Eton Soulra XL Solar-Power iPhone Dock Debuts

I will be glad when scientists and researchers are able to design a solar panel that allows us to harvest more free energy from the sun. There are a number of gadgets and devices on the market today that use solar panels to supplement power and charge batteries. The catch is that most of that stuff takes a really long time to charge using solar power. A new solar powered radio has turned up called the Soulra XL from Eton.

This is your average looking iPhone or iPad dock that is made to be portable to allow you to listen to your tunes on the go from anywhere the device is a triangular shape with a mostly black case and some red accents. It looks really cool and the Soulra XL is the larger sibling to the original Soulra from last year. The big solar panel on the top is 72 square inches, and it charges the internal 2000mAh battery.

The dock is good for about five hours of continuous playback if you set it in the sun where the solar panel can soak up the power. It has eight speaker drivers and 22W of total power output. The device has buttons to control the playback across the tip of the dock and the Apple device sits behind a plastic screen. I am wary of any device that requires my iPhone to stay in the sun. It gets too hot in Texas to leave something like the iPhone in the sun without it shutting down due to overheating.

[via Ubergizmo]