Kyocera Brigadier Coming 7/31/2014 To Verizon

The Kyocera Brigadier is a new ultra rugged smartphone and will be available for sale at Verizon's online store starting July 31st and in stores a few days after that. Upgrade price will be $50.

Photo via @evleaks

I was on the phone with Verizon's customer support trying to find a new phone to upgrade to when the friendly voice on the other end mentioned a new phone coming from Kyocera that might fit in great with my active lifestyle. The Kyocera Brigadier.

Update: I decided to purchase the Brigadier, please see my Kyocera Brigadier Review for more details.

Little is known about the upcoming phone, even Verizon couldn't offer up much info. A few things I've been able to gather from my call and other sources are as follows.

The Kyocera Brigadier will the the first smartphone to feature a sapphire glass front. This is a very tough type of glass that can withstand high impact. It's used for the crystal on high end wristwatches.

It is dust proof and waterproof. Not just water resistant! You can submerge the phone in 3' of water for up to 30 minutes (6' according to one source) with no harm to the phone. You can even use the phone underwater without having to worry about putting it in a water tight case.

It's built to military specs, specifically IP68 and US MIL-STD-810 which is concerned with " low pressure for altitude testing; exposure to high and low temperatures plus temperature shock (both operating and in storage); rain (including wind blown and freezing rain); humidity, fungus, salt fog for rust testing; sand and dust exposure; explosive atmosphere; leakage; acceleration; shock and transport shock; gunfire vibration; and random vibration."

I use my phone more to track my exercises than I do as a regular phone. It takes quite a beating and I have to leave it home for certain activities. The Brigadier likes like it can handle very extreme conditions from Riding or running on dusty trails to whitewater rafting and kayaking.

Other Kyocera Brigadier specs I could find, it uses a 1.4 Ghz quad-core SoC, 2GB Ram, 16GB internal storage that can be expanded via the microSD slot, an 8 megapixel camera plus a 2MP front facing camera, 3000 mAh non-removable battery, 4.5" display with 720x1280 resolution, 4G LTE capable and it will run Android KitKat OS. Not all of these are confirmed.