If there’s one thing that the majority of smartphones aren’t, it’s rugged. No matter which version of Gorilla Glass a smartphone is wearing, no matter the materials used in their build, your everyday smartphone is not meant to take a beating. Smartphones from the CAT brand however, are meant to take a beating. Roaming the halls at IFA in Berlin, we managed to find the CAT team and spend some time with their S30 and S40 Android smartphones. For rugged, bulky smartphones, these are far from what you’d expect.
Both the CAT S30 and S40 offer IP68 water resistance and mil-spec ingress and toughness. You can get these wet, you can use them in dirty, dusty environments and you can use them while wearing gloves and even when your fingers are wet. This alone makes them great for a building site, or some area that’s not exactly smartphone-friendly. The S30 and S40 differ in a few ways, with the S40 being the top dog. The CAT S30 is powered by a Snapdragon 210 processor and features a 4.5-inch 854 x 480 display, Android Lollipop and 1GB of RAM. With 8GB of expandable storage, this is not the most exciting smartphone out there, but it’s designed as a working smartphone above all. You can take a look at the images in the gallery below.
On to better things, and the CAT S40 is a step above, with the same Snapdragon 210, but a 4.7-inch 960 x 540 display and a more luxurious build compared to the S30. Both are designed with super-bright displays, massive 3,000 mAh batteries and 4G support for North America and elsewhere. The S30 will cost €329 when it goes on sale towards the end of this month while the S40 will cost €439 and is already on sale. You can see more of the CAT S40 in the images below.
