Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought this for a thru-hike on the Colorado Trail. I am a bit of a gram geek, but this thing will give you at least 10 days worth of full from zero charges on an iPhone 5. I am in the process of killing my phone and charging it back from 0 so that I can leave feedback on the amount of times it will charge from 0. I will update in a couple of weeks once the Anker Astro E7 External battery dies. I use my iphone 5 for my GPS, music, maps, cell phone, guide book and camera as well, so I can justify the added weight of the external battery. I have recorded the weights here: The unit itself (Anker Astro E7 External battery) weighs in at 481g or 17 oz (1lb,1 oz) The Anker charger is 46g or 1.625 oz. The anker charging cable is 17g or .625 oz The apple 1m "lighting" charging cable is 17g or .625 oz The black bag that comes with the charger is 12g or .375 oz I am going to use a ziplock quart bag (6g) Total weight for the charging package is 568g or 1lb 4 oz or 20 oz. The Anker charger will work charging the iPhone 5, so you can eliminate the apple charger from your pack. The external battery has a small LED on it that can be used for light in an emergency. I would not eliminate my headlamp, though. There are 3 USB slots on the charger, so you can charge a friends phone too if you are feeling generous with your amps. All in all, so far--I would suggest this charger if you are going to be on the trail-outside of towns for an extended length of time. I have had 10-14 days between overnight hostel stays, so I believe this will be a great addition to the pack. It will take a good 12-16 hours to recharge the battery pack using the dedicated 10w charger. I would suggest purchasing the wall charger and not relying on one that you have laying around the house. The casing is slippery and will smudge up pretty easy, but if you are hiking 15 mile days and haven't showered in a week, smudges aren't at the top of the concern pyramid. I have included a couple of pictures that show the blue charge lights, the LED as well as the size of the battery. Update: I got 9.69 full charges for the iPhone 5 out of one full charge of the Anker Astro E7 external battery. I say .69 because my daughters iphone 5 was on 31% when she plugged it in one night. I plugged it in at 6:30am this morning and as of 7PM this evening the battery is flashing the 75-100% range, so what this says to me. I hike for 9 days and then choose to stay the night at a hostel or in a hotel, take a zero day, I can charge the battery and hike for another 9 days and continue running my battery down to 0. Realistically, if you put your phone on airplane mode, you wont run it down to zero in 1 day. Probably not even 3 days. But that is another story. Yes, I would suggest this battery.