Someday I’ll tell my son about how we used to have to “plug” things in to the wall, at which point he’ll roll his eyes and speed off on his Back to the Future Part II hoverboard to go hang out with the creepy old Doc Brown. Oh the adventures those two will have! Ted, don’t forget to wind your watch! Wait, that’s not the right movie.

Anyhoo, Brando has a leather case with a built-in solar panel that can charge your iPhone. It works, according to Brando, with the iPhone 3G and the “iPhone 2G” in case you have one of those. The solar panel actually slowly charges a lithium ion battery which in turn charges your iPhone’s battery. It takes three hours for a full recharge.

If the lithium ion battery is sapped, you can directly charge your iPhone using the solar panel, although I’d guess that would take quite a bit longer than three hours as the actual solar output is a mere 100 milliamps versus 600 milliamps from the lithium ion battery. So let’s say it’d take 18 hours using just the sun. That’s a long time, but it’s still pretty cool that we’re seeing more and more of these solar charging systems.

The Solar Powered Leather Case for iPhone 2G/3G costs $48 and is available as a flip-top (shown below) or side-opening case (shown above).