Sunny Suntrica, or Your Spare Battery Option for Summer

The W201 SolarStrap is a more interesting model. The special thrill is that, in contrast to many Chinese analogues in solid cases, this one is flexible. Its two main parts have a Velcro fastener, which allows you to attach the battery to a bag strap. It is not that easy with a shorts side pocket, as one of the pieces is always sticking out and hitting against your leg. That is quite annoying. Hence I'm wearing the battery on my bag strap, which is quite fine.

The initial charge should better be done at home; an old Nokia charger (the one prior to the 2-mm plug) will do. It is some former Nokia employees that created Suntrica, but I don't understand why they chose that particular connector design. If due to some reasons microUSB is not okay, the 2-mm plug would be better. Around the globe, the battery ships with a regular Nokia adapter only. In Russia, the early shipments will feature an assortment of those: Nokia 2.1 mm, Nokia microUSB, USB female, Samsung D600, Samsung G600, LG KG80, and USB HTC-1.

Based on my experience, a sunny day in Moscow with the battery roaming from the car to the office chair and further on will give you about half the charge or slightly less than that. In my case, that is one quarter of the HTC Desire charge. Looks like an emergency solution to me, nothing to write home about. According to the user guide, it requires 12 sunny hours to charge the battery fully (you can't even dream of that in Moscow). Is it suitable for our region? Not really.

The technical characteristics of the battery are as follows: 5.5 V, 800 mAh, 3.4 Wh. There exists a variety of similar but "non-flexible" solutions, with better characteristics and an astonishing price range from USD 50 to several hundred in the market. The difference between them all is not that apparent to me.

The battery under review costs EUR 49 in the company shop in Europe. The price for Russia is yet to be finalized but will definitely be higher. It appears to be a niche device; moreover, not a cheap one and only for summer, which limits the demand even further. It will be a good choice if you hike a lot or need an emergency power supply, though.

The build quality is good. Somehow, I didn't like the idea of a blinking indicator during the test period. You have to keep track of how many times it blinks and remember what charge percentage that corresponds to. It is similar to the wireless headset blinking, which I am always annoyed with. Why can't they make a cheap and which is more important, simple power indicator on the battery case? That would be both stylish and more useful.

Suntrica also has the W202 model with bright colors specifically for the iPod or iPhone.

I don't know to what extent it is something that you would buy for yourself. Getting one as a useful present is obviously fine, though. Do you think that there is a market for external batteries? Does anybody need them, and if yes, what for? Thank you in advance for the replies on our forum.