I am a member of a Federal Disaster Response team and as such may find myself deployed to areas that have had power knocked out. I carry high capacity power packs but of course you need power to recharge those. This item was purchased for its solar charging capability.

This is a much bigger and heavier unit than I expected, so it’s not something I will carry in a pocket, but based on my testing I will carry it in my go bag. The attached pictures can give you an idea of the dimensions.

To test the performance I fully charged the unit using a wall plug and then used it to charge my Samsung Galaxy S-7 until the power pack was fully drained. The nutshell report is that I got about 5 full recharges before the power pack was drained.
1st – phone from 7% to full in 1 hr 40 min
2nd – from 3% to full in in 1 hr 46 min
3rd – from 0% to full in 1 hr 45 min
4th – from 1% to full in 1 hr 54 min while using the phone to surf the web
5th – 0% to 45% in 42 minutes at which point the pack was drained.

I then took the depleted pack outside and opened the solar panels to indirect sunlight and connected my depleted phone to it. That took my phone from 0% to 6% in one hour.

I moved the pack into direct sunlight and the phone went from 6% to 13% in one hour.

I then disconnected the phone and left the pack in direct sunlight for an additional 6 hrs and noted that the pack was displaying 1 light of charge capacity, (about 25%). Clearly, charging the pack by solar power alone will take several days to go from empty to full. However, since in the course of a normal work day my phone rarely falls below 50%, I feel comfortable that this unit will give me 9 to 10 recharges before running out of juice. If I set the unit into sunlight during the day and charge my phone in the evening, I imagine that I’ll never be without power.

The caveat…if deployed to a disaster, most of my phone use is accessing disaster related apps a few times per day, using GPS with pre-downloaded maps, and if lucky, phone or text with family and teammates. I might listen to stored music during downtime, but not streaming anything.

My bottom line is that this item will go out the door with me, maybe as soon as this weekend with Hurricane Dorian on the way. I would recommend it to anyone looking for an emergency power pack. It’s way too bulky for a day-to-day carry power source, but if you are expecting or planning to be completely without any electrical power for more than a couple of days, then this may be the way to go.