Can anybody recommend an emergency battery/charger for cell phones and other USB powered devices? Looking for something that can be charged up and will hold a charge for at least a few months and can be used in case of power outage or other situation to recharge a cell phone a couple of times until power is available. Would also like one that can be recharged from a built in solar cell for camping type use. Most of the ones I've looked at have very mixed reviews and the ones that can be recharged using built in solar cells always have reviews indicating it takes weeks to recharge using the solar cell.
Thanks for your recommendations.
Most are a one time use type product and then require electricity to reset/recharge.
Solar will take forever.
Are there hand crank, generator options?
Most jump start boxes these days have cigarette outlets on them. You can charge a lot of phone with one of those batteries, and depending on how it's wired internally hooking up a solar panel might be as easy as plugging it in.
Same deal with a computer UPS.
Search for "hand crank USB charger," there are plenty of options out there.
I have an Energizer XP2000 that might do what you want...but it will lose about 1/4 charge if left for 6 months.
In reply to oldopelguy:
This is what we did a few weekends ago when SWMBO left her wall charger at work, and we couldn't find any of the iPhone 4 USB cables in the house. She had a car charger and I had a jump box with 12V outlet. Worked great. We both thought it looked so silly/redneck on our counter that she took a picture of it.
JohnRW1621 wrote:
Most are a one time use type product and then require electricity to reset/recharge.
Solar will take forever.
Are there hand crank, generator options?
From what I've read, the hand crank chargers don't have enough output to charge Apple products so you have to charge a battery backup and use that to charge the phone. Means an extra piece of equipment is required.
GameboyRMH wrote:
Search for "hand crank USB charger," there are plenty of options out there.
I have an Energizer XP2000 that might do what you want...but it will lose about 1/4 charge if left for 6 months.
Yes, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of choices. Most of them have the typical wide range of reviews from "I got this yesterday and it does everything including giving me orgasms!" to "it worked the first two times I used it, now it's out of warranty so I wasted $."
Thanks, I'll check out the XP2000. Losing 25% in 6 months is tolerable.
Really looking for something more portable than a car battery or car battery booster. The ones I've been looking at range from slightly bigger than a cell phone to the size of a tablet. But you folks are pretty ingenious with what you have handy. 
fifty wrote:
USB batteryLike this?
Yeah, that is the basic idea. Was hoping to find something similar with a reasonable way to recharge it in situations like camping where there is no AC or DC power that doesn't involve a lot of extra components or bulk/weight
If you have a long, major, wide-spread power outage, will the cellphone telephones even work? Don't the cell towers require power?
Rusnak_322 wrote:
If you have a long, major, wide-spread power outage, will the cellphone telephones even work? Don't the cell towers require power?
Good point, one time a tropical storm took out power for days here and the cell tower generators ran out of fuel, HAM guys were helping to relay information for emergency calls.
I got this for xmas,This haven't stress tested it but have used it here or there and it works as expected. Bought it for Disneyland trips and as a "just in case the power goes out" thing.
My son got one from RAVPower not sure which MAH and I'm not sure he's used it much.
Both get high ratings on Amazon and seem to go on sale pretty regularly on Amazon and Newegg. Don't know how long they hold a charge just sitting though.
In reply to DuctTape&Bondo: I was looking at that one and it's on sale now.
I may give up on solar/crank recharge & go for it. With 15000mA i think it should give at least 4-5 recharges of a cell phone a full charge.
