Solar Powered Device Charger Reviewed

We’ve had several readers express interest to us about sourcing environmentally friendly/green products. In the spirit of giving readers what they’re looking for (that’s our job!), here is a review of a quality solar powered device charger we’ve located.

Solar Charge Open

This unit is designed and marketing by a company called Sunnytech, located in NanShan, Shenzhen. Upon receiving the sample, the first thing we took note of was the quality of the packaging. The unit comes in a very nice box which is very much suitable for resale in the US and Europe.

In fact, this is the same box that our HTC Tytn II mobile phone came in, which is a very high end phone. This must be a relatively up scale box that several of the Chinese manufacturers are using now. The vendor is open to re-branding/re-packaging so if you’re interested in selling this product you will be able to re-brand it with your own company information.

When opening the box, the unit sits in the middle, surrounded by a black velvet liner. This definitely improves the appearance of the unit and puts the package as a whole into “quality” territory.

Pulling up on the yellow (silk?) loop reveals the instruction manuals. The manuals are in Chinese but again, the company is open to re-branding and re-packaging. You shouldn’t have a problem having instruction manuals done in English or another language suitable for your country.

Under the instruction manuals is a velvet platform that includes an AC adapter and seven adapters. The AC adapter can be used to charge the unit outside of solar so that it can also be a store of power. For example, if you are going on a long trip you may decide to charge the unit with AC power and keep topping it up via solar. The adapters fit the major cell phone brands. The standard USB adapter fit our phone in the office just fine. Included also is a USB cable. One side of this cable plugs into the unit’s ‘power out’ and the other side is where you plug the various adapters into.

The unit itself has a velvet-y feel to it and feels solid and well manufactured. The logo is placed on the top along with an engraved company name where you open it from. Again, these can be replaced with your company’s information. In fact, the factory showed us several other examples with the China Mobile and Nokia labels as they purchase from Sunnytech as well.

The unit feels a bit large but can easily be held in hand.

On the front of the solar charger, you can set the voltage out depending on what you want to charge. The options are 4.5 volts, 5.0 volts, 6.3 volts and 9 volts. This covers the general range of mobile devices.

On the right side, the unit sports a USB-OUT slot, an LED.OFF.ON switch and a DC-IN slot where you connect the included AC adapter to.

Below is a picture of the included USB cable connected to one of the included adapters.

If you are interested in contacting Sunnytech directly, it’s best to speak with Vanilla Wu. Her English is quite good and she has helped SourceJuice arrange for this review. Her phone number is +86 13823283738 and can also be reached via email at . Their English website is http://www.china-solar-charger.com/index.

Inside the factory is a typical production line where the components are assembled manually by hand.

The unit itself goes through many steps of manufacture and here is an almost finished unit, with the inside components intact but not yet placed in the outside case.

The units are placed in foam layered padding.

We hope you enjoyed our first “green” product review and that our readers find it interesting as an option to source. For more information if you have any questions, please fill out the contact us form at the top of the page.

The SourceJuice Team