Mobile Phone News:

This blog post expresses the personal opinions of Technical Markus, not those of MobileShop.com. He would sincerely hope that it makes you think about the issues in the post, and if it does, he’s done his job!

As the world becomes more and more obsessed with the idea of global warming (sorry, climate change, I forgot they changed the name), it was kind of inevitable that eco-friendly mobile phones would pop up. Nokia have done it with the 3110 Evolve and Remade, and now it turns out that a new phone called the Bamboo is in the works, according to Trendhunter.

Apparently, it will be the first phone in the world to feature a bio-plastic shell, mixed with bamboo, to make it fully 100% recyclable. Well, apart from the battery. And the antenna. And the main circuit board. And presumably the screen. Oh, and the memory card slot, if it has one. And the wiring.

Well, ok, the case is biodegradable. And not only that, but it’s impregnated with bamboo seeds. Soooooo, the theory goes that when you’re done with it, you chuck it (minus the battery, antenna and so on) into your compost heap, and it rots down, and makes new bamboo grow, hence replenishing the bamboo they cut down to make it. And it will. Unfortunately, it’ll replenish it with bamboo that you’ll cut down because it’ll spread from your compost heap, meaning you now can’t get in your own garden…

Also, since charging your phone from a wall socket is second only to making a phone that runs on baby pandas, as we all know, the Bamboo mobile phone is charged by muscle power. Specifically, by you cranking that handle on the back of the phone, down at the bottom. They say that 3 minutes of cranking will give you enough juice to make a phone call.

I can foresee a few problems with that:

1/ Presumably it won’t have to be a very long call, if you’ve only charged it for 3 minutes.

2/ That implies that unless you crank it up, it’s no use whatsoever as a phone, because it will have only minimal power. Which means no-one can ring you, realistically, and you’ve had it if you need to ring the emergency services. Unless, of course, you can convince someone to stop dying long enough for you to charge your phone…

3/ If you ring someone after cranking that for 3 minutes, you’re going to be massively out of breath, and then go to jail for heavy breathing down the phone at whoever you’re ringing.

You don’t get that with an LG Viewty…

Now, the thing is… despite what you may now think, I do actually care about our ecology (I’m not saying I care about the planet, because us thinking we can in some way harm the planet itself is both arrogant and totally wrong. As the earth tremor in England two nights ago proved, when it’s had enough of us, it’ll just cough us into extinction, anyway)

However, the route to a greener future is not in gimmicky phones, wind farms and stupid G-Wiz not-cars. Those things are loaded with PR potential, but they’ll do absolutely nothing to help sustain our ecology. If you want to save the planet (gah, I hate that phrase, so much!), get the government to research the commercial nuclear fusion plants I keep hearing about, since fusion power is massively more efficient, much safer and produces none of the evil nuclear waste that the papers want us all to be scared of. And the same goes for hydrogen-fuel-cell cars.

Because if we waste our time with gimmicks like this (and I’ve no doubt the designer is an immensely talented designer, and just think what he could come up with if not constrained by the rules of making-something-that-is-designed-to-appeal-to-hippies-instead-of-realists), and don’t research genuine eco-friendly-technologies of the future (like nuclear fusion), then we will be killing ourselves…

Agree with Technical Markus’s views? Disagree? Think he’s daft for speaking out about what he says are gimmicky bio-phones? Or do you think he’s bang on the money? We want to get this debate going, so leave us a comment and have your say!