Sunblock, Swimsuit, and My Cellphone

Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2345626,00.asp

Rating: BAD

Explanation:
In the interest of going green, everyone is trying to conserve and find new ways to power their electronic devices. Sharp along with the Japanese cell phone company, AU KDD, are about to release a solar powered water proof cell phone. The phone with about 10 minutes of sunlight will provide enough power to talk for one minute or be powered for a couple hours on standby.

If my math is correct, for every hour I spend sun bathing I can talk to my friends for 6 minutes. I sure hope its not a cloudy day. The concept behind this new solar phone I feel is a great theory on paper, but will be unpractical in practice. If this solar phone truly only gets 1 minute of talk time for every ten in the sun, then people are going to plug it in and charge it anyway, therefore it would fail the intended purpose to conserve energy and help the environment. It’s a great concept, but we as a society need to start putting time and money into energy solutions that will have a greater effect, such as solar power houses, which would save a lot more energy. Then when I plugged my phone in to charge it, I would be using solar energy.

The waterproof feature is cool and I am sure will catch on rather quickly. In a world of clumsy Americans it’s more of a, spill and 'opps I dropped my phone in the toilet' than anything else. I expect to see this feature become popular and more widespread. Although Sharp gets an A for effort, I need more than 6 minutes of talk time; Sharp receives a BAD rating.