In the nearly five years since Caterpillar entered the smartphone market with its first Android rugged phone, the B15, the company’s phones have entered a state of refinement. No device to date better illustrates that than the new Cat S41.
Cat announced this phone back in September and sent the device along to me for review a few weeks back. It manages to be at once the company’s most unexciting and all-around best phone to date. Here’s why.
Since 2014 Cat has worked with UK design firm Bullitt Group to design each of its smartphones. Not only has Bullitt has done a nice job of capitalizing on and working in the iconic Cat logo into these designs, but they’ve also succeeded in designing devices that earn the right to wear that logo and all the assumptions of quality and ruggedness that come along with it.
In the past, each of Cat’s major phone releases have featured an aluminum band around the display. The exposed metal not only added a nice, premium look to the phones, but it served as a tip of the hat to steel, equipment and construction. The amount of aluminum was reduced a bit on the S40, but on the new S41 it has been foregone altogether in favor of an all-black plastic casing. This doesn’t make the phone any less rugged—the S41 still carries IP68 and Military Standard 810G ratings—but it does detract a bit from the phone’s look and feel.
