Taking on the NEC Terrain
Earlier this summer, NEC announced that it has shut down its smartphone division. While it won't develop or manufacture any new handsets, the company will still provide support for its existing devices. One such device is the NEC Terrain, a rugged handset with a QWERTY keyboard.
Durable (but small) screen
In addition to being topped with Corning Gorilla Glass 2.0, the 3.1-inch touch screen has a 640x480-pixel resolution and 260ppi. It runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and includes the usual run of Google apps, such as Chrome, Gmail, Plus, among others.
A handset heavyweight
Like most rugged devices, the NEC Terrain is bulky, and has a thick (0.57-inch) profile. Though I expect handsets like these to be hefty, this phone's tips the scales at 6.08 ounces due to its physical keyboard.
Compact but comfortable
The keyboard contains four rows of keys. Though the keys are small and packed tightly together, I was surprised how accurate I managed to be while typing. The buttons are bulbous and easy to press.
Time for a serious dunking
The device reportedly can survive up to 30 minutes underwater at a depth of a meter. During my durability testing, it survived 20 minutes inside a shower and half an hour completely underwater in a shallow bowl (during which it registered an incoming call).
Closing all ports
On the left are buttons to activate the speaker and push-to-talk function, and a volume rocker. Up top is a 3.5mm headphone port, and the right edge houses a Micro-USB port and a sleep/power button. Both openings can be sealed with small coverings that lie flush with the surface of the device.
Photo options with the camera
Both the 5-megapixel camera (seen here) and the 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera have an exposure meter, five white-balance options, geotagging capability, three color effects, two quality settings, and a timer. However, the rear-facing camera can shoot up to five sizes (from 640x480 to 2,560x1,920-pixel resolution).
Respectable specs on the inside
Powering the Terrain is a 1.5GHz dual-core processor from Qualcomm and a 1,900mAh battery that has a reported talk time of up to 10 hours and a standby time of 14.5 days.