review: RichardSolo 1800

I’m the first to admit that I generally consider bottom snap-on batteries to be the bottom rung of the external iPhone battery ladder – but with good reason. Such products are typically the least stable and offer the least capacity, which explains why they’re also the least expensive. But with the 1800, RichardSolo attempts to bring a touch of class to the snap-on battery by giving it more power, more stability, and a host of extras that place it in a different class that most of the other bottom-mounters I’ve spent time with.

For starters, a clear hard plastic support brace snaps onto the top of the battery and form-fits to the bottom of the iPhone 3G and 3GS, helping alleviate the fear that always comes with these batteries, which is that the whole thing is going to get snapped off, damaging your iPhone. The fear is further abated by the pair of releases buttons on the 1800 which have to both be pressed in order for the iPhone to be released.

Does this mean that I’d be willing to put my iPhone in my pocket with the 1800 attached? Of course not. If nothing else, the 1800’s large-ish size (like an iPod nano but thicker) makes your iPhone nearly twice as tall, meaning you can’t realistically charge your iPhone while it’s in your pocket. Nor would I toss my iPhone freely into a backpack with the 1800 connected. But despite its size, the 1800 doesn’t get in the way when you’re holding your iPhone in your hand, and the whole combo lays nicely flat on a desk or a nightstand.

Of course the size is for a reason, as the 1800 offers (as its name suggests) 1800 mAh of battery life as opposed to the 1000 mAH that most bottom snap-on batteries offer. Mathematically means that the 1800 should essentially double your iPhone’s battery life, and my tests showed that to essentially be the case (measuring battery life is never easy because different activities on the iPhone can burn through the battery at vastly different rates).

But the real fun comes in the form of the 1800’s additional built in features. The three blue lights on the front that indicate the remaining battery life aren’t the 1800’s only built in lights, as a pair of built in buttons activate a small flashlight and red laser pointer, both of which are aimed out the bottom of the battery (both work whether the 1800 is connected to an iPhone or not, and while I can’t imagine why you’d want to, the laser and flashlight can both light up at the same time).

Necessary? No. Handy? Maybe. The laser pointer suggests that the 1800 is aimed at business travelers, while the flashlight is similar to what you might on some keychains. But those are just the built-in features, as the packaging also includes a mini-USB cable for recharging the 1800 via your computer’s USB port. Such a cable is a standard inclusion for all iPhone batteries, but this one is retractable. What’s not standard is the inclusion of a wall charger and a dual-USB car charger. And while both of those are on the generic-looking side, they do help ensure that you can keep both the 1800 and your iPhone charged up in the widest array of ways possible.

There are a couple things not to like here: even with the built-in safety measures, you can’t realistically charge your iPhone in your pocket with the 1800 in the way that you can with nearly any iPhone battery case or battery cradle. And while you can charge both the 1800 and your iPhone simultaneously by connecting them and then using the included cable to connect it to your computer, this doesn’t allow pass-through syncing for your iPhone, which is the case with some of the better iPhone batteries on the market. And after having used Dexim’s P-Flip for the past month, I kept finding myself wishing that the 1800 could be swiveled backward into a dock formation as well.

But all that having been said, the RichardSolo 1800 does provide the best overall user experience of any non-swiveling snap-on iPhone battery I’ve used yet. Those extras don’t come for free, as its $69 price is $15 more than the P-Flip, and $30 more than the typical featureless snap-on battery – but the 1800 does bring a touch of class to what is otherwise largely a generic segment of products.

Learn more about the RichardSolo 1800 at RichardSolo.com