~Toughbooktalk~

I am seriously into rugged everything these days. Anybody into rugged cell phones?

I abandoned smart phones a year ago in favor of the Sonim brand. I sport an IP68 XP5520 Bolt that is about as indestructible as our fully rugged laptops. This happened after two realizations: 1) I don't use any smart phone features besides calendars for appointments. 2) Chalk it up to the "must not break" category like our toughbooks.

It receives SMS, MMS and is loud enough to alert me of any emergencies 24/7 and has crazy long battery life.

I have an FZ-X1 on order myself!

Sounds interesting, and I always have had luck with the candybar size phones.

Right now I am rocking the Note 2 in a otter box. I needed/wanted the larger screen for quick web surfing while going though the airports to and from work.

I also wanted it for the hardware. 1.6 quad with 2 gb of ram. I need to go back and see if they have finally got ubuntu for android fully working and ready to go yet.

Holy crap that FZ-X1 looks sweet but I ain't willing to spend almost two grand for a phone just yet. But hell yeah, that would fit the bill. I'm quite satisfied with the Sonim, anyway.

For 2 grand she better deliver it personally and teach me how to use it.

Shawn wrote:For 2 grand she better deliver it personally and teach me how to use it.

I will second that, lol.

There are a lot of pseudo-rugged Android phones from China which are mostly crap. The Landrover A8 comes to mind, some of them even steal the Sonim name brand. The Caterpillar B15 has caught my attention though, and it's not a China knockoff.

http://www.catphones.com/phones/b15-smartphone.aspx
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Caterpillar ... 1234304386

I have seen a ton of knock off phones in Dubai. I know there were thousands of them just at the one big china mall we went to alot. I needed a mp3 player because I had forgot mine at home. I picked up a cheap iphone knock off, even had the apple logo on it. Dual sim cards, took a mico sd slot. It was a java phone, later on they swapped to android and reskinned it look like apple. It worked good in the US too when I tried it out.

They had some weird combos also, like a 3 ft antenna that would pull out and you could watch regular tv on on a "smart phone" lol

I've seen a few of those chinaphones with the VHF antenna. They all looked dodgy. I think I've started a trend in my circle of friends though. Most of them are iPhone users with a few cracked screens or accidentally dropped-in-the-toilet handsets. The Sonim XP5520 is starting to show up in surplus stores and online auctions around here at pretty good prices. I just snagged one at a hundred bucks from a local seller for one of my buddies.

Someone suggested an E'Max dumb phone which has incredible battery life, but not so sure on network coverage and signal quality:
http://www.amazon.com/Emax%C2%AE-Rugged ... gged+phone

Then there's a Rhino android phone which seemed powerful but expensive.

Anybody ever heard of the Casio Gz'One Commando 4G? https://www.casiogzone.com/us/

If it says I need a certain program or LATOR should I believe it? Ad agencies don't use spell check?

My phone must have big words,big keys, no texting necessary, fit in a tee-shirt pocket....but I like that Sonim. Where found? Must look.

Hey................ Kode has a MK3.