Efficiency :	24%
Material :	PET laminated solar panel, Fabric
Folded Size :	26 x 17 x 2.5cm
Expanded Size :	54.8 x 17 x 0.5cm
Weight :	425g

The solar charger is light-weight and pretty compact when folded, making it a great travel companion. I had no issues carrying it around in my backpack, and I don’t think a device that weighs under a pound is going to cause much of an issue for a hiker or camper. But what’s mostly important is the charger’s ability to actually charge your devices. So how does that stack up? Let’s dive into the data.

Disclaimer: CHOETECH sent me this product for the purpose of this review. I was free to test this product using my own methods, and I believe my method of data collection here was fairly objective.

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Testing Parameters

Please note that with any solar charging technologies, your mileage will vary. The charging capability of this device depends on the amount of direct sunlight your panels are exposed to, as expected.

To test the charging abilities on the solar charger, I used a custom Tasker script to retrieve the estimated amperage, voltage, and battery temperature as reported by Android every 10 minutes and measured how long it took for the device to charge from 20-80% to get a somewhat accurate read on how fast this thing can charge your device. I wanted to pull as much information as I could about the battery to test whether or not your device is truly safe to be charging out in the sun underneath the pockets of this device.

Of course, since these values are pulled from Android’s estimates and not from actual electrical measuring hardware such as voltmeter, they won’t be 100% accurate but our general testing purposes it works out just fine. My testing device was a Nextbit Robin (2680mAh battery capacity).

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Charging Results

Here are some of my results from some sunny, clear days that I could pull consistent data from:

Day 1 – 5/5/16

Time	Amperage	Voltage	Temperature
12:10PM (Begin – 20% BATT)	0 mA	3770 mV	35.7 C
12:20PM	1172 mA	3924 mV	42.2 C
12:30PM	1161 mA	3952 mV	43.7 C
12:40PM	1144 mA	3988 mV	44.5 C
12:50PM	1142 mA	4027 mV	44.5 C
1:00PM	1141 mA	4073 mV	44.5 C
1:10PM	1088 mA	4135 mV	44.5 C
1:20PM (End – 80% BATT)	1080 mA	4199 mV	44.7 C

Day 2 – 5/6/16

Time	Amperage	Voltage	Temperature
11:50AM (Begin – 20% BATT)	1067 mA	3861 mV	27.5 C
12:00PM	1227 mA	3942 mV	40.2 C
12:10PM	1112 mA	3969 mV	42.7 C
12:20PM	1222 mA	4015 mV	43.7 C
12:30PM	1219 mA	4059 mV	43.2 C
12:40PM	1204 mA	4120 mV	44.2 C
12:50PM	1087 mA	4176 mV	44.2 C
1:00PM (End – 80% BATT)	980 mA	4224 mV	44.0 C

As you can tell from the data, the device is able to charge your products fairly quickly at a safe limit for your battery. For the Nextbit Robin, it was able to charge 60% of the battery capacity in 70 minutes, which means it would take approximately 117 minutes to fully charge the device.

Considering the fact that this does not use any quick charge technology and the fact that it relies on solar power, this is pretty impressive in my opinion. You’ll be getting a pretty good top-up of your battery while hiking or camping, but as always this completely depends on how much sunlight your device is exposed to. My testing was done with the charger staying stationary on the ground, without anything obstructing the panels which will likely not be true for the full duration of a real-world use of this device. Nonetheless, these results give you a good idea of what you can expect from the charging capabilities of this device.

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Giveaway

Now that you’re interested, how would you like to win a chance to receive one of these solar charging panels for free? CHOETECH is offering to giveaway one of these devices to a lucky winner of our choice. Anyone from anywhere (okay, maybe not North Korea) is eligible to enter so long as you have a valid address that CHOETECH can ship to from Amazon. How do you enter?

Leave a comment below stating how you would be using this product.

We’ll pick one random comment as a winner and will announce the winner in another article as well as over our social media pages.

What happens if you don’t win? Don’t fret, you can still get your hands on this product at a discount if you enter ‘VUYSUNAX’ at checkout on the product’s Amazon page.

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