Samsung E200 Eco
Discontinued 29th August 2008
Samsung's answer to the Nokia 3110 Evolve
is the Samsung E200 Eco, an unremarkable candy bar phone
except for the fact that it is made of bioplastics.
The aim here is to reduce the CO2 emissions
created in the handset manufacturing process. Samsung
say that creating a ton of bioplastics generates 2.16
tons less CO2 than traditional methods..
although they didn't say how much CO2 is normally produced
so it is hard to tell if this is an impressive saving
or not.
So exactly how much bioplastic is in
the E200 Eco? Without taking one apart it is hard to
say, but it is probably something in the region of 25
grams of plastic. Let's be generous and say that the
E200 Eco saves 60 grams of CO2.. is that a lot?
Well, not really.. that's about a 382 metre journey
in a Ford
Focus (about a quarter of a mile). Of course, before
that you have to build the phone and ship it
across the ocean to the other side of the world - so
that carbon footprint is going to be quite substantial
(The Ethicurean compares
the energy footprint of shipping rice as an example).
Don't
forget that bioplastics come from plants harvested on
land that would have been previously used for food production,
and with a worldwide shortage of food you have to ask
yourself "is this the best way that I can help
to save the world?"
More usefully, the Samsung E200 Eco
has an alarm to tell you when the battery is full, so
you can stop
wasting energy. The box it comes in is made from
unvarnished recycled paper, so that has a lower environmental
footprint too.
Enough about bioplastics and carbon
dioxide. What's in the phone? Well, it's a pretty
unexciting device with a 176 x 220 pixel display, a
1.3 megapixel camera, microSD expandable memory, a multimedia
player and FM radio. It weighs about 95 grams, and the
original non-Eco E200 has a street price of about
€170, so expect the Eco version to be a little bit more
expensive.
Although the Samsung E200 Eco does at
least make an effort, our advice is to forget it. It
is trivially easy to save more CO2 than the bioplastics
in this phone ever will. But, if you really do want
the E200 Eco, then Samsung say that it should be available
from September onwards in Europe.
Our advice? Buy a better phone. Keep
it for longer. And then when you are done with it, recycle
it so that someone else can use it.
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Samsung
E200 Eco at a glance
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Available:
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September
2008
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Network:
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GSM
900 / 1800 / 1900
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Data:
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GPRS
+ EDGE
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Screen:
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176
x 220 pixels, 262k colours
|
Camera:
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1.3
megapixels
|
Size:
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Medium
monoblock 108 x 45 x
10mm / 95 grams
|
Bluetooth:
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Yes
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Memory
card:
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microSD
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Infra-red:
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No
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Polyphonic:
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Yes
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Java:
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Yes
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GPS:
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No
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Battery
life:
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3.5 hours talk / 10 days standby
|
|
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