We've seen plenty of backpacks, totes, and camera bags with solar panels out there, but Voltaic creates some of the more popular ones. Their latest Solar Generator laptop bag was reviewed by LAPTOP Magazine, and well, the reviewers weren't too enthused.

The $499 price tag probably doesn't help either, but the reviewers had other legitimate reasons they want you to take into account before plunking down all the cash. This is Voltaic's only bag capable of charging a laptop, however, not all laptops are compatible with this bag.

For example, LAPTOP Magazine says Voltaic claims the solar briefcase is compatible with most Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Panasonic notebooks, yet the Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 or the Toshiba Portégé R500 didn't seem to work well with the Voltaic Generator. The Apple MacBook did manage to get a charge, but you have to buy a separate adapter for it which costs an extra $20 on the company's site.

Another big complaint involved battery life. It's hard to get plenty of sunshine in the winter months, but even if you lived in sunny California and placed this bag by a window all day, your computer would only get an extra two hours of runtime after its battery is completely drained. That's it! Hardly worth paying the extra $500 for.

The design of the bag was also a miss in their review. The solar panels are heavy and tips the bag over most of the time, plus the design is pretty atrocious. You can read LAPTOP Mag's review here if you want more specifics. And while I think it's great that we finally have a solar case capable of charging a laptop, we should all probably wait another year before buying one.