Cat s60: a phone that can see in the dark

The new $599 Cat S60 — yes, Cat, as in Caterpillar the construction company, though the phone is made by a company called Bullit Mobile — falls into this last category. It’s an extremely rugged phone with an extra niche twist thanks to a very unique feature: it’s the first phone with a built in thermal camera.

Phones with wild features and extra protection typically ask their users to compromise somewhere else other than just general design — they come with cheaper, outdated processors, or run old software. It’s why they’re often owned either by people with jobs that require a phone that can take a it, or the most accident-prone users. The Cat S60 isn’t going to change that, but it is much more well-equipped than many of its rugged predecessors, to the point that — alongside the recently released Samsung Galaxy S7 Active — it feels like it belongs to a new guard of niche smartphones that don’t require those same sacrifices. If you need, or want, a phone like the Cat S60, you won’t be disappointed.

The Cat S60 feels indestructible from the moment you pick it up. The stainless steel and carbon fiber frame alone are enough to convince you that it's going to be just fine if (and when) you drop it. But the spec sheet backs this up, too. The phone is drop proof from up to 1.8 meters (6 feet). There are a handful physical buttons and ports, but it’s still waterproof up to 2 meters — 5 meters if you flip the little gold switches on the front-facing speakers that help block out more water. You can even use it in temperatures as cold as -13 degrees Fahrenheit and as hot as 131 degrees Fahrenheit.

The phone achieves this level of protection and rigidity by employing a significant amount of bulk. It’s almost 13mm thick, and it weighs 225 grams, or about 1.5 times the weight of an iPhone 6S. That’s heavy enough that, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I actually noticed the weight of the phone while I used it. I’d lift the phone from my pocket, and within a few scrolls through my Twitter timeline, I was already tired of holding it up.

What really makes the Cat S60 stand out from other rugged phones, though, is the thermal camera

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Source: the verge