BigBlue 28W Solar Panel Charger with Dual USB-C and USB-A, Portable Solar Phone Charger for Camping, Hiking, Backpacking, Emergency Solar Charger for iPhone, iPad, Samsung Galaxy, Power Bank, GPS etc

When I first purchased this portable solar panel, I was skeptical about its capabilities. To be honest, I didn’t anticipate its impressive performance. Let’s begin with the build quality. The manufacturer has done an excellent job with the design and construction. The foldable design makes it incredibly portable, and the panels themselves feel sturdy and well-made, not cheap at all. I appreciate that it comes with carabiners, which makes attaching it to a backpack or hanging it easy and convenient. Since I’m always on the go and carry a lot of tech, I’m constantly in need of extra power for my gadgets. I paired this solar panel with a NESTOUT 15000N portable outdoor battery, and they work seamlessly together for my needs. The solar panels keep my battery charged, and I use the power from the battery to quickly charge my devices. The USB-C ports and USB-A port works great without any problems and allows me to connect to my devices quickly without any delay. Now, don’t expect these small panels to charge devices rapidly. They do the job, and so far, with the sunlight I’ve been exposed to daily, they’ve worked flawlessly. I highly recommend this product. Considering its limitations and my use case, I believe it was a wise investment. I’ve also recommended it to several friends who work outdoors, and they’re equally impressed with its performance.

A lot of people complain about the charge times or it not working. First it's a solar panel, it's not going to charge as fast as it would plugged into your car or wall. Second it works best when it is outside in direct sunlight, not behind glass, not in the shade, not in cloudy weather, IN DIRECT SUNLIGHT. It will charge if it's not in direct sunlight, but much slower. Also it's going to take longer to charge if you're using your phone while charging. The more you plug into it, the longer it will take to charge everything. It also doesn't help if you're using a 12ft long cable. So keep in mind when buying this, direct sunlight, turn off the device you're charging, charge 1 device at a time when possible, and use the shortest cable possible. It's very useful to have. Good for camping, hiking, hunting, survival, emergency preparedness, or just being environmentally conscious. If there's a reason why you can't charge your phone from an outlet, this is perfect. The size is about that of two tablets/iPads stacked on top of each other or a small laptop when folded up. And about 3 or 4 tablets/iPads side by side when opened up. It came with some carabiners so you can attach it to your backpack, tent, a chain link fence or just about anything that would help face it in direct sunlight. It also has a little indicator light where you plug your USB cable into that lets you know if you are getting power, the brighter the light, the more power you're getting. As long as you keep those few things in mind this solar panel is effective and super simple to use.

My intended use of this product is to maintain complete power independence for months-long, off-grid backpacking (thru-hiking). I've always laughed at the hikers who try to make things work with a single panel on top of their backpack, but the bigblue can work, under the right conditions. My electronics consist of generic bluetooth listening devices, a cell phone, a gps communications and tracking device, a rechargeable tracking watch, a rechargeable air mattress inflator, a rechargeable headlamp, and a 10,000 mAh power bank with dual charge inputs and a maximum recharge rate of 22W. Since the bigblue only delivers a maximum of 5V @ 2.4A to each of its 3 usb, connectors, it means you can only expect a maximum of 12W from each usb connector. Therefore, to obtain the maximum possible powerbank recharge rate from this setup, I needed a powerbank with 2 charge inputs. The only such one I could find in the 10k mAh range was the nitecore nb10000 gen 3. In theory, I could get 24W from 2 of the bigblue usb connectors, and I would be wasting a couple of watts on the nitecore, but in reality so far I have not gotten more than about 16-17W form the bigblue, as measured using an Anker Prime 27,650 power bank. That's in southern US and november sky, but I would not expect more than about 20-21W under perfect conditions, anyway. I have tested and determined that hanging the bigblue from the backpack is pretty much useless and not worth the effort. Also, it only delivers a trivial amount of power under heavy cloud conditions. It does deliver modest amounts of power when the sun is still fairly bright through a fully overcast sky. Under partly cloudy skies, with thicker clouds, the output falls off dramatically when the sun is blocked. The most workable solution that I have found is to pack up the bigblue in the morning, leaving it in the top of my pack. I'll take a 15 minute break mid-morning and quickly pull out the bigblue and connect the nitecore to 2 ports and my cell phone to the third port, providing the right sun conditions exist. The bigblue does not have a kickstand, and the panels flop around, so I find a long, straight stick and prop up the panels using a few bits of gear to prop the stick and panels up straight. The same process is repeated at lunch time for a 1 hour lunch break, and possibly another short break mid-afternoon. Using this approach, under the right conditions, I can fully recharge my phone from about 80% and I can recharge up to 2 bars out of 4 on my power bank. This is generally all I need, but I have not determined how long this setup would last with prolonged days of no adequate sun. I could probably last a week or so with careful use of electronics, but then I would be digging out of a power deficit for several days after. If the cloudy conditions persist, I would be forced off trail to recharge. I have also found that the bigblue can still deliver 3 watts or so folded up, with only one panel exposed to full mid-day sun and laying flat . This might work to charge low-power devices with the bigblue laying flat on top of the backback. It's always going to be important to make sure any means of securing the unit does not cast any shadow anywhere on the panel. My bigblue weighs 24-7/8 ounces. It's an awful lot to lug around. I think a lot of that weight is in the fabric, velcro closures and hanging grommets. I keep looking at the thing and wondering how much I could cut off. The 3 output connectors, with limit to 12 watts on each, is a pain when trying to find a suitable power bank that can recharge at a faster rate than 12 watts. Maybe 2 usb-c's, with no limitations, would work better? The weight and the connectors are my reason for 4 stars. So far, I have not tested for many days on trail, but it's looking possible. The implementation is not ideal, but I'm balancing that against having to go off trail and find an outlet.

