Solio Hybrid 1000

I love camping. Being outside, living off the land is really fun in my mind. The problem is though, that I rather enjoy my gadgets and living without them can be hard at times. When I go camping one gadget that I need to have is my cell phone in case of emergencies. My cell phone unfortunately doesn’t have a great battery life though so instead of carrying around a large generator I’ve found this new gadget to power my cell phone.

The Solio Hybrid 1000 is a very neat device. According to the manufacturer, the Hybrid 1000 will store power for up to one year. The charger is ‘hybrid’ because it can receive power from a regular socket or from the sun.

A full Solio H1000 will charge a typical mobile phone once or give 10 hours of MP3 music - just 1 hour of sunshine = 15 minutes talk time or 40 minutes of MP3 music.

Here are a few of the technical specifications for the Hybrid 1000:

• Street price: $69.95
• 4.6 oz
• 3.7V Li-Io battery
• 3 different connectors included

Things I like
The Solio is good at what it does, charge things. It’ll give you’re iPod an extra 10 hours of play and for every 1 hour of (strong) sunlight you’ll get an extra 15 minutes of talk time or 40 minutes of music time. The device charges via sunlight or a USB port so this is good but I honestly don’t see the need for this device unless you’re out camping and need to have your music.

The device looks really neat though, with it’s bright orange casing (or grey) and it’s large solar panel. You’ll definitely catch people’s eyes when you have it strapped to your bag. Other than the ability to charge via a USB port and the nice design there really isn’t that much more I can say about the Hybrid 1000.

Things I don’t like
I really don’t think the Hybrid 1000 is all that practical. If you’re out in the woods away from civilization most likely you’re not going to want your iPod playing in the background drowning out all of natures sounds. The 1 hour of sunlight for 15minutes of talk just isn’t enough to make it worth while carrying. When they say 1 hour of sunlight they also mean it needs to be a perfect blue and clear sky without a cloud in sight. I found charging by sunlight to be rather annoying since I live in Canada and the number of days where the sun is actually bright enough to charge this device is low. All in all I think the Solio hybrid 1000 is a little useless.

Pros:

• Charge via USB port
• Nice design

Cons:

• Rather useless
• 1 hour of sunlight for 15 minutes of talk time

Final Thoughts
Honestly I don’t really see a point in buying the Solio Hybrid 1000. Most cell phones already get 5-10 hours of talk time on a full charge and iPods get more than that so unless you’re going to be away from a outlet and in absolute need of your gadgets there really isn’t any need for this device. Coming in at $80 it isn’t exactly cheap either. I don’t recommend buying the Solio Hybrid 1000