Mihir Patkar

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Posted on 03-07-2009

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If you go for hikes and treks often, or are just so darn clumsy with your phone that you affectionately call it your “battle-worn warrior”, then Samsung’s new rugged phone is right up your alley. In fact, we would love it if one of our readers actually uses the phone and tells us whether it lives up to its claims.

For starters, on your hike, just drop the Marine B2100 in water of up to a metre in depth, and leave it there for 30 minutes. Samsung says nothing will go wrong!

The handset is enveloped in a special anti-shock urethane material, which is dust-proof and can withstand rain, fog, humidity, sand and extremely hot temperatures. Not that it means anything more than a statistic, but the Marine is apparently IP57 certified and is tested under the regulations defined by the US Department of Defence with Military Standard 810F.

It’s not just the macho image that makes this phone perfect for trekkers. The built-in flashlight (with dedicated key) is going to come as a welcome relief for those inevitable moments where your batteries run out.

The phone’s battery itself seems quite capable of standing its own ground, clocking in nine hours of continuous talk-time and up to 600 hours of standby time.

The 1.77-inch screen (256K colours, 120x160 pixels) gets the job done, while the 8GB of expandable microSD memory is simply overkill. And really, the 1.3-megapixel camera with flash seems like a token gift. Ooh, VGA video recording at 15 frames per second! The lords be praised! Bah…

Thankfully, Samsung was smart enough to realise the price its target segment would pay for a phone like this; and Rs 7030 seems just right!