"Green" Electronics Vendors At IFA Show Find Consumers' Top Priority - Bigger Screen, Sharper Colors

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Fujitsu-Siemens launched its first green personal computers for consumers, the Scaleo Green PC, which boasts energy efficiency, extremely quiet operation and a halogen-free motherboard, which will go on sale this autumn. The company cited a Greenpeace study that puts environmental concerns third on buyers' lists of priorities after value for money and brand.

But most visitors to whom Reuters spoke at IFA seemed uninterested or even confused when asked what importance green concerns had in their buying choices.

Richard Lee, a 35-year-old electronics engineer, shrugged when asked whether he preferred green products. "I prefer Japanese products," he said, prying the back off a high-definition TV monitor to peer at the inner components. Lee said he wanted to buy a 42-inch (107-centimetre) plasma HDTV and was prepared to pay about 3,000 euros (US$4,100) for it.

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Frank Schmitz, 23, who came to look for a guitar audio processor, said he did care about environmentalism but questioned whether it was really possible to combine energy efficiency with some of the luxury-sized TVs on display. "I saw one big one showing images of the Arctic and the melting ice caps, and I thought: This is a bit ironic, because probably it is part of the problem," he said.

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