Samsung Rugby Smart (AT&T)

Smartphones?are a dime a dozen these days, but rugged phones are few and far between. Most carriers tend to offer just one at a time, if any. While AT&T has a couple of good rugged feature phones, right now there's just one option if you're looking for a durable smartphone. Luckily, it's the Samsung Rugby Smart. The Rugby Smart is tough, fast, and slick. It has almost all the components you'd want in an Android smartphone, wrapped up in one sturdy package. That makes it our Editors' Choice for rugged smartphones.

Design, Rugged Tests, and Call Quality
The Rugby Smart measures 4.8 by 2.6 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.4 ounces, which is surprisingly light and compact for a rugged phone. The back cover is made of textured black plastic, with a plastic silver lock to ensure it cannot be unlatched. The rest of the phone is encased in thick, grippy, rubberized plastic. It looks and feels like a smaller phone that's been tucked into a heavy duty case. The 3.7-inch, 800-by-480-pixel Super AMOLED display is gorgeous. It gets very bright, and colors look sharp and rich. Unfortunately, the on-screen QWERTY keyboard is tiny, and I had some trouble getting used to typing on it. There are four clicky, textured physical function keys beneath the display, and the headphone and power ports can be sealed with attached rubber toggles.

The phone meet U.S. military spec 810F for dust, humidity, rain, shock, and temperature. When all of its ports are tightly closed, it can be submerged in up to 3 feet of water for 30 minutes. In testing, the Rugby survived plenty of direct drops to the floor of the PCMag Labs, from heights up to five feet. It also withstood a number of prolonged dips into a bucket of water. That means it shouldn't have much trouble standing up to abuse at worksites, or the hands of a clumsy owner. Two caveats: Even when locked, the corner edges on the back cover of the phone came slightly loose after a drop to the floor. It was never in danger of popping off, but make sure to keep your eye on it after any big drops. Additionally, the headphone and power ports must be sealed for the phone to be completely waterproof, but the whole point of an accidental drop is that you didn't see it coming. Still, keeping those ports closed when not in use should keep you pretty safe.

The Rugby is a world phone that uses AT&T's HSPA+ 14 network and 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi. It also works as a Wi-Fi hotspot with the right service plan. HSPA+ 14 speeds are good for 3G, but they're no match for AT&T's scorching new 4G LTE network. Still, LTE coverage is currently limited and there aren't many LTE devices currently available. There is no rugged LTE phone on the immediate horizon, so if you need a tough phone, you're stuck with 3G for now.

The Rugby Smart is an excellent voice phone. Reception is good, and calls sound rich, clear, and natural in the phone's earpiece. The speakerphone also sounds good and volume is just loud enough to use outdoors. Calls made with the phone are very clear, with average background noise cancellation. I had no trouble connecting to a?Jawbone Era?Bluetooth headset ($129.99, 4.5 stars) and calls sounded great. Unfortunately, I was unable to get voice dialing to work over Bluetooth, though I was able to use it otherwise. Battery life was good, at 8 hours 15 minutes of talk time.

Processor and Apps
The Rugby is powered by a single-core 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 processor. It performed well in our benchmark tests, besting most single-core devices, though it's still far behind the latest in dual-core.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/8zeFt7-poAQ/0,2817,2401137,00.asp

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