It looks like Sprint has announced their latest durable and rugged candybar style handset. The device is the Kyocera DuraPlus and in addition to the rugged exterior design, the handset has goodies to include a built-in LED flashlight and Sprint Direct Connect support. The DuraPlus will arrive with Military Standard 810G certification against dust, shock, more »

Phones these days are like precious jewels. The biggest and best phones are comprised of huge screens with no buttons. If they’re dropped, chances are it’s game over. If you’re the type that needs more protection for your phone that a case can’t offer, you need a rugged phone. Samsung has added to its Galaxy line of smartphones by introducing the Galaxy Xcover. the Galaxy Xcover will be available in October in Germany and Ukraine.

LaCie, maker of both tiny and rugged hard drives has finally decided to combine the two features into one external hard drive. That new hard drive is LaCie’s new Rugged Mini external hard drive. The Rugged Mini is small enough to fit in your back pocket, and tough enough to not break if sat upon. more »

More and more gadgets are coming branded as rugged and water resistant these days, one of which is the recently available Motorola Defy. The Defy, for those who may have forgotten is available with T-Mobile and has been noted as being “water-resistant and dust-proof.” And while that sounds good, most people are probably going to more »

If you are in the market for a rugged phone, look no further than Samsung’s new XCover E2370. This bulky (19mm thick), waterproof, and pretty much bombproof phone will have you covered no matter what the situation. The more amazing feature of this new phone is its battery life. In stand-by mode you can expect more »

Digital cameras are a fantastic innovation. There are waterproof ones, ones designed to take a beating, even airtight ones to protect against dust and air contaminants. But who wants a different camera when snorkeling as opposed to mountain biking?

Panasonic has released the Lumix TS1 digital camera. This rugged piece of picture taking power is waterproof to 10 feet, airtight to keep out dust, shockproof with drops under 5 feet, and has reinforced glass and carbon resin components.

When I say beast I do not mean in looks (like the iPhone), in functionality (like the G1) or low cost (like the Motorola Dyna 8000X). I’m talking about the height of practicality, a phone designed to suffer the falls, scratches and splashes that your average Joe phone would break merely looking at. This phone is not about looks, being small, or taking high resolution photos: it is the sort of phone you would expect to see on a building site, or on the top of a mountain. Let me introduce the Sonim XP3.

If Santa is looking for stocking stuffers, or if you are just looking for some portable storage at a good price, you may want to check out one of Newegg’s latest “Special Buys.”

Right now, they are offering the Kingston DataTravelor 100 4GB flash drive for just $7.99 complete with free shipping.

I’ve compare shopped the item at some other sites. Overstock is actually asking $21.99 for the same item. (Which is just ridiculous, even Newegg doesn’t list that as the regular price). . . .

I’m too sexy for my phone, too sexy for my phone… Well, that just may be what users of the new un-sexy Samsung Rugby may be singing. But, too sexy for their phone or not, their phone will probably have no problem being able to hold up their end of the relationship.

The recently released Rugby, with its clamshell handset, is the first military-spec phone from AT&T. It complies with Military Standard MI-SID-810F (dust, shock vibration, rain, humidity and solar radiation proof, as well as the ability to hold its own at altitude and temperature extremes). It comes equipped with Push-to-talk, an Integrated aGPS, Quad-band UMTS and HSDPA, Bluetooth connectivity, One-way Video Share calling, a 2″ display, 1.3 megapixel camera, and 128MB internal memory.

Feedback I’ve found out there by actual users of the phone has been pretty positive so far.

As usual, when it comes to getting new computing machines, our friends from Japan are again ahead of all of us. Our Japanese buddies will have the chance to be the first one to get hold, feel and test the spanking new and ruggedly handsome NEC tablet PC, which is appropriately branded as the ShieldPro FC-N22A. From its name alone, you can immediately deduce that this machine was built for the purpose of sustaining the most severe environmental conditions. True enough, the ShieldPro tablet PC can withstand temperature range of -4 F to 122 F, can sustain falling up to about 35-inches without breaking apart, is dust proof and complies to IP55 requirement for being water proof.