OT FortisX Rugged Dual SIM smart phone

I am looking at getting the FortisX smart phone and am wondering if anyone here is using this and can offer the results.

Wholesale Waterproof Phone - Shockproof 3G Android Phone From China

They sell on ebay for +/-300$ so I want to be sure its a good unit before I lay down the cash.

There are many rugged phones out there but I need the Dual ( Active ) SIM. GPS and Bluetooth are nice also. I do not have any experience with Android but I hear that's an ok OS for the phone.

Any rants and raves would be great. Or if you know of another rugged phone let me know.

Cheerz

 

I don't know about that exact phone but I can tell you about the Android OS and my experience with other China phones like the iphone knock off I got from Dubai. The Android OS is good one. It has been my main phone OS since they came out with version 2.1. I have had three 10" tablets (china made from Dubai) and one 7" tablet (china) they had android 2.2 or 2.3 on them. Been a while since I got a new one. If you want to play with the basic OS you have two options. You can get the whole development kit for free, and run it in a virtual machine on your computer. Or you can go over to Android X86 project where they have several versions ported over to ISO file and load it as your main OS on a old computer to try out. There are still a few improvements I think that need to be made but it works well. One thing that may be a turn off is on certain security WI-FI routers you can't connect. I have had two good name tablets on the rig and after a week of trying they still couldn't connect, I didn't have a problem connecting to the same style network on my other rig with the china tablet, and the exact same brand of other tablet (toshiba thribe). But it took about a week on the thribe and one day it just connected by it's self.

On the China made phones and tablets I have a knock off iphone. It works, but there battery cells are cheap and don't last very long. Even on the tablets about a hour to a hour and half was it for them. I can get most of the day with the phone but heavy use I needed to swap to the spare battery it came with. It has dual sims and connecting to networks worked well. It didn't seem to pick up as good as my regular AT&t phones (samsung jack/HTC inspire) but picked up in the same area they would and the china phone come fully unlocked. My son has that phone now as his daily phone, he has taught himself java and likes making his own programs and games. He likes the phone because it is a Java phone and can make his own stuff or it. They had a 2.1 android version out but I couldn't find it at the time in the market.

 

Thanks for the info ADOR. I really would rather not get the china phone
but I can't find another rugged dual sim phone like the fortisx. The
sonim's are dual sim but not active dual. I really need the 2 SIM cards
in one phone and would like it to rugged also.

 

Would it be cheaper to get one of the non-rugged sim phones and just get a rugged case for it? We tried my phone in a otter box for a Iphone and you could fit it in there, but the real iphone 4 was just a hair thinner. Rest of the size was spot on. Guessing the phone I have is active dual sims too as you can receive from both sims at the same time and when you text and call you have a split button and decide what sim you want to use. It was very useful traveling overseas.

 

dual sim card adapter | eBay

It seems they make a dual sim card adapter for different phones, that could work. They are under several different brand names and for different models. Then add something like this.

Amazon.com: Magellan Portable GPS Navigation and Battery ToughCase for iPhone 3G/3GS and iPod Touch: Cell Phones & Accessories

(that case will only work with iphone 3/ipod touch3, 4 won't work, water proof, extra battery built in and dedicated GPS installed) If it would work on a ipod touch 4 I would of got one already.

 

You may be onto something with that otter-case ador. I will do some more research into that. Thanks so far for the info.

Btw I was using my P1 as phone for like 3 weeks but carry that big thing
around got old fast. Got alot of looks but doesn't fit the pocket that well.

 

I have never dropped a sims card into my P1 to try it out to see if it would make a call. The hitch I bought it out to the rig to work on it one of the guys asked me if was going to call in a tactical strike.

 

lol... that's what those people where staring at me for, now I know what they
were thinking.

 

Verizon has a similar product from Casio... My bosses sister has one too and she loves it. 2 problems: Not android 4.0 and not 4G LTE : Set Your Location

 

Those FortisX are sold rebranded under different names here and there, for example as the Utano Barrier t180 or the JCB Toughphone Pro-Smart. The Caterpillar CAT B10 is also probably based on this.

I have been interested in this device as well, and I am afraid I have read some mixed to negative opinions on the phone - unfortunately in a German forum, so quoting that will probably not help much. Points of criticism ranged from minor quality problems like paint peeling off easily to more serious things (batteries breaking down fast and losing contact during shocks, causing the phone to reboot).

Also, one thing to keep in mind from the product specifications is this: Dual SIM: 3G and GSM
This actually means that one slot is 3G, and the other is only GSM, not 3G. So if you are planning to use two 3G cards, then this is not for you.