CAT S60 | A thermal camera phone!

There has been a new level in 'weirdly awesome smartphone add-on feature' category. It's a thermal camera!

The phone is called the S60, by a company called CAT. The phone is super rugged and also has a thermal camera on the rear, along side a regular camera.

The body of the phone is water and shock resistant. It also has a textured robbery trip to it, and feels secure in the hand thanks to that small form factor.

There's a 4.7 inch 720p IPS LCD up front, at 312 ppi. The display gets super bright,  540 nits at peak brightness.

There's also a 13 mp rear camera with dual LED flash. For selfies, you get a 5 mp snapper.

Other specs include:

• A Snapdragon 617 CPU clocked at 1.5 GHz
• Adreno 405 for graphics
• 3 GB DDR3 RAM
• 32 GB of expandable storage
• A massive 3800 mAh battery

Apart from the expansion slot, the phone takes 2 nano SIM cards. LTE cat-4 is supported.

My little disappointment begins at the microUSB port. Why isn't it type C? We're in 2017, c'mon CAT!

On the side, it was nice to find an SOS button. Since this phone is more targeted​ to an outdoorsy consumer, this quick feature may come in handy.

Let's get to that thermal camera! The unit is developed by FLIR systems. These guys are one of the best at what they do, make thermal imaging sensors for portable gadgets. They call themselves as the "world's sixth sense"!

The camera system is actually pretty well though out here. The phone uses both the video​ camera and the thermal sensor, to produce a bit more polished and presentable output.

Pretty good thermal feed (Seems to be a cold beer!)

It's a much better looking thermal shot than the raw thermal footage, because the data is filled only in the required areas. So shapes and sizes of the objects aren't messed up in the resulting footage. Well played, CAT and FLIR.

Thermal cameras don't work through glass, so they've used a silicon polymer for the lens. Everything is very well thought out here, to put some cool stuff in an amazingly rugged body.

The CAT S60 will retail for about $600 or 65,000 INR. It's a chunky sum of money for a chunky phone, but it could be totally worth it! If you're some outdoor freak who wants a phone that can see how 'hot' you are!

Just like this, I've got more smartphones and tech coming down the pipeline. Just stay tuned to dope tech fever. I would subscribe to the newsletter and email alerts if I were you! (please do it, Mate!)

Cheers!