Finally, cell phone mak­ers have come to their senses. Some of the largest cell phone man­u­fac­tur­ers, includ­ing Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG, T-Mobile, Orange, 3, AT&T and Vodafone are join­ing efforts to design a uni­ver­sal cell phone charger that will use 50% less energy.

The uni­ver­sal charger design will rely on a micro-USB con­nec­tion and GSM Association project that by 2012, most of the cell phones sold around the globe, will use this uni­ver­sal charger. (And a per­sonal opin­ion, they could also include the idea of a USB that charges the phone from one’s computer.)

But even greener than this idea is the Blue Earth touch screen phone that charges with a solar panel included in the back of the phone. The cell phone, which will be avail­able in the UK dur­ing the sec­ond half of the year,  is also made of recy­cled plas­tic bot­tles, free of harm­ful sub­stances.  Other cell phones man­u­fac­tur­ers includ­ing solar pan­els in their mod­els are LG, the Dutch com­pany Intivation and China’s ZTE.

Nice options for the rest of us that can’t afford an iPhone!

This info was dis­closed dur­ing the Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona, Spain this last February 16 – 19.