There are a million ways to break your smartphone these days, ranging the unfortunate toilet drop to just fumbling around with it in the dark. You just never know when the next unfortunate hit will come. Well Sprint and Kyocera think they have the answer for the clumsy people among us with their newly announced device the Kyocera Torque.
The Torque is super rugged and is actually built to Military Standard 810G (MilSpec) to withstand dust, shock, vibration, solar radiation, humidity, blowing rain, low pressure, salt fog and extreme temperatures, along with IP67 standards for dust, sprayed water and full immersion up to one meter deep for up to 30 minutes. This means it will hold up well whether you’re on a construction site or at the beach.
Kyocera Communications senior vice president and general manager of global sales and marketing Eric Anderson says in a statement:
“We know from our research, conversations with customers and personal experiences that there’s a tremendous consumer need for rugged handsets to deal with life’s everyday challenges. Those devices, however, have traditionally been designed specifically for an enterprise customer. Kyocera has taken the most robust, rugged MilSpec features and combined them with our easy-to-use, affordable, Android smartphone designs to create a durable mobile device that supports not only the construction foreman using Sprint Direct Connect but also the outdoor sports enthusiast or the busy mom or dad who’s juggling children and playground duties.”
The Push-to-Talk capable Torque is also the first U.S. device to feature the Smart Sonic Receiver technology that uses vibrations to transmit sounds instead of using a regular speaker. This is accomplished by having a ceramic actuator that turns sounds into vibrations. By using this method the user needs only to place the phone near his or her ear in order to hear clearly in even the noisiest situations.
Here is the full spec list for the Kyocera Torque:
- Military spec 810G and IP67-certified
- IPX5 / IPX7-certified “waterproof” (up to one meter for 30 minutes)
- 5.54 ounces (157g)
- 113 x 60.5 x 14.3mm (4.44 x 2.38 x 0.56 inches)
- Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
- 1.2GHz dual-core MSM8960 Snapdragon S4 Plus
- 4-inch WVGA IPS display, Gorilla Glass 2
- 1GB RAM
- 4GB internal storage
- MicroSD (up to 32GB)
- 2,500mAh battery
- 5MP rear camera, 1.3MP front-facing
- NFC, WiFi b/g/n 2.4GHz, Bluetooth 4.0+LE/EDR
- HD Voice
There is not a hard release date for the Kyocera Torque other than “Spring” and pricing will be announced “This Quarter”.