Samsung launched a solar powered phone but not the one you're thinking of. While we're waiting for the Blue Earth phone, the solar pioneer will be a low-end handset - the Samsung E1107 Solar Guru.

The Samsung E1107, known as Solar Guru or Crest Solar depending on region, is the first solar-powered phone to make its way to the market. The Blue Earth, which was announced back in February is admittedly more exciting but we'll have to wait some more (here's to hoping it's not just vapor ware).

Now before you throw your conventional charger in the bin we should clarify what "solar powered" actually means. 1 hour of solar charging gives you 5 to 10 minutes of talk time (depending on lighting conditions). That alone won't eradicate the need for charging from time to time but if you're in a area where electricity is not guaranteed (say, while camping) this could be a very valuable feature.

Aside from that, the Solar Guru seems to be based on the Samsung E1100 but with added FM Radio. The other specs are dual-band GSM, 1.52" 65K CSTN display, MP3 ringtones, flashlight, Mobile Tracker and a 800 mAh battery.

The phone will cost $59 and is already available in India. It will also be launched in Europe, southeast and southwest Asia and Latin America latter this month.

The new phone from Samsung that just leaked will appeal to business people and heavy texters alike. It's called the Samsung B7610 Louvre and it's a side-slider with a full QWERTY and a 3.5" AMOLED touchscreen that runs the Window Mobile OS.

The Samsung B7610 runs the TouchWiz interface that Samsung use to cover up WinMo 6.1 OS. It will also be upgradeable to Windows Mobile 6.5 when it comes out in September.

The display sports a sweet 480 x 800 pixels resolution and can theoretically display up to 16M colors. Due to the restrictions of the Windows Mobile 6.1 OS though, the Samsung B7610 will only be able to utilize 65K colors of those colors. Nonetheless that should make for pretty good picture quality as far as our experience shows.

The camera on the device is a 5MP one with image stabilization and autofocus but doesn't have flash of any kind. There'd be plenty of space to store your photos too - the Samsung B7610 Louvre comes with 1GB of internal memory and support for microSD cards of up to 32GB (when those eventually became availble).

As far as connectivity goes the Samsung B7610 Louvre is a real champ - quad-band GSM, HSDPA running at up to 7.2 Mbps, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 2.0, miniUSB as well as an FM radio with RDS. There's also GPS with A-GPS support but we don't know if it'll come with any kind of navigation software preinstalled. In any case, Samsung Navigator (rebranded Route66 software) will be a big plus in the spec list.

The Samsung B7610 Louvre should be available in France in July for Orange and SFR. The price is rumored to be somewhere along the lines of 350 euro (500 US dollars).

The Samsung I8000 made its first public appearance thanks to a Lithuanian online retailer. The I8000 pointed as the Omnia2 will sport a huge AMOLED touchscreen, 8.1 megapixel camera, full pack connectivity and Windows Mobile OS.

Samsung I8000 Omnia2

The successors of the Samsung i900 Omnia apparently will bear the model name I8000 - and also calling it Omnia2 is pretty straight forward as well.

The differences between both devices are a lot and Omnia2 will deserve a place on its own.

The Samsung Omnia2 sports a 3.7-inch WVGA TFT resistive touchscreen, 8.1 megapixel camera with dual LED flash and VGA@30fps video recording, 150 MB internal memory, a Qualcomm processor and a microSD card slot. The connectivity includes all you may need as usual - 3G support, Bluetooth, miniUSB, GPS and Wi-Fi.

Rumors speculate that the Windows Mobile OS on board (purportedly 6.1) will be heavily customized and will bear the Samsung's TouchWiz styling with deep menu restyling (much like the latest TouchFLO 3D in HTC Touch Diamond2 and Pro2). DivX/XViD support is also expected.

Until some official info gets out the door all we have here is just another rumor. The real announcement however will probably due quite soon as the Samsung Unpacked worldwide unveiling event is closing in (15 June 2009).

The Samsung I8000 Omnia2 seems to be a part of a bigger Samsung Cubic project, which also includes the previously leaked Samsung S8000 Jet and M8000.

Though not all of those devices are smartphones like the I8000 Omnia2, they all seem to share a cubical central button, which invokes some kind of Cube-like interface. But didn't LG already have a Cube interface? We guess they do. However you can fight the market trends.

One of our readers was quick to point us to a YouTube video demoing the Samsung I8000 customized WM interface (use the HQ button):

Speaking of the other cubic phones, the Samsung S8000 Jet leaked in an online video this weekend, revealing its snappy UI and showcasing its large AMOLED display. It's not an Android smartphone opposite to what rumors had it in the past. Just remember to click the HQ button once you start watching.

Bear with us - it's almost iPhone 3GS time. The Apple WWDC keynote speech should start in 2 hours or so.