Cat B35
2.40", 2 Mpx, 4G
Product ratings
Pros
Cons
41 reviews
Advertising ICONS on home screen. DO NOT BUY.
COMPLAINT: I purchased a CAT B35 on 10/22/2018. Until yesterday, the device was a recommended purchase. Now yesterday the producer installed the new firmware. In the process, KaiOS illegally programmed ads (selfies, google ads and youtube ads) on the main screen. The device also can not be reset. You pay money for this phone and have to put up with unsolicited ads on the home screen since 2019-05-20. DO NOT BUY!
Pro
- It was once a good device
Contra
- Advertising on home display
Don't buy it Cat has shot a beautiful buck!
do not buy. !
since the last software update, the device constantly hangs up. ! You have an important phone call with a customer, and suddenly after a few minutes the phone restarts by itself. The customer is of course annoyed and thinks what... After the restart, you have to enter the pin again. if you're lucky, it works again, but after a new call after about 4-5 minutes, it starts all over again.Pro
- Splashproof and dustproof
- Camera with 2 MP takes good usable photos
Contra
- Software
- Menu guidance many options you have to search for
No hard reset option, unstable OS: Not recommended as a reliable companion.
Those looking for a reliable outdoor phone will have to look further. Even though I really like the concept of the Cat B35:
The phone does not have a hard reset option. Operating system hung up completely when the battery was almost full. Only after the battery was dead was I able to restart the phone - 1 week later. I had to get an emergency phone to replace my emergency phone in the meantime.
As a reliable replacement for a smartphone thus unfortunately not to use. Also constantly loses network connection in dual-SIM mode - had to restart the phone practically before every call.Pro
- Good battery life
- Good flashlight
- Some smartphone functions for the "emergency"...
Contra
- ...but not reliable enough for emergencies
- No hard reset
- Unstable OS
- Mobile and data connection constantly interrupts in dual-SIM mode
As much as I like it. It is not to be recommended at all.
I live this phone and I will try to keep it. It is WAY better than the Nokia 8110 "Matrix" and the Ruggear RG170.
Most of the down votes and problems reported by other users in this page are due to unrealistic expectations and wrong assumptions. If you think you can have these kind of "work" phones and use them as any other smart phone you're wrong. You don't use a Android Go or Kai os phone with a button keyboard as a smart phone. You just don't. If you want a cheap smart phone get a cheap smartphone not an outdoor/"work" phone.
As said in my first line, this is my third outdoor phone and this one is the best you can get as of writing. BUT:
This phone has some 2 major defaults that would make it straight up bad for most people.
1) The Sim ALWAYS loses contact when to phone is dropped, even from 40cm high, calls are lost and the phone requires a restart. This is unacceptable.
To successfully fix this, I used a thin strip of tape in the back of the tray to make it ever so slightly thicker. I also used a tiny amount of kneadable eraser (1-1.5 mm diameter ball) to make the SIM adhere or grip to the tray. Definitive and cheap fix. But still absolutely unacceptable.
2) Phone randomly restarts during calls. This happened to me 6 times in the few weeks I own this phone. And I do not make long calls very often. AS of now I do not have fixed this issued that is well-known and widespread but STILL UNADDRESSED BY CAT. Unbelievable.
Despite these major issues I still have better value out of this phone compared to the two previously mentioned models.
Nokia 8110: Tiny screen, Extremely poor battery life especially on host-spot mode, extremely bad keyboard, fragile,.
Ruggear RG170: Huge and unpractical, Andoid Go version is so stripped down that you can't even have maps or receive emails or use whatsapp... Just get any cheap Dumbphone and you will have a better value.
I really hope cat will solve the phone call issue.Pro
- Battery life, even in hotspot mode
- Size and feel
- Recessed screen and waterproof
- Best physical keyboard I have had
- All the necessary apps are present and working
Contra
- Randomly restarts during calls (this is extremely bad)
- Without modification, the Sim drops out of place when dropped and requires a restart
- No option to lock the keyboard during calls
- No a big deal but... Th truck noise when turning on/off is ridiculous.
A brick with long battery life and useless camera
Pro
- Long battery life (emergency phone for hiking, lasts up to 10 days without use).
- Apparently robust, but I did not test it
Contra
- clunky and big, almost unhandy for a non-smartphone
- KaiOS (partly WLAN automatically switched on)
- Not very intuitive to use
- Camera unusable (worse than in former phones from 2007)
To recommend
Extremely robust button phone with hotspot function. Edit: Unfortunately defective after a few months. Still the only oldschool phone with the desired features that I found.
Pro
- rugged
- 4G hotspot
6 out of 41 reviews
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