World’s First Solar Powered Cellular Phone

The world’s first solar cell phone is now on sale right now… but it’s only available in China.
HiTech Wealth telecommunications has just begun selling the S116 and the specs are pretty impressive. For the cost of $510 you get a 1.3 mpx camera, and an MP3 player, not exactly bleeding edge technology for a cell phone but nice additions that help justify it’s high price.
The solar panels trickle-charge the battery in any amount of light, including indoors (or even by candlelight), and the battery life is 2.5 times longer than it would without the built in panels. It’s reported that an hour of direct sunlight will give users 40 extra minutes of talk time.
Although this is the world’s first, HiTech Wealth will be releasing six more solar phones within the year and has promised 30 solar models before 2009.
[via Inhabitat and Xinhua New and EcoGeek]
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