Cat B15Q is the first truly rugged Android KitKat smartphone to be available globally

Cat today announced a successor to its ultra-rugged B15 Android smartphone that was introduced in 2013. The new handset is called Cat B15Q, and is presented as “the first rugged smartphone available globally to support KitKat.” That’s right, the B15Q runs Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box, while also bringing other improvements over its predecessor.

The new Cat B15Q is powered by a quad-core 1.3GHz MediaTek processor, weighs 170 grams, measures 125 x 69.5 x 14.95 mm, and sports a 4-inch WVGA Gorilla Glass 2 display with wet finger tracking. On the back, the handset has a 5MP camera with LED flash. Other features include HSDPA, aGPS, Bluetooth 4.0, a VGA front-facing camera, “Waves audio,” dual noise-cancelling microphone, 1GB of RAM, 4GB of expandable internal memory, and a 2,000 mAh battery (for up to 16 hours of talk time).

The B15Q is dust-proof, water-proof, and shock-proof (IP67, MIL SPEC 810G). It can be dropped from up to 1.8m without suffering any damage, and it can operate at temperatures ranging from -13°F (-25°C) to 131°F (55 °C). Cat didn’t say how much the B15Q would cost. But we’ll find out more about the handset “this summer”, when it’s going to be launched globally. So, any takers?


sources: Cat, MarketWatch