Samsung Unveils Two Eco-Friendly Phones
Samsung Electronics has unveiled its two environmentally-friendly mobile handsets, named W510 and the F268, at the World IT Show in Seoul, Korea.
The company said that the W510 is its initial cell phone to be made of ‘bio-plastic’ produced from natural material extracted from cornstarch.
The phone is manufactured using an environmentally-friendly metal finishing process, and it does not use any heavy metals like Lead, Mercury and Cadmium.
Mr. Geesung Choi, President of Samsung’s Telecommunication Business, stated, “Samsung is striving to continue to be a strong corporate citizen that contributes to environmental sustainability. Now we are trying not only to launch more environmentally-conscious products with more renewable material and less energy consuming, but also to expand proactively set up a phone recycling system.”
On the other hand, the F268, which is also made from the same material as W510, has the benefit of not containing any Brominated Flame Retardants (BFRs) or PVC.
It comes equipped with eco-friendly accessories such as a charger and a headset. The phone also has an alarm, which alert users to unplug their charger when the charging is complete.
The company has not disclosed any information about the features of the phone up till now.
But, the W510 apparently is expected to be loaded with a photo camera with flash, a wide display and mobile TV capabilities.
Some of the features that are expected to be incorporated with the Samsung F268 mobile phone include a 2.1 inch TFT display (262K colors and 240 x 320 pixels), a 2 Megapixel camera with video, Media player (supporting MP3, AAC, WMA, MPEG4 and 3GP) and FM radio. It is tri-band GSM compliant and supports Bluetooth 2.0, WAP browser, USB and microSD card slot.
The product is compliant with all of the Energy Star requirements as well, i.e. energy efficiency guidelines set by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Energy.
Both the phones are slated to reach the market in June 2008. The W510 will be launched in the Korean market, while the F268 in the Chinese market. Price is still a mystery.