Verizon's first rugged 5G smartphone goes official with a number of key question marks
Verizon sells a lot of 5G-enabled smartphones, ranging in (typical) price from as little as $400 to a whopping $2,000, but although we have no idea how much the carrier's latest Ultra Wideband-compatible device is set to cost, we can safely assume this bad boy will easily stand out from the pack.
That's because the Kyocera DuraForce Ultra 5G UW is Big Red's first-ever 5G-capable rugged handset. Powered by an upper mid-range Snapdragon 765 SoC, the "ultra-rugged" Android phone will undoubtedly be pricier than the likes of the $550 Motorola One 5G UW, $600 Google Pixel 4a 5G UW, or $700 LG Velvet 5G UW, not to mention the $400 TCL 10 5G UW.
Unlike its "mainstream" Snapdragon 765-packing cousins, which can often crack under the tiniest amount of pressure, the decidedly nichey DuraForce Ultra is virtually unbreakable.
Even if you like torturing mobile devices (we're looking at you, Zack Nelson from popular DIY YouTube channel JerryRigEverything), you might not be able to hurt this waterproof, dustproof, salt, fog, solar and shock-resistant tank of a smartphone, which also carries MIL-STD-810H certification guaranteeing full protection for drops from up to 5 feet directly onto concrete.
As you can imagine, all that is bound to take a toll on the handset's weight and overall dimensions, although Kyocera is keeping those numbers under wraps (for pretty obvious reasons) for the time being. In addition to that and the recommended price, the commercial release date is up in the air as well.
Fortunately, pretty much everything else is already etched in stone, painting the DuraForce Ultra 5G UW a fairly promising mid-end picture. You're looking at a reasonably sharp 5.45-inch FHD+ display with massive bezels and rubber bumpers around the angled corners, a large 4,500mAh battery under the muscular hood, a 24MP main camera accompanied by a 16-megapixel wide-angle lens and 3D Time-of-Flight sensor on the back of the phone, as well as a single 8MP front-facing shooter.
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