I like the battery pack.

Now, a lot of people might think that solar is cool and you can save money by charging electronics using the sun, but the math just does not add up. In , I said, ”听In the U.S., electricity from the grid costs about 10 cents per kilowatt-hour. A $150 solar charger with a 54000mAh battery would take nearly 75,000 charge cycles to pay for itself.”

So who should get a solar battery pack? The JOOS is meant for people who see more sunlight than fluorescent light. There’s really no reason to get a solar gadget charger unless you won’t see a power plug for a few days and yet, somehow, need active electronics during that time. It’s also for you if you want a battery pack that can be charged in the middle of nowhere.

The heart of the JOOS is a quick-charging, high-efficiency, mono-crystalline solar panel, which it uses to load up a large 5,400mAh battery. That’s enough to fill an iPhone twice over, or to charge an iPad.听Charging such a big battery can take 12 hours in the sun, but that can be accelerated to eight hours through the use of reflector panels (sold separately). Before a big outdoor trip, the panel can also be charged by USB, which takes eight hours.听The battery is user-replaceable, too, but will last, JOOS claims, 1,000 cycles. The JOOS panel, however, is powerful enough to charge a phone in the sun, even when the battery is dead. One hour in the sun is supposedly equivalent to two hours of talk time on a phone. (Although JOOS fails to disclose which phone it is they are talking about, that’s still an impressive stat.) Recently, the JOOS, version two, gave the thing an extra 20 percent battery life, so any review from the first generation of JOOS underrates the solar pack’s ability.)

All that power sits inside a housing that can handle a serious excursion. The whole thing is waterproof (it will actively charge even while a few feet underwater) and can survive drops onto rock. It comes with tips that charge most Apple devices and some generic Samsung and Motorola devices, but there’s also a generic plug you can use to charge anything USB powered. Extra plugs for portable game consoles can be bought from the company. There’s also hole to loop lanyards from so you can hold it up on a backpack or a tent.

I tested (for a Wired magazine article) four similarly classed solar panels and couldn’t find anything that challenged the JOOS鈥檚 charging speed, portability, durability and looks. I tried a few panels from Brunton, Solio and Goal Zero in the same price range, and the JOOS bested them all.

In another test, Wirecutter vet Bryan Gardiner said, , 鈥淭he Joos Orange solar charger is the physical manifestation of simplicity. It鈥檚 rugged, easy to store and carry, and (most importantly) quick to bestow a watt or two whenever you need it.鈥� He gave it an 8/10 score.

Wirecutter editor Brian Lam, who freelances as an听, called it the 鈥渂est solar charger I鈥檝e ever tested.” He’s taken it on trips to the Caribbean, Bahamas, Puerto Vallarta, Baja, Joshua Tree, and Big Sur.

Still, it’s not perfect. It weighs 1.5 pounds and is about 9×6 inches. It’s too heavy to put in a purse or pocket, which we think is just a matter of physics considering the capabilities of the thing, but you should know this before you consider it seriously. It won’t charge AC devices, like laptop wall adapters or camera battery chargers that require a wall socket, either. Very few chargers can accommodate AC devices without a lot of weight and cost, but more on that later.

Let鈥檚 look at the competition. Most other solar chargers work exactly as advertised: Point them toward direct sunlight for several hours, check the unit鈥檚 battery status, and plug in. What separates the good chargers from the bad is battery capacity, panel efficiency and convenience.听All of the little solar panels that are aimed at charging phones are generally crap.

Popular, cheap models like the smaller Solio and Brunton devices are underpowered, inefficient and slow, based on my own tests.

Of course, you could go more upscale and there’s one reason to do that: You might want a hefty panel and battery to charge your 110v AC gadgets, like a notebook. , most of them extremely rugged. They gave the best ratings to devices, although they did not test the JOOS.

Their favorite solar charger is the , which is a panel and 120-watt battery pack with enough juice to power AC devices. Unfortunately, that setup does not appear to be on the Goal Zero site anymore. That’s OK with me, though, because that kit costs !

Wait, though: There’s a next-generation device that is lighter and can power a laptop without a 110v inverter by supplying a much lower voltage input directly from a device. and it has a 10-watt panel (vs. the JOOS’ five watts), a separate 50-watt battery pack with USB, 12v car-type adapter, lights (for use as a flashlight) and 50 watts of battery storage (vs. 20-watt hours in the JOOS). You can attach a 110-volt inverter to it, and the battery pack charges in five-10 hours via the panel, or two-three hours through a wall socket. The battery pack weights one pound, as does the panel. It sounds great, but it’s also not out until this summer and if it’s priced anything like the other devices in its model lineup, it’ll be between $300 and $500! This is a great pack, no doubt, but I’m hesitant to recommend it without seeing reviews.

Priced closer to the JOOS is the Goal Zero Guide 10 Plus 国产吃瓜黑料 Kit . It has a small, 10-watt panel that folds up into a package about the same size as the five-watt JOOS. It does come with a 12-volt adapter that can be attached to the panel directly, and here’s the weird thing, a little four-cell AA or AAA battery charger that also doubles as the kit’s battery pack. It charges AA batteries off the solar cell, but also can reroute that power from the cells into a USB device. Unfortunately, a set of AA batteries lasts only a quarter of the time of the JOOS, so it’s not a great energy value for USB-powered devices. That’s about half an iPhone. If it matters, just get the JOOS and a separate USB-powered AA battery charger. (We like .) But I’d be remiss in not mentioning this panel at this price.

