A smartphone you can scrub clean in soapy water.
Your smartphone goes everywhere you do, but cleaning it is usually an afterthought beyond removing the smudges from the display. That’s in part due to many handsets not being waterproof coupled with a lack of knowledge around which products are safe to use for cleaning.
Kyocera decided to make things easier back in 2015 for Japanese consumers with the launch of the Digno Rafre smartphone. One of its key new features was the ability to clean the waterproof phone with hand soap. Now Kyocera is launching a second-generation version of that handset called the Rafre KYV40.
As you can see in the video above, Kyocera is really pushing this phone for clean freaks. Whenever the Rafre looks a little dirty, you can dunk it in water and scrub it with hand soap to remove all the grime. I suspect once you’ve got used to doing this it will be difficult to stop. A fresh smelling, clean phone is always going to be preferable.
The new Rafre will be offered in Pale Pink, Clear White, and Light Blue colors, and at launch in March will be limited to Japan (just like the first phone) and the KDDI network. The handset ships with a 5-inch display, Android 7.0 Nougat, a 13-megapixel camera, and 3,000mAh battery. The price has been left as open for now.
With Apple setting the trend of removing legacy ports, it seems likely more and more waterproof smartphones will start shipping. Maybe then the ability to wash them in soapy water will stop being an advertised new feature and just become a standard thing you can do to clean your handset regularly.