Samsung Blue Earth Cell Phone Review

Cell Phones — on November 14, 2009 at 1:05 am | Comment Now

We have all heard about Green Earth, but what the hell is Blue Earth? And what has it got to do with a phone?

Sum and Substance:

Thumbs Up:

The solar panels charge to charge the phone, Eco friendly theme.

Thumbs Down:

Small display, Call quality could have been better, Cramped display.

Inside The Trunk:

Technology – GSM / HSDPA
Band – GSM 850/900/1800/1900 (Quadband) / HSDPA 900/2100 (Dual Band)
Phone Design- Candy Bar
Caller Id- Yes
Additional features: Solar Charging, Smile Shot (Camera)

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

The phone is aimed to be eco-friendly rather than techie phone. But it does have all the features that a touch screen phone has. It has music player, FM radio, Bluetooth 2.1. Display is of 16 million colors and the resolution is 400×240 pixels. The solar panels at the back of the phone are something that will make heads turn and it guarantees a second look.

Razzle Dazzle:

Samsung Blue Earth does have a stylish appeal to it. The device has a few physical controls, rest all is controlled by the touch of the screen. It has Call and Call End buttons and also the Power button. On the side is the volume rocker which helps you to change the volume while on the call. The other side of the phone has locking key/camera shutter and also the micro-USB port. There are not much buttons on the phone apart from these and what you have is a neat touch screen phone with scarce buttons.

Samsung blue earth cell phone

Inside Dope:

An eco-friendly phone? Now, isn’t that a bit too much? No, according to Samsung who say they have made the phone out of recycled materials, especially plastic water bottles (and hence the name Blue Earth)

The first thing to write about this phone would be the solar panels. The solar panels charge the phone constantly. Apart from the sun, the phone can also charge it self under a strong source of light like a desk lamp. However, you cannot rely completely on the solar charging because if the phone battery is finished then you’ll be unable to charge the phone by solar energy. The phone comes bundled with a standard charger.

Talking of being eco-friendly, Samsung claims that the phone is also free from harmful materials that damage the mother earth.

But Samsung’s obsession of being eco-friendly doesn’t end here. The cardboard box of the Samsung is made from recycled card board.

The major draw back of this phone would be the tiny display. The three inch display is just not enough to cater to the needs of the mobile phone user of today. The mobile phone doesn’t have numeric keys on the phone and still there is only a three inch display. There are three screens that make up a menu and you have to scroll the pages one after the other to get through the entire menu, just like an iPhone. The three pages still cant save the menu from the fact that it looks a bit cramped thanks to the small display.

The display that the phone gives you is 400×240 pixels, the touch screen phones have a higher resolution and but this phone cant give you that owing to the small screen size.

There is no numeric keypad or slide out keyboard so you have to rely on the touch screen virtual keypad to type text. This can be a little clumsy and would make you wish for a better keyboard. Typing would be a lot messy on this keyboard.

There are games on this device but only demo versions. If you like the games then you can go ahead and buy the full versions of the game. The available games are BrickBreaker, Asphalt 4, and PyramidBloxx.

The call quality is good enough and voice over the phone can be heard loudly and clearly. Occassionaly distortions in voice are prominent during calls but mostly the voice was smooth. The speaker phone too is good, but the speakerphone attracts a lot of background noise. The speakerphone is very loud though so you can hear the voice of the other party quite clearly. You can also pair up the device with a Bluetooth head set. The call quality with a Bluetooth head set is good but that again depends on which headset you are using.

Camera is a 3.2 MegaPixel one which can take four standard resolutions and two wide resolutions. Camera is strictly ok. It is not that bad but there is nothing remarkable about it. There are plenty of editing options available on board which include brightness, six scene settings (landscape, night, action and so on) and also a self timer. There is a unique concept called “smile shot” which clicks when the subject is smiling. This feature is prominent on digi-cams, it is seldom used on mobile phones.

Browsing the internet is also available but it is marred by the small screen. Browsing is awful on this phone.

Phone has a built in music player which supports plenty of file formats. MP3, AAC AAC+, eAAC+, WMA files are all supported. The phone music player is good and the music quality is also quite good. For storing the tracks the phones supports up to 16 GB memory but the onboard memory is mere 180 MB.

The memory card inside can also be used as a mass storage data device. It has FM radio where you can tune in to your favorite radio stations in case you are done with the tracks on the phone.

Other features that can be mentioned are the regular ones that you get on the phone like text and multimedia messaging, a timer, a stopwatch, a world clock, a calculator, a memo pad, a task list, a unit and currency converter, a calendar and an alarm clock.

Nitty Gritty:

This phone isn’t the one which is meant for the masses. There are solar panels at the back of the device and this would add to the cost which would make a hole in your pocket. This phone will be costly and offers no value for the money you. Samsung didn’t seriously think that there would be a market for such phones. It seems like Samsung brought out this phone to tell people, “Hey, look what we can do!”