blue earth

Solar powered mobile phones are finally becoming a reality with news of Samsung's Blue Earth touch screen phone. It's made of recycled plastic extracted from water bottles and a charger which uses standby power, which is less than 0.03W.

So far, I haven't been able to find a lot of other information regarding the competitiveness of this phone, such as price and availability, whether or not it plays music, has internet capabilities, and other features that have become important to mobile users (although it appears to have a camera, there are no specs listed). I also couldn't locate information regarding how long it would take to charge the phone completely using solar power. Ideally, I'd be happy if I could charge my phone significantly while sitting at a cafe.. which is about an hour and a half of charging time.

I imagine that these questions and additional specifications will emerge shortly. In the meantime, you can check out this bit at Business Wire and the Samsung World Congress 2009 site.