Verizon Wireless today beefed up its line of rugged phones by announcing the cool looking Casio G’zOne Rock. Normally, a rugged phone is super ugly (you could try to view the line-up of Sprint Nextel’s rugged phones and see how ugly there are), but this Casio G’zOne Rock looks quite hot. Designed to resist water, shock, and dust, the Casio G’zOne Rock is perfect for people who love outdoor activities. The phone has advanced G’zGear software that operates in six modes, including Earth Compass, Walking Counter, Thermometer, Astro Calendar, Sunrise Sunset and Tides, with the help of its Triple Sensor technology. Whether your lifestyle has the demands of an avid fisher, hunter, hiker or climber, the Rock is prepared to handle life’s most challenging obstacles while providing directional information.

The G’zOne Rock supports Verizon Wireless’s Push to Talk technology, and 3G connectivity. The selling price is $199.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement.

Casio G’zOne Rock Features and Specifications

Key features:

• Tough Technology design that can withstand water, shock, dust, vibration, humidity, salt fog, solar radiation, altitude, and high and low temperature storage (conforms to MIL-STD-810F)
• 2.0 megapixel camera with still flash, video capture and LED light
• Stereo Bluetooth®
• Touch-sensitive music controls on the sub-display
• One-touch open button
• Clear Talk
• Push to Talk capabilities that leverage Verizon Wireless’ Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) Revision A (Rev. A) network for fast two-way communication

Lifestyle features:

• G’zGear (six outdoor applications)
  • Earth Compass – functions as a standard compass; GPS shows the distance from and directions to over 40 domestic and worldwide locations
  • Walking Counter – measures steps, time, distance, speed and energy consumption Thermometer – shows current temperature in both Celsius and Fahrenheit
  • Astro Calendar – provides the moon’s age and days until a full or new moon
  • Sunrise Sunset – shows the current time and position of the sun and times for sunrise and sunset for current, past and future dates; allows you to view times for select major cities; shows the ratio of day and night in numbers and graphs
  • Tides – shows the tidal graph for the day; shows the time of ebb and flood tides; shows the time of sunrise and sunset; shows past and future sea tide levels; shows tidal graphs for 100 locations made available by Surfline’s webcams, and GPS will show the nearest location; shows the current tide and the best time for fishing
• Supports Verizon Wireless services, including V CAST Music with Rhapsody, V CAST Video and VZ Navigator(SM)
• microSD™ storage up to 16 GB for high-quality photos, music and more
• Speakerphone with front-facing stereo speaker
• Field Force Manager-capable – a resource management tool that provides businesses with the ability to locate and communicate with their mobile field workers

Casio today announced the clumsy-looking IT-800 RGC-35, a rugged phone with a big 3.7-inch LCD screen. Believe it or not, this super stupid looking phone is powered by Windows Mobile operating system (possibly Windows 6.5 mobile). As you can see from the picture, the phone doesn’t have QWERTY keyboard. The only piece of information we know is the Casio IT-800 RGC-35 is designed to resist water, dust and shock, which is what a rugged phone is designed for anyhow.

Verizon Wireless, US’s largest cell phone carrier by subscribers, launched two new phones today. They are Motorola Rival and CASIO EXILIM. The Motorola Rival looks very alike to LG enV, you could say that Motorola Rival is a clone of LG enV. The Rival phone features a full QWERTY keyboard that slide out from the side, and it is designed for quick and easy messaging just like what LG enV is designed for. The Rival has a 2.0-MP digital camera, 3.5″ headset, microSD memory slot, VCAST support, and GPS support.

The Motorola Rival is available beginning June 10, 2009, online at www.verizonwireless.com and in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores for $99.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement.

CASIO EXILIM

The CASIO EXILIM, on the other hand, is a cool looking flip-style rugged phone, which is designed to meet military specifications 810F standards for: water (immersion and rain), humidity, salt-fog, shock, vibration, dust, solar radiation, altitude, and low and high temperature storage. Its 180-degree rotating display and beautiful design make the EXILIM by far the sleekest looking rugged phone that you could find. Features and specifications wise, the EXILIM phone has an impressive array of features. It has a 5.1-megapixel digital camera with image stabilizer, GPS navigation support, VCAST support, MP3 Music player, microSD memory expansion slot that supports up to 8 GB.

The Casio EXILIM is available for $279.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer.

Verizon Wireless launch Casio G’zOne Boulder phone, a mid-spec, rugged phone in United States. This Casio phone withstands shock, water and dust environments. It looks like Verizon Wireless is going to stay away from Motorola’s rugged design phones, which consumers find at Nextel, before Nextel was bought over by Sprint.

