Halys calls me the gadget man. Ok so she has got a point I love a gadget, I love tech. So when my latest gadget purchase arrived I got the usual disapproving look and the “what’s that?” question.

“A solar powered phone charger” I said. “What on earth do you want that for”?

Well we can use it when we are camping “off-grid”. We don’t have to drain the van battery, or plug into the car and it has a torch. Who doesn’t love a torch?

Imagine my surprise the next day when another turned up. Turns out she liked this idea so bought herself one.

This is exactly what it says on the tin. It’s basically a solar panel attached to a 10,000mah battery. mah means Milli Amp Hours which is a measurement of battery size, like the 80 or 110ah battery in your caravan, only a Milli Amp is a much smaller unit.

In the box is the battery with the solar panel on one side and a torch on the other. A small clip is on the back at the opposite end to the torch to attach the supplied carabina type clip which has a handy compass on the strap, and a usb lead for connecting to your phone, tablet or other device.

The battery in this is 10,000mah and so should be enough to charge the 3000mah battery in my phone 3 times in theory.

The solar panel is designed to be used as a backup charging option as the manufacturer suggests that if a power source is available that you plug the unit in to charge it up which is fair enough. They state that to charge the unit fully via the solar panel will require 7-8 hours.

So I could quite happily leave the unit charging all day and then plug my phone in overnight to charge as the battery life on my Huawei phone is pretty good.

The torch is a 6 LED affair which is blindingly bright! It also has an SOS feature which could be handy for walkers and the like.