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Siemens shows slim, sexy solar-powered cordless concept

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Siemens reckons we'll all soon be keeping our phones topped up with sunlight, and it's designed a concept handset, the Solar, to show how such a device might look.

Siemens Solar

Siemens' Solar: let there be light...

There's no calculator-style tiny solar panel on top of the phone - instead, it's entire face is one big panel from top to bottom. The keypad is transparent and touch-sensitive, and the display is a see-through OLED screen.

Siemens Solar

Slim and sexy

The Solar's made from metal, glass and "eco-plastic", and - we have to say having held the thing - is darn slim and sexy.

Siemens Solar

New-look cradle

The snag is that, as it's a concept design, it doesn't actually work and there's no guarantee Siemens will ever release it.

Readers who've been thinking about this will have spotted a flaw in Siemen's thinking: phones spend most of their time held up to the head, or tucked away in pockets or bags - so how's it supposed to be exposed to sufficient sunlight to stay charged.

To be fair, this isn't a mobile, but one of Siemens' Dect cordless boys, and the vendor reckons it'll get enough exposure sat in its cradle to keep the batteries full.

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Latest Comments

Cradled?

"To be fair, this isn't a mobile, but one of Siemens' Dect cordless boys, and the vendor reckons it'll get enough exposure sat in its cradle to keep the batteries full."

Did you spot the clever bit there?

If it needs to sit iin the cradle to get enough exposure, why not have the cradle connected to the mains - so that the battery could be .... er ..... charged?

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Nomination for FOTW (or iDiot of the week)

i.e. more power, more heat...

HAHAHAHA you sir, are the funniest moron I have ever met! well done...

Solar power means energy comes from the sun, bigger battery does not mean the sun produces more energy!

Think! if it were dangerous why would they make it!

This thing will not be any worse than a normal black phone left on a windowsill...

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Anonymous Coward

@Still a fucking idiot

Yes Solar water heaters are not cells... they a Solar panels made of Solar cells... and water may cool them down, but 80°C or 70°C is still hot in my book...

I also assume the Cell powering this phone is charging a battery bigger than the one in your calculator... i.e. more power, more heat...

I appreciate is ABSORBS energy, but not all of it is used, what happens to the rest then... it has to go somewhere... it is given off/emitted.

emit

Verb

[emitting, emitted]

1. to give or send forth (heat, light, a smell, etc.)

2. to produce (a sound) [Latin emittere to send out]

Collins Essential English Dictionary 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006

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