The G’zOne Boulder is available for $129.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and a new two-year customer agreement. Corporate discount pricing is available. In addition, customers may choose to purchase the G’zOne Boulder without a camera in silver and black, available today through business sales channels and through the company’s online store.

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. – The company with the nation’s most reliable wireless network today introduced the G’zOne Boulder™ – the newest Push to Talk phone that is exclusively available through Verizon Wireless. This rough and tough phone is built to military specifications to withstand shock, water and dust environments. The G’zOne Boulder provides customers with access to Verizon Wireless’ Push to Talk service that uses the company’s Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) Revision A (Rev. A) network to ensure customers can get their jobs done quickly and efficiently. Packaged in two smart-looking finishes – black and silver or orange – the G’zOne Boulder is now available online at www.verizonwireless.com and through business sales channels. The phone will be available in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores in mid-August.
Leveraging EV-DO Rev. A technology, Push to Talk from Verizon Wireless provides customers with fast two-way communication – all with the assurance of a reliable network so customers can instantly connect to colleagues and friends. Additionally, the G’zOne Boulder supports a number of productivity tools and entertainment services from Verizon Wireless including VZ NavigatorSM, Field Force Manager, V CAST Music with Rhapsody and V CAST Video.
The G’zOne Boulder comes with the following features and capabilities:
* Rugged design that meets military specifications – 810F standards for water, shock and dust resistance; immersion; vibration, salt fog; humidity; solar radiation; altitude; and low and high temperature storage
* Flashlight
* Electronic compass
* VZ Navigator-capable – audible maps, turn-by-turn directions and location information to more than 14 million points of interest that customers can share with others
* Field Force Manager-capable – a resource management tool that provides businesses with the ability to locate, monitor and communicate with their mobile field workers
* 1.3 megapixel camera to conveniently capture an afternoon hike or a night on the town
* V CAST Music with Rhapsody-capable – download music directly to the phone from a library of more than 5 million songs and get the master copy of the song on a PC free of digital rights management software that restricts how and where music can be played. Customers can also sync favorite tracks, albums and playlists from a PC.
* Music player for .mp3, .wma, unprotected .aac and unprotected .aac+ formats
* Create and manage playlists and sync music from a PC to the G’zOne Boulder
* Carry music on an optional microSD™ card up to 8 GB (microSD card sold separately)
* Supports the following Bluetooth® profiles – headset, hands-free (car kits), dial-up networking, advanced audio distribution profile (stereo), audio/visual remote control profile, object push profile for vCard, object exchange profiles for phonebook access profiles, generic audio/video distribution profile, audio/visual distribution protocol, and audio/visual control transport protocol
* Advanced speech recognition with dedicated voice dial key
* Alarm clock, calculator, calendar, stop watch, countdown, timer, world clock, electronic compass
* Voice commands
* Speakerphone with dedicated speakerphone key
* Bilingual interface – English and Spanish language
* Phonebook with up to 500 entries with multiple contacts
* TTY compatible
* Hearing aid compatibility = M4/T4
* Display:
o Main: 2.0” 240 x 320 TFT display with up to 65K colors
o External: 1.2” 96 x 96 Mono STN display
* Dimensions: 3.9” x 2.0” x 0.9”
* Weight: 4.9 ounces
* SAR:
o Head: 1.04 W/kg
o Body: 0.489 W/kg
* Usage time: up to 214 minutes or
* Standby time: up to 63 hours

Casio is proud to announce the creation of their newest innovation, a waterproof cellular phone. What a wonderful idea for all of us who have been caught in the rain or missed a call because we could not answer, afraid our cell phone would suffer the irreparable consequences of water damage.

The Casio W61CA supports au Smart Sports’ “Run & Walk,” which allows your mobile phone to assist in your exercise routine. Run & Walk allows the user to take advantage of receiving advice from a trainer through their cellular phone. With a stylish and easy to hold onto design, the Casio W61CA can be preset with fitness targets unique to each user. What a wonderful innovation from Casio for the health minded handset user!

Cool Key Backlight Designs

And on top of that, do not forget that this little guy is waterproof!! So after your workout you can take this phone right into the shower room with you along with all your other gear rather then leaving it unattended somewhere out of sigh. Remember all those runs when you got caught in the rain? Now you will not have to worry about your cell phone! Water will not leak into the inside of the phone at all. The Casio W61CA can be submersed in room temperature water for up to 30 minutes of be blaster with water from any angle for more than three minutes and still retain normal function.

The Casio W61CA also comes standard with all the features we expect in such an outstanding handset including a 5.1 mega pixel camera with anti-shake features, and high quality 1Seg to make your images look their very best.