The panel charged my 16000 mAh, 59.2 wh battery pack in 4 hours. I can then recharge my phone several times with that pack. worked faster than expected.

I bought this in anticipation of a camping trip in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota. I'd had 'solar charger' on my list of camping/hiking wants for a long time, but this was the most legitimate actual need for it that I'd come to in recent years. This one came recommended to me from The Wirecutter, and while it seemed like the obvious choice from the review, some other amazon reviews had me hesitating because of some reported bad experiences. In the end, I didn't have any different solar chargers come across my radar with such positive feedback from a review site paired with this price point, so I decided to risk it, and was delightfully pleased that this charger actually worked well for us! I personally did not have an issue with this charger not storing up power - while that would be a great feature, I wasn't really expecting it. My goal of having a solar charger with me out in the wilderness is to have some emergency method of charging a phone when there are no other options. With modern smartphones now, the battery can drain itself over the course of a day even without any use. While camping, I keep my phone in airplane mode and only mean to have it for taking pictures, and in case I need some way to figure out where I am or getting ahold of someone in an emergency. Being in northern Minnesota in the fall, we found enough pockets of sunshine to reasonably charge two smartphones at a time, and I would say it was on par with the charge time of average wall chargers plugged into an electrical outlet. Having the multiple panels seemed like a helpful way to catch the sun at varying angles as it moves. I also love the fact that you can easily hook it to a backpack or anything else with the included carabiners if you want to use it on-the-go. Overall, I was really satisfied with how this worked on my first trip out with it, and am relieved to now have it in my supplies instead of just in the back of my head. Hopefully it holds up!

absolutely great product. Use on elk hunt and did great.

Company claimed that it is 28 watt. But i checked it with tester, single port and dual port. Also one panel to four panels. On the single port it deliver 11 watt at noon and fully sunny day. It is ok because of usb limitation and dont wave quick charge or power delivery. But If i add second device then the other device down to 4 watt. I mean total wattage still about 11 watt. The other problem is if a bit shade then the wattage going down and never come up until you unplug and plug again. People who on the comments only talking about “ohhh it is charging very fast.” But how much watt? I think they are comparing to 5 watt wall charger. If so yes it is faster than it. Really funny. Because most of phones and powerbanks supports fast charhing. For example you can’t charge 26k mah powerbank in full day. Needs about 2 days at least. It writes it has Sunpower cell but not different than other monocrystaline products. I think it is not high efficiency one. If not look at to the sun directly then half power. I mean about 4-5 watt. I’m totally frustrated! Because I searched a lot,read lots of comments videos then I bought. I think many of them is promotion. All panels connected parallel. It is not bad actually. It can deliver a bit power Even one panel is open. BUT each panel deliver 3.5-4 watt!!! as my tester. 4X4=16 Watts on fully sunny day. Im not talking about one usb output. Total output is about 16 watt. I hate lier sellers. Pros: -very light and small. 600 gr. Can good for backpacking or small devices. Such as old phones, lights etc. -all panels connected by parallel so you one panel is closed then will continue to work. With less power ofcourse:) - a bit flexable and durable. Cons: - not 28 watt!!!. 11-16 watt in fully sunny day. - if connecting to 2 device then power down because sharing the source. - solar controller in the bag looks weak for hot days. - there is no Quick Charge( we are in 21. Century) it is only 5 volt. - there is no type-c or PD. -need to dirrct sun for enough power. If not your phone will open close open close … -

I tested using a resistive load tester and I managed to get 4.95v @ 1.8a or 9 watts which is about what I expected from this, all in all it will give a good solid charge in direct light. Won't get anywhere near 2.4a even under more ideal scenarios (better time of month, my test was 2pm in Ohio in early September), frankly for the size and weight this is a great amount of power for it to put out, you could charge a modern phone about 50% in a few hours, so in an emergency this would likely do the trick I'd suggest using with a USB power bank and leaving this sit still for most of the sunny parts of the day. The panels didn't seem to be very sensitive to the exact angle of the sun, just that the sun was hitting them, I tried 20 degrees off 90 degrees and got the same readings I was getting with directly 90 degree so in the summer they can lay flat or close to flat and get just as much power as if they were correctly pointed, also means you don't need to be super careful about moving them with the sun. In my estimation you are likely to get about 48wh out of the panels a day for a 6h solar day, which it seems that the solar days are likely to be longer with this than a residential panel. On a extremely overcast day that I tested this out of the box, but I managed to get [email protected] or .25w out of it, and my phone registered that it was charging, which is a bit of a shock. Update: only days later I had a good day to test, and the testing isn't anywhere near the other day, the panel output voltage is 4.4v at just over 1amp, so its not really charging anything, that's ~5w and the volts are so low I think it might be damaging my power bank. 4.4v is the literal lowest acceptable limit of the USB standard, and I am using cables that are extremely short (6" for maximum power transfer, I have tested the resistance of the cables to be extremely low, v drop of <.005v). I'll test again with a high sun, but I think something might be wrong in the wiring possibly. 3/11/24: Retested on a perfectly clear day, 8w max output, nowhere near the rated 14w, literally would work in an emergency, gonna take more than a days sunlight to fully charge a Phone or power bank.