Motorola’s new handset, the MOTO W233 Renew, is a load of rubbish. Literally. The handset is the world’s first phone to be made from recycled water bottle plastics, and is itself 100pc recyclable.
The handset was announced a day shy of the kick-off of the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show (CES), and is the world’s first carbon neutral phone.
By working with Carbonfund.org, Motorola is completely offsetting the carbon dioxide used to make the phone.
“Today, natural resources, energy and time are more precious than ever before,” said Jeremy Dale, corporate vice-president of global marketing for Motorola Mobile Devices.
“From the product’s design, to the packaging to our partnership with Carbonfund.org, we wanted to ensure that this device makes the right impact with consumers and the environment.”
So apart from being completely recyclable and carbon neutral, the mobile phone manufacturers wanted to go one step further and also make the packaging as green as possible. The redesigned packaging has been reduced by 22pc in comparison to the usual boxing, and the instructions are printed on 100pc recycled paper.
While this phone is in itself was pretty exciting, another highlight was the introduction of the Motosurf A3100 (pictured below) – a touchscreen handset running on Windows 6.1 with a customisable home screen.
HTC and Samsung, amongst others, already have this market down pat, but first looks indicate that the Motosurf is the most attractive of the lot by far. It has a trackball navigator at the bottom of the handset – something some critics say RIM should never have removed when designing the BlackBerry Storm.
We’ll see how it handles, but it looks like one to watch for 2009. For now, the Motosurf will hit China later this quarter, but as yet no plans have been announced for its release in the US or Europe.
Pictured (main): the fully recyclable, MOTO W233 Renew
By Marie Boran
