Best travel solar panel digital nomads
Nomad life, specially if you are a digital nomad where your income is mainly from online work then you need the ability to work anywhere for many hours, so we bring you the best travel solar panels to allow you that freedom.
You may want to work in coffee shops that have no plugs, or simply outside in a yard with plenty of sunlight. Either way some proper energy storage is highly recommend, but still under a portable size and weight (below 2 kilos).
There is a limitation that you should have in consideration, many airlines may not allow you to travel with some of this powerbanks for security, so always double check before you travel.
If you really want to play safe then you better get the backpacking solution we give.
To charge this amazing device, and because this article is about solar energy I add a second table of coupling solar options for the powebanks.
Using a laptop we need at least 30W and even that may not be enough so 50 and 60 are the safest options.
Pros
– Performance vs weight
Cons
– Price
– Borderline energy for laptops
it’s not cheap but it’s super efficient and pairs perfectly with Jackery power station below.
If you decide to go with the power station:
Pros
– Great capacity
– Compatibility with solar panels
Cons
– Price
– Bulkiness
It may look bulky, but this can be your life saver if you really want to be remote or if you are in a location with power instability
If you need more output energy, we reviewed bigger solar panels in our solar panels for camping article.
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Criteria used to choose the best options
There were many things I took in consideration when choosing the best options in my opinion. It’s not quantitative evaluation, there is no formula I created to decide. It’s more a mix of quantitative (ex. price) and qualitative ( ex. brand website) qualifications with a salt of my own experience, you are welcome to disagree:
– Website : Brands that don’t have their own website are unlikely to be reliable for support or any claim. Website is a minimum requirement for any business today, so I penalised those brands who don’t have one. Nonetheless when talking of very inexpensive devices that could be relatively less important when comparing with pricey systems
– Reviews : I tried to look for review websites, and only amazon covers all the products so we can reliably compare them. Less than 50 reviews means a non popular or new product. A new product is a higher risk to purchase so I had it in consideration too. We all know a big chunk of Amazon reviews are fake, so when analysing reviews we need to search deep into the negative reviews to have a feel of it. There is no science for this, as far as I know, so you have to trust my review nose.
– Price and Weight Ratios : I looked at this two critical characteristics when you are talking about traveling gear and compared them with the power capacities. The idea was to see how much you were paying for the same amount of power, or how much weight would you have to sacrifice to have a certain amount of power output. The flaw here is that the marketed power is very frequently different from the real output because of the efficiency of the solar panel. It’s almost impossible to have it in consideration for this ratios because you still have to trust the manufacturer, and that’s only for the ones who share the info. Hence the official ratios will have to suffice.
– Extras : it was never a decisive advantage but I’m that kind of person that loves all-in-ones so I tend to look to see what other tasks the products can fulfil, and some of them are packed with goodies
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The 3 best for digital nomads
Below you can check all the contenders
Pros
– Performance vs weight
Cons
– Price
– Borderline energy for laptops
it’s not cheap but it’s super efficient and pairs perfectly with Jackery power station that you can check on the more detailed article here.
Pros
– Foldable, easy to transport
Cons
– None
It has a smaller charge but ts foldable ability is perfect for frequent traveling.
Pros
– Price per watt
– Waterproof
Cons
– Although foldable it is bulky
Back to a 100W solution, it is bulky but the foldable flexibility gives it a decent portability level. It’s made for rockpals battery units
Contenders for best portable solar charger
The table for the solar panels:
From all the scenarios this was the hardest to decide as the diferences between the competition are quite small.
We opted for Jackery because their products have amazing reviews and characteristics.
But choosing iMuto for example with an amazing $/capacity ration could also be a good option.
To compensate for the higher price of the Jackery powebank we skipped their solar panel companion which is almost the double of the average price, and went for their low cost competitor, iMuto.
Considering renting an RV or a camper? You need a bigger output, check our article about solar panels for RVs.
