SUN RISES ON HI-TECH NEW SOLAR PHONE CHARGER

FIRST TEST Halfords Solar Power Bank 5,000mah

“Solar Power Bank promises to charge an Apple iphone 5S from flat two or three times”

Price: £15 Rating: ★★★ Contact: 0345 504 53 53, www.halfords.com

WITH sat-navs, speed camera detectors and dash cams all available via mobile apps these days, it’s vital that you keep your smartphone charged while you’re on the move.

There are plenty of power banks on sale that allow you to charge your phone outside your car, then replenish their own batteries as you drive. But with Halfords’ latest product, it doesn’t matter if you’re not near a mains outlet or don’t have room to charge in your 12V socket, because the sun will do the job.

The brand’s Solar Power Bank promises to charge an Apple iphone 5S from flat two to three times before needing to be replenished. Good news for UK owners, too, is that the device will work in overcast conditions.

There’s a blue LED display to show how much charge is left in the Power Bank and a small on/off button so you can pause charging. It comes with a USB to micro USB lead as well – that means the option is there to charge from the mains via an adapter.

We ran our iphone down to around 30 per cent charge before plugging it into the product. The Solar Power Bank added five per cent in five minutes; a further 10 minutes yielded a 10 per cent boost. It took just over an hour to bring our phone to full charge, proving it charges at an even rate across the life of the battery.

It’s lightweight and only a fraction larger than your average smartphone. So it’s portable to take out of the car and keep in a coat pocket. However, this comes at the price of build quality; we thought the plastics felt a little flimsy.