The brand that made your boots has a new Android phone
For
Durable
MicroSD support
Surprisingly good looking
Waterproof
Against
Weak processor
Low-end camera
Just 3G
You probably know Cat or Caterpillar as the guys in yellow and black,
makers of construction equipment and those boots the cool kids were
wearing for a little while. Now you can add smartphones to that list,
thanks to the Cat B15.
Actually, the phone is made by Bullitt
Mobile, a licensee of Cat, and this isn't its first smartphone rodeo.
Its already made a couple of phones under the Cat name, and it launched
the Cat B15 at MWC 2013
in Barcelona. This rugged device has been available in Europe for a
little while, and is making its North American debut at a pre-show event
for CTIA 2013.
Rubber outside, Jelly Bean inside
The Cat B15 has a rubber and aluminum shell with a sweet Android 4.1: Jelly Bean
center. It's built to make calls and survive falls; with just a
5-megapixel camera and dual-core 1GHz processor, it's not designed for
much else. As
we mentioned, the Cat B15 has been available in Europe for a while now,
and can actually be purchased as an unlocked device directly from Cat
for $349/£300. Representatives showing the device couldn't name the U.S.
carriers that will carry it.
No 4G here, sadly
However,
we'll tell you that the Cat B15 is a GSM phone, so therefore AT&T
and T-Mobile are your likely candidates. No dice with GSM carriers
Sprint and Verizon. It's also 3G only, so forget about up-to-date data
speeds. Like a lot of rubberized and ruggedized phones, such as the Kyocera Torque,
the Cat B15 looks like a phone in a heavy rubber case. Phones like this
are bulky by nature, but it does seem like Cat has slimmed down the B15
as much as possible.
Looks like a handsome screwdriver
The
B15 is just shy of 5-inches, with a width of 2.7-inches and .58-inches
of thickness. It also feels pretty good, and doesn't weigh too much,
just 5.9 oz. Its rubber body casing and aluminum sides give it the look
of a toolbox or an eye-catching screwdriver. The
display is a 4-inch 480 x 800 screen resolution. But get this: it's
designed to detect and stand up to a wet finger, because the Cat B15 is
waterproof at a depth of up to 1 meter, for thirty minutes. We actually
had the chance to wet our digits and give the phone a swipe, and it did
indeed work. Frequent snorkelers, we may have your next phone here. The
manufacturer also claims the B15 is "impervious to dust," which is
likely thanks to all the rubber seals fitted in each and every port. The
headphone jack seals up, as does the micro-USB charging port.
Treat it like a rented phone
It's
also rated for a drop of up to six feet, which should be more than
enough to survive a tumble from your hand to the floor. Cat
representatives on hand were eager to drop the phone and prove this
claim. Getting
back to the build, one of the things we like least about a smartphone
case is how it makes the buttons difficult to push. Luckily, the B15's
yellow rubber buttons weren't too bad. They didn't press as easy as an iPhone 5's unlock button, but they didn't take too much effort, either.
It opens up, no mallet required
You
wouldn't think it, but the B15 actually has an open body design. It
takes some doing, but you can unlatch the back and open it up to reveal a
2000 mAh battery and microSD slot. There's only 4GB of on board
storage, so it's a good thing you can add an additional 32GB. Of
course, this isn't really a media centric or image snapping phone. The
camera is only 5-mp and the processor is low-end, but flipping across
menus and diving into the app drawer, the B15 was no slouch. We didn't
detect any stuttering, and the browser opened with acceptable speed. We'd
guess that's Jelly Bean at work, as the B15 runs a version that's darn
close to stock. We noticed just one toolbar that smacked of manufacturer
meddling.
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