This product has been replace by a new, better item. Just click here to see the new Solar Torch.



If you want to see all our latest additions to our website, just click here for our new gadgets and gift ideas.

We've all been there: caught short in the bush with no batteries and a dead radio and torch. Take solace, then, in this delightful little gadget. It's an FM/AM radio with a torch on one end that powers itself. Actually, when it says self-powered, it does mean that it requires just the merest hint of elbow grease from you in the form of frenzied cranking. Still, just 1.5 minutes of winding will provide you with 20 minutes of aural entertainment, so it's far from the drudgery you might expect.

Oh, and it's waterproof, too, so should you plummet off a 60-foot cliff while stumbling through the outback, you can at least be sure your radio will still work when it hits the river below. Even if you don't. There's even a headphone jack, should you be wary of alerting the natives to your presence. Quite why we've suddenly become so fixated with the more barren regions of Australia, we're not sure.

What we are sure about, however, is that our wind-up torch represents one of the finest outdoor gadgets money can buy and it's equally at home at a festival or a trip to a remote country pub as it is in harsh Antipodeans environs. So, as The Prodigy once said: Wind it up…