Review: Kyocera DuraForce tough smartphone

Text and photos by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

This is the Bear Grylls of smartphones and while its middling specs are more than enough for most applications, build quality and design really make this the only tough Android smartphone worth considering for serious outdoor and construction applications.

The tough-smarphone market isn't all that big. Aside from great looking devices that happen to be dust and water resistant like Sony's Xperia Z line, we also get tough variants of existing smartphones like the recently reviewed Samsung Galaxy S5 Active. These devices pale in comparison with smartphones designed from the ground up for use in extreme conditions. Kyocera's DuraForce isn't a slim phone pretending to be a tough device, it is clearly a bruiser that's built to survive.

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BlackBerry Classic preorders shipping next week

The BlackBerry Classic US ($449), CAD ($499), will be coming starting next week. This is for preorders on Amazon and on BlackBerry's online store. Bell, TELUS and Rogers have been confirmed to be carrying the Classic in Canada and we expect to hear details about pricing and availabilty. Preorders were sold out online and BlackBerry maintains that demand is very strong.

The BlackBerry Classic features a 3.5-inch touch screen with a 720 x 720 resolution. A 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and an 8 megapixel camera as well as a reported 35-hour battery life. We'll have a full review in the New Year once we've had enough time to evaluate the device.

BlackBerry launching secure productivity bundle with Blend, BBM and VPN authentication

The other big announcement at the BlackBerry Classic event today was the launch of a secure productivity bundle for users. The subscription based bundle works for individual users within enterprises and gives them secure versions of BBM (BlackBerry Messenger), the new BlackBerry Blend for enterprise as well as VPN Authentication for a variety of devices. Pricing for Canada has yet to be confirmed.

Live from the BlackBerry Classic launch event in New York

Text and photos by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

New York -It's a red-letter day for BlackBerry today as they are set to launch the widely anticipated BlackBerry Classic smartphone. We're on the ground in downtown New York where the main event is taking place while satellite launch events are taking place in Frankfurt, Germany as well as in Singapore.

The BlackBerry Classic is the latest device sporting the BB10 OS but it also features many key functionalities that BlackBerry users have loved for years, it returns the popular 'belt' as well as the trackpad, while maintaining the QWERTY keyboard that's been BlackBerry's trademark all along.

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