If you break one of these rugged phones, you must have been trying really hard.
Speaker 1: It wasn't long ago, you could hardly tell a rugged phone from holding a brick to your head, but that distinction's become significantly easier. Lately. Rugged phones are now kind of felt nicely designed and even without a case, which they don't need, they laugh at the kind of drops and dunks that would kill your delicate phone. Plus these tend to offer feature that civilian phones don't even know how to pronounce here's how to go shopping for a rugged phone, which I suggest you do.
Speaker 1: [00:00:30] Now, aside from the fact that this no longer looks like this, one of the first things you'll notice about today's read of rugged phones is that they don't use a case. This may be foreign to you. Most of us carry these little hothouse flower phones that you would never dream of taking outdoors without a case on them. I find that ridiculous to me, that's a phone maker that did about 70% of their job, and then shipped the thing and said, you figure out how to make it survive [00:01:00] in the real world. These devices don't need a case to do so. They have all kinds of ruggedness, tough screen glass and all kinds of water and spray Ingres protection that make them pretty much laugh at most conditions. Yes, some rugged phones are still chunky and broad shouldered like the som X, P eight, though. It's probably found in the hands of more first responders than any other, but the newer tough keep moving towards stealth ruggedness. Look at the cat S 52, the thinnest rugged phone in the world, or the Samsung X cover [00:01:30] pro just a hair thicker, but with its own dark, sleek, elegance, and excellent large display.
Speaker 1: Now a specifically about that ruggedness you'll often see a spec called spec eight, 10 G. It is a military specification, but it in and of itself does not tell you exactly how rugged a phone is. It's somewhat more of a framework to tell you how to test a phone for how tough it is. So what you do is look up the mill spec eight, 10 G details [00:02:00] when you're considering a phone and see exactly what they say it'll withstand. For example, a cat S 62 pro is rated up to a six foot drop onto a steel deck. The key ASER Doura force, ultra 5g, five feet onto concrete and the Samsung X cover pro one and a half meters onto an unspecified surface, rugged phones of course use toughened glass, most commonly Corning, gorilla glass six or Kia, Sarah Sapphire shield now right after drop resistance.
Speaker 1: Most [00:02:30] of us start to think about moisture resistance. And that's where you find a common term IP 68 like mil spec, a 10 G for being dropped IP 68. Doesn't tell you exactly how well this will resist moisture, but it gives you a framework. So re read the details again. The six in IP, 68 means the phone is resistant to dust and grit getting inside it while the eight tells you it's protected against water immersion to a certain degree as with a ruggedness rating, read the fine print. A Samsung X cover pro [00:03:00] can go underwater five feet for 30 minutes. The cat S 62 pro five feet for 35 minutes. And the Kia Erra dura force, ultra 5g, six and a half feet for 30 minutes. Now a lot of ordinary phones have been adding claims of water resistance, but how serious are they? Many will boast of being waterproof water, a fine print in their warranty says liquid exposure, voids it, most rugged phones don't pull that.
Speaker 1: And some phones go even further. They'll have IP 69, which is a rating that has to do with sprays of liquid [00:03:30] being aimed right at the phone and at its ports and orifices, uh, not just dust getting in, but actual water under pressure and not just being dumped. Now notice when you buy a phone that has immersion protection. If it accomplishes that by having little doors that cover things like the USB port, some of them do that, not that many, but if you do see that decide if you're okay with it, you don't mind filling with that little door every time you wanna plug this thing in or charge it. In which case you think, wait a minute, can I wirelessly charge it? And that of having to [00:04:00] open that thing up all the time, or just look at one of the phones that accomplishes its IP rating without a port cover, You wanna know the fastest way to charge a rugged phone, not wireless, not USBC change out the battery used to be all phones did this. Now it's almost done her heard of at least some rugged phones still offer changeable batteries as part of their always ready demeanor.
Speaker 1: Now, one of the most important [00:04:30] aspects of a phone being rugged is not how tough it is against drops or immersion or the glass not breaking. It's actually about its ability to stay on the network. One of the best ways to ensure to be virtually rugged is to have two SIM cards. So you can carry two different networks on one device. Now this can get a little expensive because you obviously have to activate two plans on one phone. Think about making one of those plans, a low-ish cost M V N O carrier, and the other one could be your full service carrier. Also look at the [00:05:00] idea that you want to those carriers first, then go purchase a rugged phone to suit them. So, you know, you've got hardware that will map to those networks and that's not too hard to look up in the specs of a given phone. Most rugged phones have at least one sometimes up to three mapable push to talk buttons that you can set for things like Zelle, lower other push to talk over cellular apps. It makes a huge difference in terms of ergonomics,
Speaker 1: Front firing [00:05:30] speakers like here. Now, yes, it takes up a little bit of potential screen real estate, but this is already a good size screen for crying out loud. And this way the speakers aimed at your ears, as opposed to at crotch, that allows you to have much more clear audio when you're on a zoom, whether you're doing FaceTime, whether you're just doing speaker phone calls, it really makes a difference. If you haven't tried this before, here's another feature, your everyday phone, isn't going to have a FLIR, thermal scanner, cat phones [00:06:00] are big on this. For example, this allows you to scan the temperature quite accurately of things in the world around you was seen as real niche previously until COVID. And then all of a sudden, everyone is scanning people for their temperature. But even beyond that, this is a great way to do all kinds of, of interesting tasks and jobs.
Speaker 1: Just Google. Some of the ways you can use a FLIR sensor that are not necessarily professional applications and this phone lets you do kind of an augmented reality. You can blend how much FLIR, thermal sensor and live camera [00:06:30] view you want to have at the same time. You're seeing through one to the other. It's a very interesting technique. A a new kind of AR is a rugged phone, right for you. Start by thinking about the ruggedness. You break phones a lot and drown the poor things you really need to move on and look at a phone. That's gonna laugh at that. If you really love felt thinness and like to show off your phone to your friends, a rugged phones, probably not for you. And finally think about the additional features like SIM push to talk, thermal sensors, front [00:07:00] firing speakers. If any, two of those appeal to you, this matrix are starting to lean toward rugged for your next phone.
