Just when you need to make a call, your cell-phone battery bites it. Just when you're about to trudge home after a hard day pushing paper, your iPod craps out. There are a growing number of pocket widgets that offer portable power, but all of them require power, recharging or replacement batteries themselves.

Except for Solio's stuff. The company's power rejuvenators get charged by the Sun. The company's latest, the Hybrid 1000 ($80), is designed for hikers. Instead of the winged fan design of earlier Solios, the Hybrid, which also can be charged via USB, is a flat 7.8 x 2.7 x .07-inch panel that hooks to a belt or bag via a carabiner — one of those D-shaped hooks with a spring gate that mountain climbers use to hook ropes onto. That way, the Solio can hang off a backpack during a long hike, ready to keep your iPod rocking when you get to the top of the hill.

Solio admits the convenient flat-panel arrangement means 30 percent less power than the original fanned Solios. But the Hybrid 1000 uses iGo tips, so you'll be able to re-juice virtually any portable. — Stewart Wolpin

Via Solio