The reviews I've seen were not very impressed--too heavy, too much fuel needed, not enough electricity produced, not environmentally friendly.

Andrew Skurka (he admits he hasn't used ...nd weight-wise)

Philip Werner of "Section Hiker"--he tested the stove. "...it took me 2 hours of burning wood in the BioLite to bring a empty Samsung GalaxyS Smartphone battery up to 50% power. The stove only holds a small amount of fuel and I had to constantly add more wood to the fire to keep the heat level high enough to keep it charging."

Even Backpacker Magazine didn't seem very enthusiastic. "After burning for five to 15 minutes (again, depending on the ambient conditions and the quality of wood) with the help of the integrated fan, the indicator light turns green and you’re ready to plug into the USB port. Don’t expect to get a full charge on your iPhone in record time, but it’s still pretty miraculous. After 37 minutes, one tester’s iPhone netted a 13-percent increase in power..." In other words, you have to do far more burning than is required to cook your food, especially if all you do is boil water.

I'm sure there are favorable reviews out there, but these were the first three I picked up on google that would load this morning. (I have no idea why some sites don't want to load today, unless Saturday morning is when they're down for maintenance. )

Relying on this stove would leave a lot of people with no way to charge their gadgets when there are fire bans all over the western states, as happened last summer and seems likely to happen this coming summer.

My stove plus a large isobutane canister weighs 15 oz. The Biolite stove weighs 34 oz. You can carry a lot of extra batteries for 19 oz. (10 AA's) and not have to burn anything!

Personally, I'd rather leave the rechargeable gadgets at home--I go out in the wilds to get away from that stuff! YMMV, of course.