Super Eco

We haven't seen one yet, but we can't wait to sneak a peek: the Samsung Blue Earth, the world's first full touch-screen, solar-powered cell phone. These little green—err, blue cuties debut later this week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The obvious question: does the solar charging produce enough juice to keep up with a chatterbox? It appears that moderate users will get the energy-saving utility they're looking for, with three minutes of juice from a 10-minute charge. Solar panels are built right into the back on the back of the phone. The little unit is an energy-sipper in other modes, too, requiring only 0.03 watts of electricity on plugged in on standby.

Even cooler than the Blue Earth's energy features, we think, are its other green design features. A pedometer-based "eco-walk" feature tells you how much CO2 and how many trees you've saved by walking instead of driving—how eco-savvy is that? Screen brightness (and associated energy use) is adjustable, depending on whether you're indoors or out. And the phone itself is made from recycled plastic water bottles.

Samsung isn't the only good guy working to green up cell phones. Sprint just announced a new goal, to recover and recycle 90 percent of old cell phones by 2017. The company launched the recycling initiative after its research uncovered the fact that nine out of 10 consumers own at least one old, unused cell phone.While InformationWeek’s Green Computing Weblog observes that Sprint’s “90 percent rate seems to be disconnected from reality” (noting that current cell phone recycling rates stand at about 10 percent), Sprint plans to fight back by providing postage-paid mail-in envelopes to every customer who purchases a new cell phone.