When you say Cat, chances are you don’t think about smartphones. That, however, doesn’t stop the company from launching another phone of its own. Or that’s more like borrowing its brand to some phone maker.
In any case, the Cat S50 has been announced from the floor of IFA in Berlin, and as you would imagine – it’s made to survive pretty much anything you through at it. Alas, unlike that Kyocera phone, Cat’s rugged baby lacks sapphire glass display; it does rock a Gorilla Glass 3-protected screen that should be more than enough for most users.
Specs wise, here’s what the S50 is all about:
- 4.7-inch Shatter resistant Gorilla glass 3 screen (we assume it’s 720p HD)
- Mil Spec 810G and IP67-certified against dust and water, scratch resistant, wet-finger tracking
- 8-megapixel camera with flash and HD video recording support
- 4G LTE connectivity support
- 16 hours of talk-time
- 8GB of expandable storage (with microSD cards)
- Android 4.4 KitKat
Beyond specs, Cat made sure its users easily find useful apps to install on the S50. The phone comes pre-loaded with the Cat Phones App Store that counts over 1000 hand-picked apps. The curated collection — which includes both well known and widely used apps such as Skype and Endomondo to smaller niche but equally useful ones like CHECD — makes sure you can quickly find apps for your phone. In comparison, going through Google Play’s catalog of 1.2 million titles can be a daunting task.
So what do you think about the Cat S50. If you’re into outdoor activities, is this something you would buy? Or you prefer something more powerful like Samsung’s Galaxy S5 Active? What do you say?