Solar charger for a laptop

[davmoo]

Has anyone actually used any of the various solar charging devices available for laptops?

I have a friend who is getting ready to travel to a remote part of Africa for a year or longer, and chances are good that the monkeys and giraffes are not going to have suggestions for where to plug in at. She will be away from wall outlets for weeks at a time. Doing a search I see a number of options, but I'd like to hear comments from actual users.

Also she could use ideas on a not overly expensive but rugged laptop machine. Preferably with a web cam and microphone built in.

(I kind of hate sounding snotty when I throw stuff like this in, but I try to save time and energy. So please note that she needs a full Windows laptop because of software that she *must* have available for her job, not a netbook and not an XO. Also, she is definitely a PC person, and has no interest what so ever in going the Mac route. Thus it is not helpful to suggest items like that.)

[dtkflex]

I don't have experience with the solar powered devices for notebooks, but do remember that Patrick did construct a portable battery pack that probably could be modified to work with PV panel(s).

As far as the rugged notebook, is there a budget? Not expensive varies depending on the person.

I've seen Panansonic has new business rugged and semi-rugged notebooks that don't have the full mil-spec requirements, but appear to be better built than your typical business class notebook. Most of these notebooks don't have built in webcams though.

Otherwise, Dell, HP, or Lenovo (business class or workstation class) would be the ones that I would look at depending on the features. Some have integrated webcams while others have better battery life and some have magnesium chassis, while some also have shock mounted or protected hard drives.

[fishtoprecords]

Current issue of Computer Power User magazine has an article about building a solar powered rig to drive a moderate gamer desktop. Not a super powered quad SLI water cooled monster, but a decent machine.

They said it would save $12 a month in electricity and the cost of the solar cells, regulators, batteries, etc. was only about $3714.08

Such a deal

[olyo]

I haven't actually used either of these, but just to list what I think are the two best options:

First, Voltaic has a bag now that can charge a full-size notebook:

http://www.voltaicsystems.com/bag_generator.shtml

It has it's own battery pack, so you can use your laptop off the laptop battery (charged overnight) while the bag spends the day recharging the bag-battery. This is a pretty new product, it wasn't possible before, so there may be a bit of early-adopter pain.

The bag is a bit pricey, so you can also go for a panel + battery approach

http://www.powergorilla.com/

I would avoid any batteryless solutions. They are riskier to the laptop and not very practical for real world use.

Not sure I would recommend Dell as "rugged", but if she's only using the laptop for brief periods for IM/mail, she might look at their new netbook. Any notebook as small and underpowered as she can live with will get the best life out of the solar battery. If it doesn't have a camera built in (Mini 9 does not) then just get one of the usb quickcams.