Samsung Rugby Smart Review: The Rugged All-Weather Smartphone

We recently got our hands on a review unit of the Samsung Rugby Smart, a smartphone designed for rough conditions. We immediately filmed an unboxing video and initial review but I figured I would spend a little more time with the phone to complete a proper review. While I intend to put it through the ringer, testing its dust/water/shock proof abilities, I will also be reviewing it’s ability to be a worthy daily driver. It seems that lately we have been focusing a lot of attention on high-end devices and the Rugby Smart is a nice departure from that norm. My initial instincts are that this is a device for those who don’t need the best specs and who are looking for an Android phone that won’t break the bank, or is easily broken for that matter. I spent almost a week using the phone and over the next few sections of this review I will break down its performance, durability and usability. The good and the bad..
The Rugby Smart is Samsung’s newest smartphone and is currently being offered through AT&T for $99 on contract. The phone is touted as a device capable of the toughest environments and has a mil-spec rating of MIL-STD-810f. Not only is the device capable of withstanding dust, water, and shock, it can also endure through climates ranging from sub-zero Antarctic winters to the hottest of Arizona summers. It can even withstand 30 minutes under 1 meter (3.3 feet) of water (see video below). With a sealed body and it’s rubberized accents, the Rugby smart isn’t going to be the tech-guru’s cup of tea, rather one for those who lead an active lifestyle or who work in relatively harsh conditions.
Design
The design of the Rugby Smart is pretty similar to the other rugged handsets you can find on the market and you can tell the device is solid just by holding it in your hand. It has rubberized edges that not only allow for awesome grip, it will protect the device from drops and/or shock. One thing I like about this rugged phone is that it’s not embellished with a bunch of protruding rubberized accents and it maintains the appearance of a regular (smaller) smartphone. Like most smartphones, the display is recessed a bit to protect it from unwanted scratches and the back has four little feet to help to avoid scratching the battery door. There really isn’t much going on design wise with the Rugby Smart – it doesn’t have any outlandish or snazzy cosmetics or features, but this is by far the best looking all-weather handset available in my opinion.
Hardware
The thick plastic battery door is held on with a latch that requires a coin or something similar to remove it. The door also has a plastic ridge that surrounds the battery profile that locks into a rubber groove when closed, sealing the battery from moisture. When the battery door is securely locked in place, it shouldn’t have any problems keeping all elements from entering inside the phone. Not only is the battery and inner working of the device protected, all open ports are sealed by a rubberized flap as well. The micro USB and audio jack are sealed so tight with these flaps that I found it hard to open them when I actually needed to. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or bad. The micro USB is located on the bottom edge of the phone and the audio jack is on the top.
Although an affordable device, the 3.7-inch WVGA Super AMOLED screen looks pretty amazing, which is also partially because of its 252ppi. You can view the screen very easily at all angles and it’s even super bright when outdoors in sunlight. The screen is a huge plus in my book, it may be small but it is of super nice quality. You outdoorsy types will love its ability to been seen well in the sun and the phone is super pocketable given its dimensions which are 122.4 x 65.9 x 12.2mm, and weighs in at 119 grams.
Below the screen you will find the typical Samsung 4 button layout, but unlike the Galaxy line of phones these are physical buttons. Because they are actual moving parts, Samsung even rubberized these to prevent liquid or sand from damaging the phone. This make plenty of sense especially because capacitive buttons don’t work very well when they get any form of moisture on them. This moisture problem can be noticed on the screen when trying to swipe around homescreens fresh after a dunk in water. The power and volume buttons are found in the usual Samsung places as well. Power is on the upper most right edge and is flanked on the opposite edge by the volume rocker. Just like the rest of the build quality of the Rugby Smart, the buttons are also rubberized and protected from the elements.

Battery
As I mentioned earlier the battery is held in place by a super watertight seal, and when in place, covers up the SIM card (no hot-swapping). The capacity of the battery is 1650mAH and survived a full day of moderate use on a full charge with nearly 25% remaining. When I say full day, you can expect to get about 12-16 hours with moderate web browsing, texting, phone calls and a few pictures and video. Anything beyond that and you are going to peeter out around 8-11 hours. The super AMOLED screen is mostly to blame for this so if you can afford to turn down the brightness you could potentially extend the battery life greatly. If it’s only phone calls your worried about, the Rugby Smart can get on average 7 hours of continuous talk time in comparison to its 5 hours of continuous web browsing. If you are a heavy user, you may want to invest in a spare battery or one of those portable charging get-ups. As far as standby time goes, AT&T claims the phone can remain on standby for up to two weeks.
Performance
Although the Rugby Smart may not have the most up to date chipset, it keeps up damn well with the functions it is intended on doing. The little 1400 MHz single-core chip was surprisingly speedy and I didn’t notice any lag when swiping between homescreens and opening apps was snappy as well. I realize benchmarking apps are more for show (as long as your device ranks near the top ), but for you firm believers in test results, I figured I’d give AnTuTu a visit.  While the phone doesn’t rate up there with the Galaxy Nexus or the Transformer Prime, it does provide a solid user experience. The way in which I chose to rate a device’s performance.

