cheap, but not worth the money
I purchased the hybrid solar charger hoping to use it on a camping trip, but in testing prior to the trip I discovered it's not even worth taking.  Prior to purchase I knew of some product flaws like there being no off switch and needing to remove the batteries when not charging, but the flaws are worse than I imagined.<br /><br />Initially I tried to leave the charger in my sun room which receives a good amount of sunlight, but the charging light didn't even come on during the course of a few hours.  It needs really strong sunlight to "turn it on."  After which I could bring it back inside to the sun room and it would continue charging with the light on.  I tried this over the course a few weekends and only once did the batteries actually charge.  Every other time one of the batteries completely discharged.  At first I thought I had a bad battery so I tried multiple batteries with no luck.  The batteries were Energizer NiMH and they have performed well in my Xbox 360 controller.<br /><br />I knew the charging speed would strongly depend on the brightness of the sunlight, but I didn't expect that more often than not charging in the sun would drain the batteries rather than charging them.<br /><br />The reason I chose this model of solar charger was it's support for AA batteries because I figured I could always bring extras and use them to charge my camera at night.  This didn't work out so well either.  Numerous times I tried charging my cell phone as a test case and not only did my cell phone not charge, but it seemed to lose charge at a faster rate than it would have if the charger wasn't plugged into it.<br /><br />I'm not sure if I've waited too long to return this thing, but hopefully I can at least discourage others from buying it.
Rating: 1 stars