Save the environment - and your wallet - with $40 solar cell phone

The world's first solar powered touch screen cell phone -- Samsung's Blue Earth -- won't be released until later this year and doesn't have a price set for it yet, but you can bet it's going to be costly.

Or at least more than $40. That's how much -- yes, $40 -- that Chinese mobile manufacturer ZTE plans to sell its Coral-200, a solar powered phone for the masses, according to the Web site Inhabitat.com.

This basic looking solar phone is black, not a coral blue like Samsung's beautiful solar phone, and it isn't a touch screen cell phone either. But it does have a solar panel on the back that powers the phone to provide 15 minutes of talk time for every hour of sunlight.

The Coral-200 launches in June. If it launches before the spiffy looking Blue Earth solar phone, it's an inexpensive way to be on the cutting edge of solar phones.