Sanyo Making Portable Solar Chargers More Stylish

sanyo eneloop charger image
Images via Sanyo

Granted, it's not vital to have a solar charger look super slick - but we do love to see beautiful designs for green items. Rather than carrying around a relatively clunky solar panel, or having something sewn onto clothing in a very cheesy way, Sanyo is trying to make portable solar power look a little nicer. They've just announced a new solar charger that is indeed one of the nicest looking ones we've seen. But does it do the job?

For sale in Japan only starting later this month, the Eneloop Portable Solar is compact enough to carry around easily. It has a cool little mesh case, and can be set up on a table or hung in a window. However, we don't have great details about its capabilities (or pricing). According to Sanyo:

After approximately one hour of generating solar power under fair-weather conditions, the twin version of the ‘eneloop portable solar’ (SSL-SBWL3AS) can charge a USB-charge enabled cell phone enough to continuously talk for approx. 40 minutes*4, for the single panel version of the ‘eneloop portable solar’, the same amount of generating time yields approximately 20 minutes of talk time on the cell phone, perfect for emergency or daily talking conditions.

Doesn't sound too bad for something so compact. We're curious to see if it works as well as the claims, and very curious to see what it will be priced at.

Via Akihabara News

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