T-Mobile starts selling the rugged Kyocera DuraForce PRO

T-Mobile just released the Kyocera DuraForce PRO, a smartphone that's been available on AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon since last year. The new handset is sold for $425, and comes with a 2-year limited warranty.

Just like the Kyocera DuraForce PRO sold by other major US carriers, T-Mobile's variant is dust- and water-resistant (IP68-certified), and can survive under water for up to 30 minutes at depths of up to 6.5 feet (2 meters). The smartphone also meets Military Standard 810G for protection against shock, temperature extremes, humidity, salt fog, blowing rain, solar radiation, low pressure, temperature shock, and icing/freezing rain. The device can easily survive drops from up to 5 feet (1.5 meters).

Ruggedness aside, another highlight feature of the Kyocera DuraForce PRO is its rear action camera that can shoot wide-angle, 135-degree photos and videos. On the T-Mobile variant of the phone, this special camera includes an Action Overlay mode, allowing you to record video "with a heads-up display of data options including speed, distance traveled, g-force, altitude, elapsed time and date stamp."

The DuraForce PRO sports a 5-inch 1080p impact-resistant display, further offering LTE connectivity, fingerprint scanner, 2 GB of RAM, and 32 GB of internal memory. The handset is powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor, and packs a 3240 battery. Unfortunately, the smartphone still runs Android 6 Marshmallow, and there's no word on future updated to Android Nougat or Android O.

We first heard about T-Mobile's plans to release the Kyocera DuraForce PRO almost a year ago. It's not clear why the carrier is only now launching the handset. Nevertheless, at the moment, the DuraForce PRO is T-Mobile's only smartphone that offers this level of ruggedness, so we're guessing that some customers will appreciate its existence anyway.

If you're interested in buying T-Mobile's Kyocera DuraForce PRO, you can find it in stores nationwide, as well as online via the first source link below.


source: T-Mobile, Press release