Anyone who has picked up an iPhone 3G knows that the battery, while great for a 3G phone, still leaves a lot to be desired. It’s simply no fun when your phone warns you that you have 20% power left while you are in the middle of your lunch break. Heck, I don’t even need to leave the house to go to work, and even I have issues with the battery. During E3 2008, I had to be careful with my iPhone usage if I didn’t want the phone to run out of juice. Since I am going to be taking a trip to NYC this week, I wanted to be sure I was armed with a backup.

After doing some looking around, I came across this Richard Solo Smart Backup Battery Pack for the iPhone. In all actuality, it works with the iPhone as well as any iPod with a dock connector. It basically holds a charge that is similar to about 80% of the iPhone battery. That means that if you see your iPhone give you that 20% warning, you just plug this thing in, and it will charge it back to full. That is cool.

Even better though, you can charge the iPhone or iPod and the Backup Battery at the same time. You plug in the battery to your phone, and then connect the battery to the charger. This will first charge your device, and then once that is done, it will charge the battery. So if you do this overnight, you have a fully charged phone, and backup battery, when you walk out the door. Love it.

The device is thin enough to not be burdensome at all, reminding me of an iPod nano. I am gonna give this a try during this next week, where I will definitely be out and about and using my iPhone on a near-constant basis, being the awesome road warrior that I am. I will let you know how it turns out. Meanwhile, if you wanna pick up one of these for yourself, you can grab one here for $50. If it works as advertised, we think this is well worth it. Check the video after the break for more details, and also, we have a small Richard Solo Smart Backup Battery pack gallery we just put up as well.