Biolite Solarpanel 5+ Portable Solar Panel

I received this panel as a gift. I was so excited to play around with it. I plugged it into the wall initially to charge it up to full as directed. Then connected it to my phone to see how quickly it would charge. To my surprise, my phone would only charge for a few seconds when I pressed the battery button, then stopped charging immediately. I tried leaving it alone to see if the battery level went up anyway, but no luck there. I assumed my panel was somehow defective and reached out to customer service.When I contacted Biolite, they asked what kind of phone I have and then told me that the panel might charge some devices, but didn't charge all devices. In lieu of returning the item for a refund I asked to exchange the product for credit toward a purchase of a larger, better solar panel and I was denied.I had thought Biolite was a pretty cool brand, but their customer service was so poor I'm rethinking purchasing some of their other items I was eyeing, in case those malfunction as well. There are plenty of competitor brands I'd rather support.I'm not going to hunt through my house for rechargeable devices and waste time testing each one and make a list of which, if any, work with the panel. Biolite needs to go back to the drawing board with this and rethink the way they treat their customers.

I bought two of these for my kids. They worked good in short simple tests of charging and recharging before passing them on.But I have had quality and customer service issues before with other Biolite products and can no longer recommend them -- see my reviews of the CampStove, KettleCharge and NanoGrid..

Returned it 2 days after Christmas. Didn't work. A disappointing Christmas gift

Lip service, but no customer service. Product worked for a couple of months and then quit working. I charged the unit fully. After about 4 seconds charging my phone it just started shutting off.Calls and emails to Biolite got no response. Just silence.I like their ideas, some of their other products, but will not support them again with my dollars.There are many other companies out there who actually care about and communicate with their customers. No this one.