Eco-friendly cell phones aren’t as rare these days as they once were. In fact, many of the major brands like Motorola and Samsung have already debuted green cell phones of their own and to less than astonishing sales. But that hasn’t stopped Sony Ericsson from getting involved with the trend by launching their own eco-friendly cell phones: The Greenheart phones.

So far the product line includes two phones (the C901 Greenheart and the Naite) and a headset, all of which have been designed with both user features and eco-friendly aspects in mind. Paper instruction manuals have been done away with and replaced with e-manuals, packaging has been redesigned to be smaller and carry less of an impact, and the phones themselves are made with a minimum of 50% recycled plastics (the headset includes 100% recycled plastic components for many of its parts). Other features include light displays the use less energy, low VOC waterborne point, and low-power chargers. Sony Ericsson estimates that the green-geared design of the Greenheart phones and headset reduces the carbon footprint of the phones by 15 percent.

While eco-friendly cellphones are great and ones that also appeal to consumer desires are especially nice (the video calling on the Naite and the 5 megapixel camera on the C901 should entice plenty of buyers), these green changes—like most in the cell phone realm—will have a small effect on the environmental impact of cell phones. Bigger issues that need addressing are the short life use of cell phones, the toxic materials that can be found in batteries, and the energy consumption of the phones. All things that have yet to be tackled fully by any cell phone manufacturer.

Still if you’re in the market for a new cell phone, some positive change is better than no positive change and the Greenheart phones will help you green your cell phone use. To get seriously environmentally-conscious with this area, however, your best bet is to purchase a used cell phone or to simply avoid upgrading altogether (if isn’t broke, don’t replace it).

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