Thursday 18th February 2010

Consumer Technology Review

Samsung Blue Earth Solar Powered Phone - exclusive to Vodafone for €79.99 bill pay, or €259.99 sim free

Technology enthusiasts like me probably get a bit guilty from time to time that all of these "early adopters" are just adding to the planet's woes, so when Samsung introduce what they say is the first eco-friendly mobile phone complete with a solar panel, we'll flock to these things and try to salve our consciences.

The Blue Earth mobile is a very stylish design with a very easy to use interface - 3 inch touch screen, handy navigation through the programmes, all what you come to expect from Samsung really.

They are really selling it on it's Eco merits - saying it is made from recyclables or PCM - (Post Consumer Material!) - from used water bottles

The most obvious green adaptation it has is the solar panel on the back of the handset. This is a about 3 inches by 1 1/2 inches and looks quite like the solar cells on solar powered garden lanterns that switch on automatically at dusk, or similar to solar cells on parking meters.

It is not the primary source of power - you still charge your phone from the electricity socket, and use the solar cell as a secondary source of power.

It takes about 1 hour of sunlight on a sunny midday, to give you 5 to 10 mins of "talk time", which would be enough to make a few calls. A sunny midday would be the equivalent of 80,000 lux, so don't hold your breath during an Irish summer, and there are lots of variables when it comes to solar energy, hence it is a secondary power source.

You need to keep the solar panel at 90 degrees to the sun, so you couldn't just wear it around your neck and expect to get a charge during the day as you walk around!

When full, the phone battery would give you 8 hours standby time, which would need 64 hours of continuous sunlight if you were to try to charge it that way!

Eco Applications:

Eco display mode - your phone will reduce power consumption by using backlight options that require less power.

Eco Profile - uses sound profiles that require less power

Eco Walk - your phone become a pedometer that converts your footsteps into how much carbon dioxide emissions you have prevented by walking instead of driving (this is customisable depending on the car you drive, and your weight), and then it tells you how many trees you have saved by doing all of this!

Eco Calendar - this tells you when it is World Ozone Day and other

Widgets:

Weather forecast

Facebook

CNN

Yahoo

Yahoo Stocks

Google

Camera - 3.2 mega pixel

Music player

Radio

Make Fake Calls - this feature is the one most people I spoke to were interested in! The manual actually says "you can simulate an incoming call when you want ot get out of meetings or unwanted conversations"! You trigger this by holding the volume button down, it arms this, then the screen actually rings, saying "Incoming call, private number", and acts like a real call is coming in. Hey presto, you can get away from

Mobile Tracker - this is an increasingly common feature in mobiles - when someone inserts a new SIM card in your phone, the mobile tracker will automatically send the contact number to two recipients to help you locate and recover your phone - whether by threats, negotiations or a reward is up to you!

This phone wants to be Eco friendly so much its box is even printed in soy ink and you can convert part of the packaging into a photo frame!

YoGen Manpowered Charger

This is a small hand charger that can work with most small electronic gadgets from phones to mp3 players - such as nav units, portable gaming systems, PDAs, MP3 players, e-book readers, and Bluetooth headsets - it also works with certain iPhones depending on the charge connection.

It works through a rip-cord that charges a alternator that can charge your phone or device.

Pulling the rip-cord in and out creates a trickle charge, you then attach it to your device through the cable and one of the four different types of connectors it comes with, skinny plugs, mini usb jacks and wider mobile charger clips.

The charging rate claimed by the YoGen manufacturers is that charging it for one minute with the rip-cord is similar to one minute plugged into the wall socket.

After a minute of charging it this way I did manage to add an extra bar of battery strength to the mobile, so you understand the effort you have to put in, but if it is that one emergency call you need to make and your battery is flat, then you will probably happily use this device. Let's face it, you can get extra phone credit automatically in some cases, but without a car charger or a brand new battery, you could be stuck.

Around $40 from www.yogenstore.com or €35 from www.peats.ie