Samsung S7550 Blue Earth Eco-Phone Shows Up In Wild

It's been a few months since Samsung announced their GT-S7550 Blue Earth cellphone, a solar-powered touchscreen handset made from recycled PCM plastics sourced from old water bottles, and since then the company has officially named it and slapped TouchWiz 3.0 onto it.  Russian site Mail.ru have been playing with a pre-production model.Video after the cut

Aside from showing that yes, the Blue Earth does exist and does work, and that the solar panel can be used to charge the phone, Mail.ru aren't exactly telling us much.  We're also unclear about when the S7550 will arrive on the market, though there are whispers of a late-2009 debut.

Like the Samsung Reclaim, however, the Blue Earth S7550 is all about showing what can be done when you put your mind to being eco-friendly: the hardware is free from harmful substances such as Brominated Flame Retardants, Beryllium and Phthalate, while the charger, too, is free of those chemicals and is five-star Energy Star rated, using less than 0.03W in standby.  Even the software has been tweaked so as to promote environmentally-conscious living, with a built-in pedometer that shows not only steps but the number of trees that have been saved by walking rather than driving.  Enough to peel us away from our smartphones?  Probably not, but an interesting device all the same.

[via Unwired View]