What really sets this device apart from the rest is it’s military specification rating. As I mentioned earlier it is rated MIL-STD-810f, in which Wikipedia describes like this:

The military standard MIL-STD-810 test series addresses a broad range of environmental conditions that include: low pressure for altitude testing; exposure to high and low temperatures plus temperature shock (both operating and in storage); rain (including wind blown and freezing rain); humidity, fungus, salt fog for rust testing; sand and dust exposure; explosive atmosphere; leakage; acceleration; shock and transport shock (i.e., triangle/sine/square wave shocks); gunfire vibration; and random vibration.

I mean how cool is it to know that your smartphone can survive all that? Just the though of submitting any other smartphone to those conditions makes me cringe a little. This is most definitely the phone’s strongest selling feature and reason enough for many to consider taking the plunge (pun intended).

Water resistance test

Software
The Rugby Smart comes out of the box rocking Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread and of course there is Samsung’s Touchwiz UI overlay as well. If you have ever experienced using a Samsung smartphone before, then you basically know what there is to be expected. You get the normal array of Android and Samsung widgets, with the option to customize up to 7 homescreens. One neat thing about this device unlike other Samsung phones is the lockscreen. Upon power-on you are presented with the usual slide-to-unlock lockscreen but if you also have the ability to slide to waiting notifications if there are any available. If you have a text message for example and you power on the device, you can slide to the red notification bubble and enter directly into the waiting message within the messaging app. No more navigating to the notification panel after unlocking. Speaking of notification panel, it and the power widgets have received a slight cosmetic makeover from previous build of Samsung’s Gingerbread, but nothing major.

As far as apps go, you get the usual Android apps along with a few Samsung and AT&T ones as well. A couple of the AT&T apps can actually be removed like AT&T Code Scanner, My AT&T and Family Map but the AT&T Navigator must stay unless you are rooted. You will also find Amazon Kindle, Mini Diary, Photo Editor, Quick Office and Yellow pages. The apps that Samsung have included are Featured Apps, Kies Air, Live TV and Social hub. I did however find myself replacing the launcher after initial testing only because I am not a fan of the Touchwiz launcher, I like the ability to customize what goes in the dock. Other than that I have no complaints and the added screenshot feature is a bonus too.

Camera
The Samsung Rugby Smart comes equipped with a 5MP rear camera with LED flash that captures a maximum resolution of 2560 x 1920 pixels and is capable of recording 720p video. The camera app is slightly different from others I have seen and has a menu bar on the left hand side that allows up to four customized settings. Along the right hand side you will find the usual camera/video switch, shutter button and gallery preview. Pictures actually turned out fairly descent for a $99 phone. Color representation was clean, details fairly sharp, and distortion was to a minimum even when zoomed in. You can check out some sample shots below.

As far as video quality goes, again not too bad given the price point. As with most smartphone cameras, any bright light or sunlight will cause the image to get a bit grainy but other than that video playback is solid. I must admit that the microphone is much more responsive then that of the Galaxy Nexus. Truly a surprise indeed.

Indoor test video

One thing I really dig that I think should be incorporated on all smartphone cameras it the ability to use the camera flash as a flashlight. I know some devices have the ability and there are also plenty of apps that can do this, but Samsung did it on the Rugby Smart in an really ingenious way. You simply hold the volume up button and the flash will turn on and remains on until you press the button again. Pretty sweet.

Closing
Well, to sum it up I am simply impressed with this phone given how little it costs. It’s not a surprise coming from Samsung and it’s nice to see that they are paying attention to detail in their affordable line of handsets. Sure it has the somewhat annoying Touchwiz UI overlay, but that is easily remedied with a free app from Google Play. The mil spec rating is most definitely a strong feature but even if you don’t plan on being tough on your phone, I still wouldn’t shy away. The smaller form factor is super easy to slip in your pocket and the Super AMOLED display is absolutely beautiful. If you are looking for an affordable Android smartphone, or want to find a phone that can survive an active lifestyle, the Samsung Rugby Smart should be a top contender on your list.