Cat Phones S61 Rugged Smartphone

My s7 active has been demoted to shop music player. Using both daily, the Galaxy S7 is embarrassingly slow. The cat s61 has a lesser functioning screen. Dimming required an app to be useful driving at night. It's a tad heavy but not too bad. It's fast! No noticable lag. (Glares at galaxy s7). Bluetooth is strong, audio quality good. Battery about 2.5x the s7 active. Durability is as expected. However.... I put it in the bath a moment, you know... Just to see .. the speaker hates being wet. The camera is ok. Flir camera has been useful so far for: finding my black dog outside at night. Noting which cylinder is dead by looking at the headers while running. Also, to spot the coldest cider in the fridge. This is the only one with a LASER! Measures ok. It's the only phone I've liked in years.

I received the package notice battery won’t charge, took to repair and discovered the charger won’t work so had to buy a new charge, I contact the seller and got refund. Phone itself is a great phone, heavy duty if you work on construction site, screen is good, good phone

I purchased the phone May 2021. I noticed the phone distorts when using speaker at full volume ( which is NOT very loud at all ) and the laser never worked. When inquiring about warranty repair I had to ship it to them WITHOUT a replacement. I 'd be phoneless while they decide what to do. Within the first six months my speaker stopped working. I could not hear it ring, could not use speaker phone, just dead silent, and I had to wait weeks for them to ultimately send me a new one. I had to purchase another phone to use WHILE this was being repaired ! Now less than a year ( less than six month with this replacement ) the charging port cover fell off, and it will no longer take a charge from typical cords. The Case is also delaminating around the corners. The high price is absurd. You can by a FLIR camera for less and have a decent phone instead. don't waste your money ~ UPDATES ~ after TWO returns, I still have a broken phone ~ CAT Support shipped it back UNFIXXED !! meanwhile I've had to buy new phones while my phone is at their repair shop and no a BIT of concern or compensation for the hassle!! 11-9-22 ~ got my phone back again. UNFIXXED YET AGAIN!! Finally agreed to refund the freakin purchase price after complaining since July of 2021, not two months after the original purchase. I've also purchased two other phones while waiting for them to get this one right, and the phones can only be used on T-Mobile so if their service SUCKS in your area, tough luck for you! NEVER AGAIN!!

So far so good. I am upgrading from a Samsung S7 active. I wanted a durable phone and this sure seems to be one. It is a big phone, but it still fits in my blue jean pocket. The FLIR camera works well. I love that it does not have all the bloatware that my old AT&T phone had on it. One of my only gripes is that it uses a different charging cable, so I need to replace all my MicroUSB charging cables to some nonstandard or new standard charging cable. I also have not figured out the measure in picture thing. The waterproof rating seems to be the real deal. I went snorkeling and brought it out to take some underwater pictures and it worked. It has an underwater mode that uses the volume button to take pictures because the touch screen does not work underwater. I have to admit I was a little nervous using my $800 smartphone as an underwater camera, so I put it up after 15 min of light diving. There are limitations to how deep the phone can go, 10 feet is it. A negative I have experienced is I can not make wifi calls with it. I read that it was AT&T that limited this and not the phone. I was able to use my old Samsung to make Wifi calls but not this one. Overall I am really happy with it.

