Peter Jones, a star on a British reality television show called Dragons’ Den, launched his own mobile phone brand dubbed “Toughphone”. Not the most creative name, but whatever, let’s continue. This week he’s going to introduce 3 different models, and one of them is called the “Tradesman”. It’s going to be the first mobile phone that if thrown in water will actually float. “These phones are not just suitable for tough working conditions, they’re also ideal for people who lead outdoor lifestyles such as mountain climbing, skiing and sailing,” Jones said.
Since starting “Toughphone”, Jones has sold 50,000 of the extreme devices. He sees himself easily topping a quarter of a million units, but fails to give a time table. The only other firm that we can think of that is in this class of handset is Sonim. When the IntoMobile team was in Spain earlier this year at the Mobile World Congress, the folks at Sonim gave us permission to do whatever we wanted to their handsets in order to test their durability. Sure enough we couldn’t break the damn things, even after throwing them against concrete walls with all our strength.
Why isn’t there a middle line? Most smartphones today are highly fragile thanks to an all glass display and the obsession with making thin and light devices. On the other side of the spectrum you have these monsters, which will outlive you and you children. There’s no in between, or at least the market is very small. Two models come to mind: Nokia’s 3720 Classic, a feature phone that is water and shock proof, and Motorola’s DEFY, which boasts the same capabilities, but also runs Android. Useful if you’re the type who needs push email, GPS, and a spiffy web browser. All useful applications to have on a device you can use to hammer a nail into a wall.