Goal ZeroGuide 12 + Nomad 5 Kit

This is a great item to have for emergencies or take with you camping, backpacking or whatever you might need to charge your AA and AAA batteries! It comes with 4 AA rechargeable batteries that I was not expecting inside the charger! Use a wall charger to charge the batteries when you receive it so it’s ready for use in an emergency

This is a great solar charger to own. When you need power to charge your devices, when on the go. This will come in handy.

At first, I thought I would like this, it seemed to do OK on a cloudy day. However, on the bright sunshiny day, not a single cloud in the sky, it took 3 1/2 hours to take my cell phone, which is the iPhone 13 from 44% to 51%. Yes folks 3 1/2 hours!! I called the company and they did nothing told me I was fine to return it to Amazon. I asked can I get the panel replaced? They said no because I bought it through Amazon and even if I would’ve bought it through them it would’ve been limited. Whatttt???? They put the nomad five with the battery charger instead of the nomad 10 or 20 my suspicion they know the nomad five is garbage they gotta find a way to deplete the inventory. I doubt they’re making more of these. These are absolutely horrid. totally disappointed so if I want to keep the battery charger, I must pay the hundred dollars and just throw away the panel (unusable) I guess …..or return it all and say screw off and go with a different company …… still deciding. But if I was you guys, I would not buy this or go down my pathway, find a better company or a good company that will stand behind their products. This is just my opinion, but I’ve been outdoors my whole life testing gear, and this belongs in the garbage.

Short Version: the only way in which this product did not perform as expected is that the charge level indicator light always shows 1 of 4 (photo #1). I have tested this with a number of different batteries at different known charge levels, and the problem persists. The user manual says that it may take up to half an hour to get an accurate battery level read (photo #2), so I gave the unit 30 minutes of "read time" with a set of freshly charged batteries, yet the problem persists."I can make a 3 minute Youtube video last 16 minutes" Version: I have owned and taken the earlier version of this combo, the Guide 10/Nomad 7, on many miles of hikes and paddles and been satisfied with it. Eventually time and salt water took their toll, charging stopped happening, and it was time to replace the old gear. Most folks make the smart move and get a power bank to charge, but all my gear runs on AA batteries (Panasonic Eneloops, beware Chinese knockoffs) so having a lightweight, dependable AA charger was my choice. The old Nomad 7 was just barely enough wattage to keep my gear charged, so I bought this kit assuming the Nomad 5 would not keep up and also ordered a 15 watt panel from another company. I haven't had the new kit out on the trail yet, but have been testing all the pieces apart and together while at home so there won't be too many surprises when I'm miles from a wall socket.Thus far the only issue I've run into is the indicator light, and I'm not sure if this is a "keep looking for better gear" issue or not; on the trail I'm only going to get the sun I'm going to get, the batteries are going to charge as much as they will charge, and If I'm not aware of their specific charge level, will that make any real difference? I could return the Guide 12 and ask for a replacement, but have seen a few other people make this same complaint in reviews, so I'm assuming it's a common problem which a return might or might not fix.3 stars instead of 1 or 5 probably means no one is going to read this review, but I feel better having spoken my piece and some very thorough gear researcher might find this a useful anecdote...

Goal Zero is solid. I use it regularly for remote hunting and fishing trips. It just works and is worth the weight.

The media could not be loaded. I own and like quite a few of goal zero's products. I also own the much older Guide 10+ which has never given me trouble, it's just very outdated and can not charge a modern power-hungry smartphone. So I bought this to get a nice upgrade. I won't cover the panel since it's just the stock 5W panel (Nomad 5) and has been reviewed extensively. Here are my thoughts on the Guide 12 unit.Pros:Charges reasonably quickly (roughly 5 hours in good sun) with the included solar panel and charges modern phones at medium speed (no quick charge, looks about 1 amp output), only gets warm to the touch, not hot.The included cable is useful for both charging from the panel, then flipping around to charge your phone.It does include the little plastic insert to charge AAA batteries. I forgot to put it in the pictures.Cons:The flashlight function requires a 5 second hold to activate, not 2 seconds like the manual says.The device is terrible at displaying the charge level of the batteries, filling the charge level meter only when fully charged and forgetting/resetting the displayed charge level to only one dot as if almost empty if you remove the batteries and put them back in for any reason--even if you didn't use them and just took them out for testing like I did. 4 dots of full charge drop straight to 1 and stay there until you fully charge again. Discovered that trying to solve the final con. Which brings us to that one~Finally, the big con: the device continuously shrieks at a high frequency harmonic even when it's off as long as the batteries are inserted, it's not much louder than someone continuously whispering a few feet from you but I would struggle to rest in the same tent as this noise. I've included a sample in the video and you can hear it change tone as you toggle the flashlight on and off and I move it around the phone mic. It's at its loudest when the device is doing nothing and not charging. It's high pitched to almost the extreme limits of what my phone mic can record, but with human ears it is VERY annoying.Being a first reviewer can be risky, but I've had above average results with Goal 0 before. This time I cannot recommend this particular product until some of these bugs get ironed out.