The Kyocera Durasport 5G is a rugged phone that doesn't look the part, and it makes me wish it was a better phone.
Years ago, when Samsung discontinued its line of rugged flagship phones, I felt like the world had lost a great opportunity. By then, the trend toward glass sandwiches had started, and it felt like every phone you carried had to have a case lest it slide off the table or shatter when dropped . The Samsung Galaxy S8 Active was the last of the rugged flagships that made it possible to own a great smartphone that still looked good and didn’t necessarily need a case.
Once you get inside the phone, though, the comparisons to the Galaxy S8 Active stop. The Active series of phones carried flagship specifications; basically, they were Samsung’s current flagship in a more rugged body. The Kyocera Durasport 5G decidedly is not that. Inside, you’ll get a Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 processor, 4GB of RAM, and just 64GB of storage. For reference, Call of Duty mobile alone takes up 13GB.
Previous Next 1 of 7 The most irksome part about the camera, though, is the software. The camera app is buggy and has a tendency to freeze and/or crash. That’s not awesome when you’re trying to capture little Billy sledding down a hill. It’s also rather frustrating that this phone can handle a demanding game like Asphalt 9, but can’t snap a photo without major hiccups.
You also get wireless charging, which, again, is a nice surprise for a rugged phone. Usually, the “hard candy shell” is too thick to accommodate wireless charging, or manufacturers just leave it out for cost reasons. Wireless charging is a feature that was also available on the Galaxy S8 Active, which brings me back around to the point of the main point of this article.