FreeLoader Pico Solar Charger

I have had the charger since Xmas and I find it very useful. I do not charge it with the solar panel(maybe ok in Africa though), only from the mains. It is great when on the go and gives about 40% charge to my mobile. This gives you sufficient time to get back to base to charge your mobile. Great in an emergency. You can use your mobile when it is charging as well.Certainly one of the best xmas pressies I have recieved. I do not go anywhere without it.

The pico freeloader solar charger works fine but it does need good sustained sunlight to really get it going.I like to take it canoeing with me in the summer and it is fine for that charging in the sun on the boat (provided you keep it dry.)I now have it on a window sill inside my house facing south but it is not getting enough power to charge my phone despite being left for over a week.The instructions say it is weaker used behind glass but I think it may also be affected by the cold of winter nights that may be making it lose any charge it gains in the day.Still it's great in the outdoors in summer.

The Freeloader Pico substantially fails at the job it is supposed to do.In the year I have owned it I have never been able to complete a successfull solar charge of the Pico and in turn charge my mobile telephone from it. That is despite on occasion placing it outdoors in good sunlight day after day. I even wonder if my Pico is faulty.The internal battery of the Pico is rated at 800 mA/H. This is about half the capacity of the battery found in current smartphones so the Freeloader Pico is at best a top up charger, you'll never fully recharge a Smartphone in one go from the Pico. The solar cell itself is rated at 75mA/H, this figure is based on ideal, full blazing sun, conditions and even with that, you're looking at ever ten hours in ideal conditions to charge the Pico's internal battery.I have found the Pico to work well when charged from a USB port on a computer but this is little consolation. The whole point of a solar charger is to facilitate recharging away from mains power and computers with USB ports.The totally smooth flat design of the Pico doesn't assist with positioning it in the sun etc. Some kind of clip or other arrangement to help with mounting or positioning the device would be an advantage.

This sounds like a great environmentally friendly battery but don't believe the marketing. The tiny solar panel is stated to take as little as 10 hours to recharge the battery but I think they must have got that figure from the testing in the middle of the Sahara; in the UK it will take much longer than that. I even bought their big solar panel accessory  Freeloader Supercharger Lime  to try and improve the situation but it made little difference.It is also rated at 800mAh which is puny. For example,  New Trent IMP120D iCarrier 12000mAh Heavy Duty 2A/1A Dual USB Ports External Battery Pack for the new iPad, iPad2, iPhone 5/4S/4/3Gs/3G, iPod Touch all versions; Samsung Galaxy Note/Nexus/S3/S2/S; HTC Titan, Sensation, ONE S/V/X, EVO Thunderbolt, Desire...  is 12000mAH - yes, that is 15 times more juice. Another example is an iPhone 4 which is 1420mAh so this will only charge it to 56%.Another point worth noting, which admittedly applies to all solar chargers and not just this Freeloader Pico, is that modern glass for car and house windows block out a lot of UV light which also means these solar chargers simply cannot get much charge when used indoors. If you were thinking of leaving it facing out of the window then you can forget that.In summary, its a nice idea to think you are getting "free" load of battery but it simply not going to happen at this scale. Maybe solar technology will improve with time but it is not mature enough for the time being.

Good size and is very light, only charged it using USB so far and it in turn put a good charge into my phone, think I will be struggling to charge it in this country via the solar pannel but for £15 it gives me an option when I'm backpacking.

Don't understand the bad reviews. Take a little longer to charge than stated but it's the start of Jan.Bad Point: The Battery only lasts 2 years then needs to be replaced

Not as good as i expected,charges my blackberry to 60% in about 45 minutes,usefull to get you out of a jam if your camping but not something you could use on a daily basis to charge your phone.

I thought getting this charger would be a really good idea, and as it says above it can be used for charging ipods. Firstly when i recieved my charger it did not have an apple attachement so i plugged in my usb cord which came with my ipod, but when i plugged it in it said this device is not supported by apple and refused to charge.Don't buy this if you are wanting to use it for apple products.

Je n'ai pas pu personnellement tester ce produit car c'est un cadeau que j'ai offert à ma nièce qui ne m'a pas encore fait de retour quant à son utilisation. Elle était toutefois ravie de le recevoir à Noël.

pas tres performant

Charge solaire correcte une fois la batterie rechargée. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

simply its not working its no good even in full sun no charge very dissappointing should send it back its no use just end up in the draw or the bin with my money

It works for a short time. Just load the iphone the first 5 times to 90% after only loads 56% and then only 30%