Pros: IR CAMERA works like a charm (note I have not used any live feed capabilities, just the phone in and of itself) AIR QUALITY DETECT SENSOR picks up everything very well. I just wish that there were more details included in the data collected. DURABILITY is excellent even when dropped on screen from a distance onto a hard surface. I have gotten the phone wet many times and I have never had an issue even with saltwater, cold water, hot water, mist etc. I have dropped the phone in the shower and no water got in it. BATTERY LIFE and CHARGE are long lasting and quick to charge even under heavy use (note turn phone off for very fast charging) SIZE AND WEIGHT are not bad. It is heavy enough to realize it when you leave it somewhere. It isn't a bad weight by any means. Its heavy and durable enough to be used as a weapon and it is definitely designed to withstand military and industrial environments. It fits in my pockets and it is easy to identify as my phone. for the amount of tech in this phone this is pretty compact. Neutral: VISIBLE LIGHT CAMERA does its job. It isn't a bad camera and it isn't a great camera. You can adjust the settings to your liking. This shouldn't be used for your 4k photography to put on social media, but if you use it for social media or pictures it still does a good enough job. ANTENNA has good qualities. I use T-Mobile and the service is good for my area. I am over in Norfolk and it gets about as good as Norfolk is going to get. MEMORY stores a lot of data and is pretty good. I have had no corrupt files or downloads. PHONE IN GENERAL its a phone. This phone is designed to fit industrial and military environments and suits well as a phone for general use. Cons: PROCESSING POWER AND RAM. Obviously this isn't a phone that is going to replace your laptop and it isn't going to be as fast as other phones. It is a bit slower than other phones but when you get used to it its not that bad. You will notice the issue when selecting which aps to close, start up of aps, and sometimes during the operation of the IR camera. It gets the job done and for the money it isn't really that bad. I would like to see CAT pump out more advanced phones with better processing power and with maybe even more tools. CHARGING PORT COVER. This may be my fault but I will list it anyway. The charging port plastic cover tore off after lots of use and abuse. The rubber cover was still in tact but as expected it was a pain to deal with when trying to charge the phone. RANDOM CRASHING. On rare occasions the phone would crash and I would have to press tons of buttons and hit the reset button for it to turn back on. I am not sure what causes this issue but simply trying to power the phone back on will not work after a crash. If this happens you are SOL until you can find a SIM card pin to press the reset button and get lucky with powering it back on. Sometimes this happens when using the camera but I cant pin it to the camera itself. I believe this is processing issue. A summary of my use: The built in tools are fantastic and I wish that more phones were designed around being multi tools rather than for being used for just social media. The camera itself does the job of taking pictures. It isn't designed for photography but it does its job pretty well. The IR camera is awesome and works very well. The processor isn't the greatest but again it does its job. I don't need the fastest phone on the planet to perform tasks. I personally have not had a need to use the laser range finder. However, playing around with it showed that it works well though there are some limitations. You need to be mindful of the laser's limits and understand that it isn't built for long range and the quality of the measurement may be affected by the type of surface you are pointing the laser at. The air quality detect sensor is fantastic as it picks up smoke and alcohol based products very easily. It also picks up paint fumes very well. I work on a ship and this phone has been proven to be extremely useful. I have dropped it multiple times onto hard surfaces from a considerable distance. Even when the phone lands on the screen it hasn't cracked. I also left the plastic on the screen to further protect It from scratches. The only major issue I have had with it at times is that the phone will sometimes crash. When this happens the phone will not power on normally. I generally have to open up the SIM card cover and use a pin to reset the phone as well as hit the power button and square button at the same time. Honestly I am not sure if that is even what turns it back on because sometimes I do that process and it still wont turn back on. So that can be incredibly annoying and I would love to see that fixed. The charge of the battery lasts forever depending on how you use the phone. Even in heavy use the phone retains charge for hours. At the end of the day: I really cant say too much bad about this phone. The pros definitely outweigh the cons. I will be buying from CAT in the future if their product line continues to make considerable advances.

Very solid phone. Great picture quality, rugged and reliable. Touch screen is near perfect, and the all the features (Air Quality Sensor, FLIR Camera, and Laser measure) work near perfectly, although the laser measure can be a hair off. My only gripe would be the plastic border on the edge of the screen. It scars and dents with relative ease, unfortunately. Though it's very small, so that's not a big deal. Oh, and it has an audio jack, so perfect score there. Impact wise, I'd say this is a perfect 10. Countless drops, impacts, temper tantrum tosses show this as an outstanding device. The picture included is of a cat, to demonstrate the FLIR Camera quality. Get it? Cat? I'll see myself out.

Okay... This phone is amazing... I've followed the s60 and the reviews it was receiving about bad signal, the s61 reviews seemed better and they truly are. I have had zero issues with service, the quality is fantastic , & the durability is obvious. Built in FLIR has already landed an attic insulation job! More than paid for itself the FIRST WEEK OF OWNERSHIP!

