By Evan Ackerman
While I certainly applaud the concept behind festooning random gadgets with solar cells, I have to question how useful it actually is. I mean, even with dedicated solar chargers with lots of panel area you have to make a special effort to leave them out in the sun for them to be useful. Still, I guess hypothetically a little tiny solar cell that spends most of its time in your pocket is better than no solar cell at all. This particular befestooned gadget is a USB key called the Sun Drive, available in capacities of 2^1 gigs, 2^2 gigs, 2^3 gigs, and 2^4 gigs. The solar cell and associated battery make it way fatter and less convenient than it needs to be, but fully charged, it can give your cell phone an extra 100 minutes of talk time or power one of those budget MP3 players for an additional 35 hours through some kind of interface that looks suspiciously non-friendly.
The biggest redeeming factor of the Sun Drive is the fact that it starts off at only $23, so worst case, you just end up with an overpriced flash drive, and best case, you get useful little portable and eco-friendly gadget charger.
[ AVing (Translated) ] VIA [ DVICE ]
I could put this on my car dashboard. Its always sunny where i am. I have a solar battery charger that is almost always fully charging batteries.
Someday solar cells will be the size of fly eggs……or not.
someday maybe we will be able to see the only truly useful solar cells are the ones in the upper atmosphere
True! I have my car battery solar panel on the dashboard when I'm in park. I would put this right up there with it. If it would charge my phone or whatever, sign me up. At $23 that isn't really that bad either.
Someday we won't even need an extra charge from a solar panel…go inductive charging!
Someday we won't even need an extra charge from a solar panel…go inductive charging!