Kyocera DuraCore (Sprint)

The Kyocera DuraCore ($49.99) is a rugged flip-style?cell phone, and one of the first to hook into Sprint's next-generation?Direct Connect?service. It's practically the same phone as the push-to-talk Kyocera DuraMax?($69.99, 3.5 stars) minus the camera. It's got a rugged build, good voice quality, and a solid keypad. But both phones' UI is woefully outdated, and their features are extremely limited. They're fine for voice-only, push-to-talk communication, but that's about it.

Design, Call Quality, and Direct Connect
Like the DuraMax, the DuraCore feels like a tough phone, with a grippy, scratch-resistant, rubberized casing. It's a bit smaller than the DuraMax, at 3.9 by 2.0 by 0.9 inches (HWD) and 4.4 ounces; though it's still pretty bulky, this is the easier phone to slip into your pocket.

The DuraCore also meets military specification 810G, so it's resistant to dust, extreme temperatures, low pressure, rain, salt fog, shock, and vibration, among other rough conditions. Unlike the DuraMax, however, it cannot be submerged in water, so keep that in mind if you work in a wet environment.

There's a 1-inch, monochrome 96-by-64-pixel external display that shows the battery life, date, reception, and time. The internal 320-by-240-pixel LCD looks surprisingly sharp. The default font size is a bit small, but you can make it larger. The phone's keypad is great; it features large, raised keys with plenty of space in between, which should make it possible to dial while wearing gloves.

The DuraCore is a dual-band EV-DO Rev. A (850/1900 MHz) device with no Wi-Fi.?Reception is average and voice quality is good overall. Earpiece volume gets plenty loud and voices sound clear, if a bit thin. Calls made with the phone also sound very natural, with excellent noise cancellation. One complaint: When flipped open, the phone feels a little too flat and long to talk on comfortably. Even though transmissions sound excellent, I never felt like I was talking directly into the mouthpiece. The speakerphone is plenty loud, if not quite ear-splitting. You shouldn't have trouble hearing it outside, unless you're surrounded by heavy construction.

Calls also sounded good through a Jawbone Era?Bluetooth headset ($129, 4.5 stars) and the Nuance-powered voice dialing worked well. Battery life was good at 6 hours and 53 minutes of talk time.

Sprint's new CDMA push-to-talk system combines the fast Internet speeds and nationwide coverage of Sprint's CDMA network with the instantaneous push-to-talk of the old Nextel iDEN network. You need to be in a Sprint coverage area in order to use the DuraCore, but you can still make push-to-talk calls to Nextel iDEN subscribers.?The new network supports Call Alert With Text, which sends an audio alert and text message to another subscriber, along with Group Connect, which can connect 20 subscribers together at once. You can also use the Direct Connect button to mass-message up to 200 Direct Connect subscribers in one shot, or to send recorded messages to email addresses or handsets via text message.?

For this review, I tested Direct Connect using one DuraCore and one DuraMax. It took a second or so to initiate the connection, after which transmissions were essentially instantaneous. Voice quality is solid, and like the speakerphone, you should be able to hear the DuraCore in all but the noisiest environments.

Apps, Multimedia, and Conclusions
Standard calling duties aside, the DuraCore is a pretty bare bones feature phone. The main menu features the same grid with 12 icons that Sprint has used on many flip phones in the past. It's dated, and requires at least nine button presses to perform an easy task like pairing a Bluetooth headset.

There's an Access NetFront 4.1 browser for reading WAP pages; desktop HTML is out. The DuraCore also supports TeleNav GPS Navigator for voice-enabled, turn-by-turn directions, as well as Sprint Family Locator.

A nonstandard 2.5mm headphone jack on the right side of the phone supports voice headsets. There's no music or video player, and there's no camera, so the scant 64MB of free internal memory and lack of microSD card slot aren't big issues.

If you're ready to leave Nextel's slow iDEN network behind, the Kyocera DuraCore is a good choice for users that need a push-to-talk device just for making calls. For an additional $20, the Kyocera DuraMax adds a decent camera, a microSD card slot, and the ability to withstand some time in water. But if you're looking to do more with your device, the Motorola Admiral?($99.99, 4 stars) is a ruggedized Android smartphone with plenty of excellent multimedia features, as well as access to more than 400,000 apps in the Android Market. And if all you're looking for is ultra loud push-to-talk and are willing to rough it out on iDEN, take a look at the?Motorola Brute i686?($139.99, 3.5 stars).

Benchmarks
Continuous talk time:?6 hours 53 minutes

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