Kyocera already makes some of the toughest cell phones around, but the new Brigadier really ups the ante. The $49.99 (with two-year contract) Verizon exclusive goes beyond the waterproofing and drop resistance you get with typical rugged handsets, bringing a sapphire-clad display to mainstream audiences—something once reserved for ludicrously expensive devices like the Vertu Signature Touch. This bulky smartphone is far from cutting-edge in most other respects, but it's a more-than-capable Android device, and for the adventure-inclined or overly clumsy, the Brigadier is an excellent option. It easily eclipses the aging Casio G'zOne Commando 4G LTE ($49.99 at Amazon) , earning our Editors' Choice award for rugged smartphones.
Design, Durability, and Call Quality
The aptly named Brigadier is a hulking handset that looks as combat-ready as it sounds. It's not as palm-stretching as today's flagship phones with oversized displays, but at 5.37 by 2.69 by 0.52 inches (HWD) and 6.6 ounces, it's a substantial device that throws thinness to the wind. Oversized rubber bumpers and rivets complete the rugged look, while the V-shaped lines are reminiscent of the Casio Commando. Physical buttons pepper every edge: On the left are Volume buttons and a programmable key, on the right is a dedicated Camera button and covered microSD card slot, and on top are a somewhat small Power button and Speakerphone button. Flaps cover the headphone jack and micro USB port, on the top and bottom edge, respectively, while physical Back, Home, and Recent Apps buttons are under the display. Curiously, the Home button doesn't wake the Brigadier from sleep, but you can program the side-mounted button to do so.
At first blush, there's nothing all that exceptional about the 4.5-inch, 720p LCD. It's a high-quality panel that's sharp at 326ppi with a wide viewing angle and solid maximum brightness. Compared with the 800-by-480 display on the Casio Commando, it's a revelation. The real headliner, though, is its sapphire crystal build. Kyocera quietly beat Apple and every other mainstream manufacturer to the punch in using the virtually scratchproof material. For the uninitiated, sapphire is one of the hardest materials known to man and will hold up to basically anything but diamond. Kyocera went as far as including a bag of stones, steel wool, and a pocketknife with my review unit to prove its mettle. And after an afternoon spent doing my best to scuff the display, not a single scratch could be found. Sapphire is the real deal, and Kyocera now has a leg up on the rugged phone market.
Similar Products
Casio G'zOne Commando 4G LTE (Verizon Wireless)
LG Lucid 3 (Verizon Wireless)
HTC One Remix (Verizon Wireless)
The Brigadier features MIL-STD 810G and IP68 ratings, meaning it can withstand some serious abuse. It's rated for drops of up to four feet onto hard surfaces and can be fully immersed in six feet of water for up to 30 minutes. This phone is an absolute tank—I spent the better part of an afternoon tossing it around our Labs and it emerged no worse for wear.
Below the display are dual front-facing speakers that get very loud—they're not quite as booming as HTC's front-facing speakers, but on the same level. Music actually sounds pretty decent, too, and the speaker can reproduce at least a semblance of bass.
The Brigadier supports Verizon's CDMA (800/1900MHz) and LTE (700/1700/2100MHz) networks, which means it can tap into the recently rebranded XLTE spectrum. Verizon won our latest Fastest Mobile Networks competition, posting some truly impressive speeds and wide-spanning coverage with its LTE network. Like many Kyocera phones past, the Brigadier uses the company's Sonic Receiver technology, which pipes call audio straight to your eardrums using tissue conduction. You'll notice there is no earpiece speaker; rather, the system uses the glass of the display to send sound vibrations through the air, entering your ear and through the tissue around your ear.
The results are hit or miss. In my tests, voices on the other end of the line came through loud and clear, easily cutting through an incredibly loud construction site. But transmissions through the mic sounded overly harsh and were plagued by odd audio artifacts in the background. On a number of calls, I could hear a low, siren-like howl—my voice still came through loud enough to understand, but the persistent noise was distracting and unpleasant. If you're regularly making calls from noisy environments, the Sonic Receiver technology can be a godsend, but for normal folks, the extra volume isn't enough to make up for degraded quality.
The phone's beefy 3,100mAh battery was good for 14 hours, 28 minutes of continuous talk time in my tests. That's a solid showing for a midrange device and more than the HTC One Remix's 13 hours, 31 minutes, but that phone has a much smaller 2,100mAh battery.
Also onboard are dual-band 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, and NFC radios, all of which worked fine in my tests. There's also support for Qi wireless charging.
Performance, Android, and Conclusions
Performance and Android
Powered by a quad-core, 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 SoC, the Brigadier won't be winning any performance awards. It's a nearly ubiquitous setup for budget-minded Android devices, but that's not a bad thing, since it delivers good power for the price. Benchmarks confirm that the Brigadier is right in line with devices like the Motorola Moto G and LG Lucid 3 . That means generally snappy performance overall that chokes a bit on graphically intensive games like Asphalt 8.
The Brigadier is running Android 4.4 with some aesthetic changes that are mostly confined to new icons, widgets, and settings menus. The lockscreen supports multiple pages of widgets and you can swipe to launch directly into the camera or phone app. Kyocera also adds its MaxiMZR battery saving feature, which limits background data connections. There's also a separate Eco Mode app that toggles settings like screen brightness and auto rotation lock to eke more battery life out of the Brigadier. These features should have been combined into one app or settings menu, but they're still nice to have.
Of the 16GB of internal storage, 10.65GB is available to users out of the box and our 64GB microSD card worked fine for expanding memory. There's a ton of Verizon bloatware here, but that's par for the course at this point. Irritatingly, Verizon continues to set its own Messages+ app as the default for SMS and MMS—you can change it, but you'll have to dig into the settings menu to do so. None of the pre-loaded apps can be removed, either, which is a bummer.
Cameras and Conclusions
Camera performance is one of the notable sore spots for an otherwise impressive device. The 8-megapixel rear-facing camera is a disappointment. Even under good lighting conditions, images look grainy and lack distinct details. Shots are routinely overexposed, and in low light scenarios things become nearly unusable. Video tops out at 1080p resolution, but looks equally disappointing. Frame rates drop to a jerky 14fps indoors and exposure jumps around all over the place. The 2-megapixel, front-facing camera is about average, and suitable for Skype or Hangout video calls.
Despite ho-hum specs and a rather disappointing camera, I'm still enamored by the Kyocera Brigadier. It's a rare worry-free piece of kit, and that alone can be quite liberating for something as essential as a smartphone. The Brigadier is a beast in the best way possible, nearly impervious to anything you can throw its way and far more durable than the ruggedized Samsung Galaxy S5 Active (an AT&T exclusive). And aside from the aforementioned Galaxy, most rugged devices, like the Casio G'zOne Commando, have even more modest specs than the Brigadier. Kyocera pulled off quite a coup by introducing the first mainstream sapphire-clad display, and it pays off here. Thanks to its impregnable durability, high-quality display, and solid midrange performance for the price, the Brigadier earns our Editors' Choice award for rugged smartphones.
With a scratchproof sapphire display and waterproof enclosure, the Kyocera Brigadier is the most impressive ruggedized smartphone around.
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