Caterpillar Announces Ultra-Strong $999 Smartphone

MWC 2018 is still a few days away but Caterpillar has just announced the Cat S61. Caterpillar, a company best known for yellow bulldozers and excavators, has been a small player in the smartphone arena, offering ultra-resistant devices designed for tradesmen.

Spoiler: their flagship is not cheap, bearing a hefty $999 price tag usually reserved for  premium devices from companies like Apple or Samsung.

The $999 Cat S61 smartphone is the successor of the Cat S60, an extremely resilient device with a twist.

The Cat S60 came equipped with a VGA thermal camera similar to those used by the US military. Of course, the Cat S61 has brought a lot of updates to justify its price. The resolution, the camera and overall resilience of the device have all been upgraded.

The FLIR thermal camera can now overlay HD images with the thermal feed and has a temperature range from -20°C to 400°C (-4°F—752°F).

Moreover, the phone has a laser-assisted distance measurement tool that can measure point-to-point distance up to 10 m (33 ft) and save it for future reference.

The Cat S61 can also alert the user of unsafe environments. It’s fitted with an indoor air quality sensor that can track volatile organic components like paints and solvents.

On the resilience front, the Caterpillar smartphone can survive under 3 meters of water for an hour and a withstand a drop from a 1.8 m height, weathering extreme temperature variations.

It’s also a beach-safe smartphone because it’s resistant to both humidity and salt mist. The Caterpillar Cat S61 smartphone will be presented at MWC 2018 and we’ll be there, so stay tuned for more updates!

Even if you’re not looking for a work phone to throw around in a rattling toolbox, these features are really an added bonus to a more than decent specifications list:

• • Size: 150 x 76 x 13 mm
  • Body: die-cast aluminum frame with rubberized back panel
  • SIM: single and dual SIM
  • Resistance: IP68 certified – dust / waterproof, MIL-STD-810G compliant, drop-to-concrete resistance up to 1.8 m
  • Display: 5.2 inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen
  • Resolution: 1080 x 1920 px, 16:0
  • Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 630
  • CPU: Octa-core 2.2 GHz Cortex-A53
  • GPU: Adreno 508
  • OS: Android 8.0 (Oreo)
  • Primary camera: 16 MP, phase detection autofocus, dual-LED dual-tone flash; FLIR thermal camera (Lepton module), video 2160p with 30fps
  • Primary camera features: Thermal imaging, heat palettes, temp. spot meter, geo-tagging, touch focus, face detection, panorama
  • Secondary camera: 8 MP
  • Sensors: Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer, indoor air quality sensor
  • Battery: Non-removable Li-Ion 4500 mAh battery