Kyocera Hydro (Boost Mobile)

By Alex Colon

Have you ever wanted to take your smartphone?in the shower? Now's your chance. The aptly named Kyocera Hydro , Boost Mobile's latest Android handset, is waterproof in up to three feet of water. It also boasts some pretty good call quality and a nearly stock version of Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). It's a good choice for the splash-prone, but a poor camera, low-resolution display, and spotty performance make this phone just average for everyone else.

Design, Waterproofing, and Call Quality
The Kyocera Hydro measures 4.5 by 2.4 by .5 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.2 ounces. It's a light, generic looking slab made entirely of textured, shiny black plastic. There's a locking mechanism on the back panel, as well as a built-in cover for the power port on top of the phone. These are in place to aid in keeping the phone safe from water, though the 3.5mm headphone jack is waterproof and does not require a cover.

The display is a 3.5-inch, 480-by-320-pixel IPS LCD, which looks bright enough when set to max brightness, but that low resolution makes most text and some images look jagged. There are four capacitive touch buttons beneath the screen and typing on the Hydro's on-screen QWERTY keyboard felt fine during my tests.

Kyocera rates the Hydro at IPX5 waterproofing for sprayed water (like rain, spills, or sprinklers) and IPX7 waterproofing for immersion in up to three feet of water for up to 30 minutes. The battery cover and charging port must be properly sealed, and the Hydro isn't designed for water warmer than 104? F. I placed it in a vase of water and, yes, took it into the shower, and the phone worked just fine. It's neat to surf the Web while you shampoo your hair, but I prefer to use my phone on dry land.

Unfortunately, the phone's warranty doesn't cover liquids other than fresh water, so if you drop the phone in chlorinated or salt water and it breaks, you're out of luck. Also, keep in mind that the Hydro is waterproof, but it isn't rugged, so you'll need to handle it just as carefully as you would any other smartphone.

The Hydro is a tri-band (850/1700/1900) CDMA phone that runs on Sprint's 3G network. There's also 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi. Reception is average and call quality is good. Voices sound rich and full in the earpiece, but just a little fuzzy. Calls made with the phone sound clear and have decent noise cancellation. The speakerphone sounds somewhat shrill and isn't loud enough to use outdoors. Calls sound fine over a?Jawbone Era?headset and voice dialing worked over Bluetooth without issue. Battery life is acceptable, at 5 hours and 37 minutes of talk time.

Data Plans and Data Speeds
The best reason to get a phone on Boost is to tap into the carrier's inexpensive pricing plans. Android plans start at $55 for unlimited data, talk time, and texts per month. That amount is reduced by $5 every 6 months you pay your bill on time, until you reach $40. If you don't need as much talk time, you can get a similar plan from Virgin Mobile, but with 300 voice minutes, for just $35 per month. But for either carrier, there is a downside for heavy data users: After 2.5GB of full-speed data usage per month, your speeds will be throttled significantly until the end of your billing cycle.

As we discovered in our?Fastest Mobile Networks?report, Sprint has the slowest 3G speeds of all the carriers we tested. That means that all 3G-only Sprint, Boost, and Virgin phones are running at some pretty challenged speeds, including the Hydro. 4G WiMAX support offers a major boost to the HTC EVO Design 4G?(Boost's only 4G phone at the moment) if you live in the coverage area, so make sure to take that into account when making your decision.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/TH03T9n_KxA/0,2817,2408559,00.asp

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