Quick Kyocera DuraForce Review

Quick Kyocera DuraForce Review

By U.S. Cellular

DuraForce is a smartphone built for the active lifestyle. It’s certified for IP68, dust-tight protection and protection against water immersion for up to 30 minutes for 6 feet. It’s also military standard 810G durable and the touchscreen even works with gloves and while the screen is wet. Stay connected and protected with DuraForce.

Kyocera Hydro Edge Free WiFi Hotspot

How to Set Up a Kyocera Hydro Edge
Free WiFi Hotspot 

This is a great video that showcases the ability to provide a FREE WiFi hotspot through a few steps provided by Douglas Tecumseh on Youtube.  This video was performed on a Boost Mobile Kyocera Hydro Edge but offers a great look and follow through on the process.  WiFi Hotspots allow you to use your phone as a wireless internet access point for your tablets, laptops, or other wireless devices.  With Boost mobiles $40 for talk text and web accounts, this provides a unique way to enjoy wireless capabilities provided by your Kyocera Hydro phone.

How To Take a Screen Shot with the Kyocera Hydro Life Phone

How To Take a Screen Shot with the Kyocera Hydro Life Phone

This easy to follow video demonstrates how to take a screen shot of your Kyocera Hydro Life Phone.  This handy tip is useful when trying to explain problems with your phone and also to obtain photos from websites that do not provide a picture saving method.

Kyocera DuraForce

Kyocera DuraForce 

New Rugged Smartphone

Kyocera is hanging tough.

Long after its name has faded from the mainstream, the phone-maker is carving out a niche creating rugged Android smartphones with waterproof and shock-proof capabilities, plus more besides.

The DuraForce that's going on sale with AT&T November 7 (online and for business customers) and November 21 (in retail stores), is the start of a new chapter. This is Kyocera's first GSM phone. Previously using CDMA technology, this opening up to GSM tech means that Kyocera is one stage closer to distributing its tougher phones in other GSM markets outside the US.

Tough stuff

Like any good rough 'n tumble phone, the DuraForce is meets certain specifications. In this case, it's IP68 certified for dust and water exposure (6 feet for up to 30 minutes). It also meets Military Standard 801G for all sorts of fun guarantees against elements like temperature and environmental extremes (including solar radiation and salt fog!). It also includes push-to-talk functionality, like a walkie-talkie, that works over Wi-Fi and LTE.

If you're starting to think that the DuraForce may be too much phone for you, you have a point. While Kyocera will gladly sell it to individuals looking for a little more peace-of-mind without buying an extra case, the real customers are businesses and government agencies looking for a phone to pass out to the fleet.

Hardware specs

The phone has a 4.5-inch, 720p HD display and runs Android 4.4.2 KitKat. There's a 2-megapixel front-facing camera and a 8-megapixel shooter on the back. A 1.4GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor meets 16GB of internal storage and 2GB RAM (you can also expand up to 32GB more). A 3,100mAh battery promises up to 17 hours talk time and 21 days of standby time.

Pricing

If you aren't buying the DuraForce through a business contract, it'll cost $50 with a two-year agreement and $0 down with $19.95 per month for 12 months with AT&T Next 12. Alternatively, AT&T Next 18 pricing is $0 down with $16.63 per month, or you could buy it outright for $390 without a contract.

This review is brought to you by CNET

The Kyocera Proteus

The Kyocera Proteus 

Wearable Collapsible Smartphone 

  As Kyocera continues to Innovate and create great advancements in Solar technology and indestructible mobile advancements such as the famed Sapphire Glass™, many pieces of great technology are discovered along the way.

  With flexible AMOLED displays offering a lower voltage solution to LED, their flexible nature can provide many uses.  The Samsung Galaxy Note Edge has already displayed a clever use for this with it's access bar on the rounded edge using a flexible AMOLED display.

Kyocera has displayed their most recent beta designs for testing at CEATEC (The CEATEC name stands for Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies and is Japan’s largest consumer electronics show) and the flexibility is quite remarkable.

  The Kyocera Proteus can be said to be inspired by the Lenovo Yoga series of hybrid Ultrabooks – being able to bend its display in four different methods to cater to different times and places where the Yoga is used, hence its naming convention that depicts the flexibility of it all.

  As for the Kyocera Proteus, you can hold it in your palm in the same manner as that of a smartphone when you are using its smartphone function, or there is also the option of wrapping it around your wrist like a bangle, and that would then kick in its vital sensors located behind the display which will deliver biological information including your heart rate, how fast you are walking or running, as well as number of steps taken – all in an effort to help you achieve your fitness goals.

  Not only that, you can “drape” it over a thin rail, where this is known as the Clip Style – making it ideal for those who are traveling on a bicycle. It would be interesting to know what kind of battery the Kyocera Proteus would make use considering the flexibility of the device – would it use segmented batteries so that it can even be rolled into a bangle? Only time will tell.

Information provided in part by Edwin Knee of Ubergizmo.com