January 2009

If you’re thinking of starting the new year with a new mobile phone and you’re not yet seduced by the Apple iPhone or the Google G1, maybe you’ll fancy one of the eco-friendly models from Sony Ericsson or Nokia?

The latter’s first attempt in this area was the 3110 Evolve which boasts a 50 per cent recycled cover and a very low energy charger unit. Sony Ericsson’s GreenHeart phone has a shell made from biomass sources and a very low power charger at just 3.5mW. They’ve also moved to more minimal packaging and electronic-only instruction manuals.

Meanwhile Toshiba have demonstrated a cellphone powered by a methanol-based fuel cell rather than a battery, and achieved six hours of talk time. Each 50ml cartridge can manage about 15 refills. There is still work to be done but the earliest indications are that such phones could be on sale later in 2009.

Another venture into the eco-aware marketplace may be made by Sharp, who recently demonstrated the world’s first ‘zero emission’television. They claim to be powering the massive 53 inch screen from single solar panel. This delivers a maximum of 220 KW/h of electricity with no CO2 emissions.

I often cover the thinnest or smallest examples of devices in this column. For a change I will mention the heaviest Windows Mobile handheld device, the Motorola VC6096. Weighing in at 4.85 lbs, and designed for fitting to fleets of mobile workers’ vehicles, the VC6096 not only has all the usual wireless connectivity such as wi-fi, Bluetooth and HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access) but also connects through standard J1708 and J1939 ports to the systems of the vehicles.

Finally, if you had a new notebook computer for Christmas, maybe it was one of Apple’s recently released MacBook series? Again the Cupertino based designers have completely changed the way the notebook is built, using a single block of aluminium from which the shell is engineered by cutters and lasers. The result is a stunning design, and as usual the specification isn’t bad either, with the graphics performance having been massively improved over the previous low end models. Firewire ports have been removed from the non-pro models though, so beware if that is how you connect your camcorder to edit holiday movies. Returning to the eco theme I started with this time, the new MacBooks are very highly rated by environmental standards.

Note: While we make every effort to ensure accuracy, BT accepts no responsibility for any information contained in Jonathan’s article, nor does the company endorse any product or service mentioned.