Land Rover Unveils "World's Toughest Phone" 146
Land Rover says their new S1 mobile is the world's strongest phone. Testing done by Land Rover and the staff at The Sun showed the S1 would still work after being stepped on by an elephant, run over by a Land Rover, dropped from a second-story window, buried in mud, soaked in a pint of beer, and roasted in an oven at 150 degrees centigrade. A forklift truck proved to be its match, and was able to crush the S1 under its three-tonne weight. The phone comes with 1,500 hours of battery life, a 2.0 megapixel camera, an extra loud ringtone and an unconditional three-year guarantee.
Must be the heat (Score:2, Interesting)
Or... (Score:2, Interesting)
You don't work in construction... (Score:2, Interesting)
As an IT Manager for a construction company, one thing I've been looking for is a phone that field people cannot break within a week. The defacto standard (or former standard) would be Nextel, but the new Motorola units they've been pushing are anything short of unbreakable. Gone are the days of the bulletproof brickphone that you can run over with a grader and it still live to make another call. Motorola's replacements for the bricks are rather flimsy flip phones and rather weak candybar phones.
Well, on to Verizon we go (for the better coverage and cheaper costs) and we get into their "hardened" phones...the Casio/Verizon GZ1 Boulder, which is a complete and utter joke of misnomer. These units are the worst designed hardened units I've ever seen. The battery retention mechanism (a metal looking but actually plastic screw) will break off/apart after 1 drop and breaks the phone unless you have some duct tape handy to hold your battery in place. Of the 4 dozen we've taken delivery of, we had to replace two as DOA out of the box (bad sign #1) and 4 more within a week (bad sign #2) Now they have a problem with losing the call logs which Verizon is already aware of and the unit needs a firmware update.
If this Land Rover unit is actually as good as it says it is, US cell phone companies should take note. THIS is what we want (in construction) - not these half assed phones that Verizon and Nextel put out. I want something I can hand to my people and say "See you in a year or two" ... not next week after it gets dropped twice.
Destroy my SIM (Score:3, Interesting)
The phone is fragile. Less fragile, but it has considerably more chinks than my SIM card. If the phone numbers are the important thing, keep them on the SIM. They cost what - $0.02? $0.05?
I can't understand why, aside from status, anyone would need this particular phone. Granted, it's a ruggedized phone with GPS, but the screen is something from 2002, barely pocketizable, and has glitzy buttons. What kind of GPS could it be packing, if it's (A:) a proprietary phone, (B:) has 600 pixels to work with? If location was so important to me, and I were driving my Land Rover, or my Hyundai (and pretending it's more than it is), why wouldn't I put my eggs in more baskets, and bring along my Suunto watch, TomTom, or traditional GPS unit?
If the ability to make a phone call after leaving your phone in a pint (or similarly brown, wet, and bubbly environment) is the question, how is this better than my SIM alone, with a spare clunker phone/charger in the glovebox?
I bet an average SIM could tolerate 3 tonnes of compression without a sneeze.
Re:Or... (Score:3, Interesting)
dust kills my phones... I work in the tile laying business
Shirts with buttoned pockets (Score:2, Interesting)
..that's the only thing I have found that works for me on the farm. Top pocket, with a secured button. Anything in my pants pocket or on a holster, etc is due for a drop or a smashing. A shirt pocket with no button, same thing, lean over, out it goes, and around where I work, that could be right into a pile of cow exhaust or in the swamp/mud, etc.. The other thing cellphones don't seem to have is a lanyard loop. The sleeves sometimes have then, but the phone itself needs one, so you can put your own "safe" on them when doing work off the ground or whatever, just like with your other tools. If you drop it accidentally, it's only going a coupla feet then and easy enough to retrieve it.
Anyway, this is why I only use cheap prepaid phones now. If they get creamed, no biggee really. I would *like* a full featured smartphone, but can't take a chance on them, just too wuss and too expensive at the same time.
I honestly don't think there's a single cellphone designer out there who has ever worked a normal hard blue collar job before, else a good simple basic phone might exist for this market. It has to have buttons that can work with gloves on if necessary, at least for the main function of making and answering calls, have a readable screen in bright daylight, not have a weak case, be able to take getting washed off with the garden hose, etc. Maybe these landrover phones are OK, no idea really, but I've never seen a phone here that was any good in the rugged department. It can be larger and heavier, who cares, you know we carry weight all the time, those designers seem to think a lb would induce a hernia or something. Cellphones nowadays seem designed for very young people, children really, with teeny delicate fingers, and always using the phones inside someplace under climate control and artificial light.
I wonder if there would be a market for taking people's cellphones (the few nice ones that guys like us want, but are impractical to carry) and just physically fitting them into better cases, and doing the other things necessary to make them tougher and more functional? I mean physically remove all the electronics and stick that in a totally different case that was blue collar emphasis designed? Cellphone case mods.
Re:Ameri-centrism (Score:3, Interesting)
Ask an American laborer whether they would buy four $50 phones or one $200 phone.
And while you're at it, ask him how much it is worth to him if his phone dies early in the day, and he's not be able to receive calls from potential clients until he gets finished the current job and gets to a phone store to buy another $50 phone.
Re:Or... (Score:3, Interesting)
I work for a timber distributer. I have to provide phones to warehouse staff, lorry loaders and sawmill operators. Even if the environment wasn't so hostile I think the workmen would be! We have a large site with lots of warehouses so phones are essential to get the job done.
I have one loader who in the last few years has been through several Nokia 6310s, a Nokia 5210, 5410, and a JCB phone. The JCB was supposed to be indistructible and had a similar demo video to this Land Rover phone but he still broke it. At least they gave me a refund without arguing.