Vodafone 247 Solar Powered Cell Phone
Over in the United Kingdom, Vodafone have added a new model to their Ultra Low Cost Hand set (ULCH) range with the Vodafone 247. Thee striking feature for this model is the onboard solar panel.
Feature wise it is limited compared to some other flashy models on the market that can do everything from turn on your washing machine to walk your dog but it does have the basics of what people expect from a modern mobile phone. The 247 comes with a 1.44 inch 65k color screen as well as an onboard FM radio with RDS. Messaging is just by SMS which suits us. WE always found Email on a mobile phone to be too fiddly to work with.
The lack of extra features should bring down the power requirement to a suitable level that will the allow the phone to operate on solar energy for a longer period of time. Having to constantly expose your phone to the sun for every 3 minute call is not very practical.
If your away from home for more than a day then you can see the benefits here. Without being able to recharge your phone every night the solar panel will keep the phone working for extended periods when other phones just run out of juice.
Vodafone, based in the United Kingdom, is the worlds largest mobile telecommunications network company.
These self powered devices are things we just love here. The idea of being totally free and independent from the need to plug-in sometimes makes us go a little bit weak at the knees. In reality this concept does give us more freedom and not only from mobile phones. Lots of other small personal devices are having the solar powered option and soon the uptake in both users and development will improve their functionality.
Exposing your phone to sunlight for one hour will give you 20 minutes of free energy powered talk time. For anybody that spends more than 1/3 of their waking life on the phone then this might be a problem. For the other 99.9% of us this should be more than adequate.
The actual specification of the Vodafone 247 are not available yet but most likely the device will be appreciating a level of usability that will allow it to be charged and ready for use as we carry it around with us. Most of us will not care if the device is solar powered. What is exciting is practically never having the need to run and find the nearest charging point. That is something to think about when your are on the top of a mountain.
The Vodafone should be availing in June 2010 in the United Kingdom just in time for the summer holidays.
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