...... as this is my first rally I hesitate to post as I have no experience of previous years, but that said I have extensive experience in the comms industry.
Your Smartphone, should you have one, will easily give you 24 hours of use as we are unlikely to be streaming films or watching TV etc on them. We will need to charge at some point of course and for this the simplest method is an external battery you can connect with your normal lead and 'stick it in your jacket/bag whilst it charges. To my ZZR1100 I have also wired in a charging port which would do the same thing and most adventure bikes of course have these as standard today. Just a matter of deciding how you would utilise the outlet.
In my opinion our larger challenge will be the management of what we send back as this will be limited to available network signal. Not an issue in broad terms but an understanding of how your phone works will be needed.
Totttle pips.
Indeed we have gone down the smart phone route to greatly simplify the scoring system which has in the past lead to riders hanging around for ages waiting for the process to finish.
Emailing pictures as they are taken will ease the process considerably as pictures can be verified as they come in over the weekend.
It's as quick to email a picture as it is to fill in paperwork.
There will be no fuel log, no scoring claim sheet in fact no paperwork as such.
Long distance riders generally have a system of on bike charging or a simple cheap additional battery pack does the trick.
Technology is changing quickly and I see no reason not to embrace it.