If you are interested in getting a multiple piece, high-end solar panel that can charge AC devices, and don’t mind spending over $400, the Goal Zero Sherpa series seems right. But if you want a device to charge a few USB-powered gadgets in the sun in a simple, tough, singular package of high quality and value, the .

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Instead of buying dozens of the cheapo $4 umbrella from street vendors, I’m buying听the听 Auto Open and Close Compact for $35.

Think about what makes the piece-of-crap one-time-use umbrellas so useless and you’ll understand what to expect by spending the extra money on something much better. For me, my umbrella needs to be compact enough to make carrying it (and not losing it) realistic. It needs an adequately sized canopy to cover my six-foot frame. It needs to be made of materials that will last through repeated use. And it must have a warranty or replacement policy that makes the premium price worth it. With those criteria and several hours of comparing specs (there are few comparisons or reviews out there) and talking to experts, I concluded that the ShedRain best meets those requirements while staying within a reasonable price range.

What makes the WindJammer Auto Open and Close Compact exceptional is that it opens from a small 12-inch unit听to provide huge canopy coverage. The ShedRain will give you 43 inches of water-shedding fabric, then close down to a 12.5-inch cylinder. That’s small enough to stuff into a jacket pocket or purse, which means you鈥檒l actually take it with you and not leave it in the umbrella bucket at the restaurant鈥檚 foyer. The included cover keeps it from soaking your other pocket contents.

Of course, being compact isn’t enough鈥擨 need am umbrella that works and this one does.

As the , if you鈥檝e seen an umbrella from Gap or Kate Spade, it鈥檚 likely a ShedRain, and for good reason. It has the popular dual-canopy design that keeps wind from inverting the fabric, but it鈥檒l flex open before pulling you Mary Poppins-style. Other manufacturers brag about how resistant their umbrellas are to gale-force winds, but you want it to eventually flex to avoid a parachute effect.

Most compact umbrellas that, like the ShedRain, open and close with one button are prone to breaking because there are so many moving parts, many more than a 鈥渟tick鈥� umbrella with a shaft that stays at its full inconvenient length. The ShedRain has a shaft and ribs (yes, the actual names for those parts) made of electrostatic steel, which keep them working through repeated use鈥�Good Housekeeping without incident, extraordinary for a compact with so much automation. The bonus to this feature: no pinched fingers.

Mike Stachura, Golf Digest鈥檚 product swami, told me that umbrellas always get a lot of hype. It鈥檚 the official umbrella brand of the PGA Tour, and their hardware goes into most golf brands鈥� umbrellas. , even Arnold Palmer was 鈥渙n the GustBuster bandwagon.鈥� Looking at the product stats and reviews, they seem solid but we鈥檙e not convinced of the brand’s self-assigned superlatives. I would say its Metro model isn鈥檛 worth the $5 to $10 premium over the $32 ShedRain. It collapses down to a long 14 inches (16 inches on the automatic open-and-close model), and its plastic handle gets slippery in rain while the ShedRain鈥檚 rubberized grip won鈥檛 get slick. You also don’t get a case, so you’ll likely leave it outside your pockets or purse and up the chances of losing it.

If, unlike me, you’re comfortable spending close to $100 on an umbrella, buy a Davek Traveler. This model, like all Daveks, has a solid steel shaft, 190-thread-count cover (the most taught possible), a lifetime guarantee, and half off a new purchase if you lose your umbrella. The Traveler gives 40 inches of coverage, and weighs less than a pound when folded up. The package adds up to the most structurally sound umbrella out there, but it’ll cost you $80. Note that Davek also makes a $50 Mini model, but because its tiny size means so many moving parts, the Davek warranty does not apply. Not confidence inspiring and not worth $50.

In that same price range, the Blunt Umbrella, which 听and included in their , is also a solid choice. The likes it, and so does .听The Blunt looks streamlined and sophisticated next to other double-canopy models, and its rounded corners at the end of the canopy spines means the fabric won鈥檛 rupture and you won鈥檛 inadvertently poke any pedestrian鈥檚 eye.

Knowing myself and most umbrella owners, though, because the Blunt models don鈥檛 collapse, being stuck with a 2.5-foot stick means awkwardly stashing it in an umbrella bucket by the door, or slinging it over your shoulder like a musket. The $65 and up pricing hurts, too. I’m told they’re releasing a new collapsible model (see below) that sounds like it could convince me to spend $60 on an umbrella, especially since it comes with a lifetime warranty.

The听ShedRain Windjammer Auto Open and Close Compact, though not as fancy or as military-tough as the Davek, will be on-hand to keep you dry through many uses for less than half the price.

WHAT TO LOOK FORWARD TO
This fall, Blunt is releasing a collapsible umbrella that’ll cost between $50 and $60. As the owner of a great soft shell which will last me through the San Francisco summer gloom, I’m planning to wait for this model. Sixty dollars for a meticulously engineered umbrella that’s small enough to hold on to seems absolutely fair to me. But if you need to outfit yourself now, grab a ShedRain.

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