>>472925Solar has its applications; but IMO the panel size and cost isn't worth it.
If you just need to recharge a small flashlight or headlamp, a solar cell like this is probably fine.
If you're looking to keep a smartphone charged, or you've got some other power-hungry AA device (like GPS or camera)... bring a bunch of extra batteries.
Charged my phone overnight from 4 fully-charged AA's. Boosted my phone from ~50% to ~80% by morning, and the light on the pack was yellow with no-load ("Low warning").
Solar panel in full sun while I was out riding, pack was still blinking red when I got back to the truck that evening (indicating less than 50% charge). Plugged it into USB at home and it finished up in about 6 hours, which is about how long the batteries need to charge just off USB.
So the solar panel didn't really do much for it.
I'll stick with truck/trailer 12v power, or my generator if I need to recharge those along with every other electronic item I have with me.
A gallon of fuel runs my generator for about 6 hours charging two trailers, two laptops, three phones, and a bluetooth stereo speaker thing.
And those 6 hours with AC is enough to nearly fully recharge my trailer's battery, and completely charge everything else we had going.