I had such high hopes for this thing. It pained me to return it. The good: -it's a TANK! -the thermal camera is SO COOL! -a laser distance meter? Yes please! -the air quality sensor was eye-opening. I had no idea my home's air quality was so subpar. I will buy a VOC air filter. -plain vanilla android with no annoying bloatware from a carrier -big battery The bad: -it's a TANK! It's HUGE! It's basically a phone permanently built into an otterbox from the factory. I can't stand a giant brick in my pocket. -The wifi kept going out and refusing to connect. I have about 15 devices on my wifi here, including other smartphones. None of them have any trouble whatsoever staying on the wifi. But for some reason, this thing only connects when it feels like it. (Yes, I played with all the settings.) Even if this can be fixed with an update or something, this phone has been out for a while. This is a glaring quality issue that concerns me. -The back button is on the left side. I'm right-handed, like most of the human population. That means I need two hands to press back because my thumb can't reach that far while holding the phone at the same time (because the phone is huge). So much for one-handed operation. I ended up buying an app that swaps the back button to the right for me, which I now regret because I've returned the phone for unrelated reasons. -Port covers! The 3.5mm jack and the usb port have port covers that you have to remove to access the ports. I did not realize this when I ordered it. The usb cover isn't too bad, but I had a HECK of a time trying to get the 3.5mm jack cover to go back on! It did NOT want to go back on correctly. I finally got it back on, but after much finessing/wrestling. There's NO WAY I'm going to fight with this thing every time I unplug my headphones, and I'm sure as heck not going to just leave it dangling. Terrible user experience, and a deal-breaker. Did you test this at all, Bullitt?? I remember when smartphones first started boasting IP-6x ratings 10 years ago. They used port covers to accomplish this (and they were annoying then too). But technology has advanced beyond needing these pesky prophylactics a loooong time ago. You can get an IP-65 (or better) phone from just about anyone these days without these silly covers. So why does the S61 need them? If it's for better dust protection, AT LEAST offer a version without the covers. I know that adds to supply chain overhead, but if every other manufacturer on the planet can offer different versions of their phones (64MB/128M, different colors, etc.), then you can at least offer this. Yes, it's worth the extra SKU. The covers are a god-awful vestige of ancient tech. Ditch them, or at least let me choose to ditch them. The camera. Where to begin... -Please understand, I'm not a camera snob by any stretch. As long as the thing works half decent, I'm happy. But this camera is so bad, even I can't stand it. See attached pic. I need this thing to be able to snap things like serial/model numbers off of parts, often in hard-to-reach, low light places. This camera won't do it. Now, using flash would probably help, but in my experience, flash tends to over-expose such pictures, and often cause glare the makes the numbers unreadable. -And that's not all about the camera - the camera is SLOOOOWWW! There's a 1 to 2 second delay after you press the button. I don't know how to explain how annoying that is, but it is. It also means you must be absolutely still while you're waiting for the camera to get around to actually snapping the pic. When you're bent over backwards and twisted around to get some numbers off an engine block, that's very hard to do. It's difficult not to be shaky. Really, Bullitt? (this phone was made by Bullitt Group, not Cat). I mean, seriously? You couldn't spend a few extra bucks on a modern camera? The technology is so available, yet you decided to use a module from, what, 10 years ago? I would've happily paid a little more to cover your cost for a decent camera. Another deal breaker. (And if you got the camera from Flir, then shame on you for not figuring out how to make the thermal imager work with a better camera. It's called R&D - FUND it! Your customers are smartphone customers, not thermal camera customers. Therefore, make a smartphone with a thermal camera, not the other way around) Summary: I was willing to try and get used to its bulkiness. I bought an app that moves the back button to the right where it belongs. I was even willing to call support and work with them with the wifi issues. But the port covers and the terrible camera broke the camel's back. 10 years ago, they would be excusable. But it's 2020, man. Look at your girlfriend's iPhone; you can drop that silly toy into a river and it won't miss a beat - and it doesn't have port covers! My galaxy S5 from forever ago could snap pics as fast as I could pull the trigger, and even in low light, the pics were plenty legible. It seems like Bullitt's idea of a rugged phone is to go dig up cheap, 10-year-old tech (the screen is straight out of an old galaxy S4, but that didn't bother me really), build an otterbox around it, plug up the holes with flimsy, poorly-fitting covers, and see if it can survive a 1 meter drop on concrete. If it can, then cram a Flir Lepton module in it, fire up the assembly line and call it a day! I can hear the execs now, "QA? What QA? Usability testing? Enough of your mindless techno-babble! Go away, I'm trying to play golf here!" I returned it. I now have a Galaxy S10e. Sure, it's not nearly as rugged, and I hate sending my money overseas, but at least it doesn't annoy the heck out of me. I'll just put it in a good case and try not to drop it. Maybe one day Bullitt will figure this whole smartphone thing out and I'll give em another try.