'World's Toughest Smartphone' From JCB

JCB's Pro-Smart hand-set is a toughened-up, outdoors-friendly Android hand-set with full colour touchscreen interface.

JCB first launched its Toughphone range back in 2010, but for this year they've upped their game with three models including the JCB Pro-Smart billed as 'the world's toughest smartphone' and running an Android operating system.

That's potentially good news for anyone wanting to run one of the growing numbers of outoor apps without risking junking their phone. We're thinking particularly of GPS-based mapping software, which ironically is most likely to be needed in the sort of conditions that normal phones don't like.

The Pro-Smart is an Android 2.3 hand-set with full app compatibility. It has a 3.2-inch HGVA touchscreen, an 800MHz processor and a Micro SD card slot expandable to 32GB. It's also water and dust resistant and has an IP67 certification, says JCB. On top of that there's an SMP camera plus front-facing camera. Claimed talk time is up to 550 minutes and standby time up to 360 hours.

Alongside the top of the range Pro-Smart, there's also the Sitemaster 2, again certified to IP67 and, it says here, 'built to military specification'. It uses buttons and has a lazer pointer, toch and FM radio built in along with a camera. Finally there's now an update of the original Sitemaster in the shape of the Sitemaster 3G in discrete black.

So if you're looking for a tougher Android phone, there's another option for you. More details at www.jcbphone.co.uk.