Here at The Phone Trader we like to keep up to date with all the new rugged handsets that are coming on the market. At the moment there is a wave of rugged devices being branded by complimenting rugged brands. We've seen the JCB phone range do well in the past few years although quality is not great, the Land Rover handsets manufactured by Sonim Tech and now the latest handset, the Cat® B15 by Cat We shot a quick unboxing video below:
Here's a few key points we found with the phone:
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean: We've had the phone in and on test for a week so far and have found it to be typical of this type of Android handset with the OS remaining fairly untouched from the usual Android OS apart from a couple of theme tweaks to enhance it's styling.
Handset Construction: The official blurb for the Cat® B15 states "It's made of tough stuff - hard knocks, scratches, water and dust don't bother it." Unfortunately we were a little disappointed to find that the handset feels flimsy, the back cover, the housing and the majority of it's buttons are made of moulded plastic that feels cheap, they have even added some fake rivets down the side to appear rugged.
4" Capacitive Touch Screen with Corning® Gorilla® glass: We found the screen to be pretty tough, the manufacturers have used the official Corning® glass and the screen is clear and easy to see, in the spec we see a feature called 'Wet Finger Tracking' which we can only assume means there is a special way the phone can still track a fingers touch even when the screen is wet like being used in the rain, sounds handy!
Overall although the feel of the handset has that of a less rugged device the phone is an even mix between a large screen smartphone like the Samsung Galaxy ranges and the more compact but more re-enforced handsets like the NGM Explorer.
For more information on the phone you can give us a call on 0800 849 9990, it is available to purchase outright SIM free and also available on contracts and new connections.
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