Solar Panel or Power Bank?

[Watertank]

Some years ago I did a deep dive in to small solar panel chargers paired with a small battery power bank. But as power banks have got lighter and cheaper I am wondering whether for say a 6 day hike like the Overland it is much better to just take one or two small power banks? Does anyone will use small solar panels on hikes or has their time passed?

[Warin]

Some years ago I did a deep dive in to small solar panel chargers paired with a small battery power bank. But as power banks have got lighter and cheaper I am wondering whether for say a 6 day hike like the Overland it is much better to just take one or two small power banks? Does anyone will use small solar panels on hikes or has their time passed?

You need sun have working solar panels. If sun is uncertain for half or more of your hike I'd leave solar panels behind. Consider the weight of the panels vs weight of extra battery with the fuss factor...

[ribuck]

I used to take a solar panel on every extended trip, but now I only take the solar panel on trips longer than 10 days.

Two Nitecore NU10000 power banks are plenty for me for 10 days. A solar panel plus a 3500mAh battery is a little lighter, but a pair of power banks is more reliable because of the redundancy. On one trip the connector broke on my solar panel, and I had to go on extreme power rationing for the rest of the trip.

[Son of a Beach]

The solar panel I had was useless in Tassie - even at home when not bushwalking. Not enough sun reliability. When walking, I would have had to strap it to the top of the pack plugged into the phone (or power bank) all day while walking. I wouldn't trust that on a track through the forest, let alone a bash through the scrub. And even if that was fine, walking through forest (shade for much of the time) would render it useless as would cloudy weather (again most of the time).

Using a battery bank, and being careful with the phone usage (airplane mode, and power off overnight), my phone will last for several days without a charge. With a battery bank, I get 3 to 4 full charges, so I've yet to have it run out of power, since using one.

[ChrisJHC]

Some phones will limit the amount of charge that they will accept.
This can lead to solar panels not being the most efficient way to charge a phone.

What works for me is to use the solar panels to charge the power bank then use the power bank to charge the phone - usually overnight.

The power bank - being a “dumb” device - will just suck up any power you throw at it so this approach tends to work well.

[ofuros]

Base camp or rest day use for my solar panel...in the Qld sun, takes about a day to charge a 10,000mAh battery.

Panel roughly 2x the weight of a Nitecore NB 20,000mAh battery.

As ribuck alludes to on longer walks, jiggly, worn, damaged connections would be my worry if charging on the go with the panel hanging off my backpack.