Now don’t get me wrong, solar rechargeable gadgets are a great idea if that gadget spends all day in the sun anyway. As for leaving your phone, camera or MP3 player lying around catching some rays? Not such a good idea. That’s why gadgets like the FreeLoader Pro are so brilliant. Basically it’s a pair of flip-out solar cells with a rechargeable battery all in one simple unit. It comes with most of the common phone (Nokia, iPhone, Samsung, LG, Sony) and small device DC adapters (iPod, DS, GPS) as well as mini USB so it can charge pretty much anything portable.

It gets better though, the Freeloader doesn’t just charge your phone and your iPod, it charges pretty much anything. The rechargeable battery can put out 9.5 volts which puts it in the realm of power hungry devices like camcorder batteries, SLR batteries and media players. The best bit is the universal battery charger adapter which has configurable charging pins so you can charge any battery that will fit in it, and that’s an awful lot of batteries. The battery compatibility list must have 500 devices in it including what looks like every Canon and Nikon camera.

When you’re back near civilisation you can recharge the battery using USB instead of the sun. A full charge of the 1.6 Ah battery using the sun takes about 8 hours, via USB about 3 hours. It’s made from aluminium and it’s built tough, so if you’re heading bush, you definitely need one of these. �69.99 from Solar Technology.

Freeloader Pro is the ultimate solar charger capable of powering virtually every electrical device, anywhere in the world, whether on a beach, a mountain, jungle or the Polar ice cap. Freeloader Pro uses its high power solar panels or USB (cable supplied) to quickly charge its internal battery (7 – 9 hours in sunny conditions)

Tags: gadget, freeloader+pro, solar+recharging, solar+gadget+recharger