Solar Charger or Battery pack

[Sarah Forbes]

Hi, I'm going backpacking in the Western Isles, and will be doing a fair bit of wild camping, so will need either a solar panel or a battery pack to charge my phone. I wondered if anyone has experience of either. Are the solar panels effective on cloudy days? And I'm also trying to keep pack weight to a minimum. Any advice would be very much appreciated. Sarah.

[rgf101]

Battery pack every time for me. Can charge overnight or in your pack, no weather worries. Find the mAh figure for your phone battery and the battery pack and you'll know how many full charges you should get.

[nathan79]

I'd second the battery pack. One packing a good mAh punch will do you a good few days and only come in at a couple of 100gs. Anker is one brand to take a look at.

[BobMcBob]

Solar panels, to be any use, are big and awkward and need to be in full sun all or most of the day. For me they're a 'base camp' essential but not something I'd carry around with me.

[Veryhappybunny]

Another vote for battery packs. I took a couple of cheap ones with me for a week's trekking in Morocco and only needed to use one of them. Have previously tried a solar charger but found it very slow.

It was also useful to minimise phone battery use, for example switching it to airplane setting some of the time - it used up far less battery life than usual, and using it to play music (with headphones) in the tent did not use up much. Like this I could have almost lasted the week just on the phone's battery, which really surprised me, as usually I have to recharge each night.

[Robinho08]

Anker external batteries. A 13,000 mAh pack should give you an extra 3-5 days. Remember to put your phone on flight mode to save battery.