Kyocera DuraXV Extreme Review! 2020 Verizon 4G Flip Phone By gGadget

Or, something more simplistic, a great option if you're looking forward for business, also great, because there's a lot of special features that Kyocera has to offer for people issuing these phones for business and, if you're, just curious to see what a flip phone, like an actual you know, non smartphone, flip phone looks like in 2020, then keep watching. You might be surprised, and you might learn something and who knows you might actually want to use one so for this review, if I want it to be a little more organized I'll, probably so ramble, because that's just kind of how I am, but I've gone ahead and made some bullet points on talking points that I wanted to bring it up and the first being. Who is this phone for this phone? Is for anyone? Really, you kind of have to ask yourself that question, but for me, I really think that it could be either for someone looking to have phones for their employees. So you have a business, and you're looking for a device, that's really durable and reliable and has a couple of extra features, but isn't as full-blown as a smartphone. So this is definitely not a phone that is anywhere near a smartphone, but it's definitely bridging the gap between basic phones from years ago and then a smartphone. So it's kind of the middle ground, and I'll get into some really cool features that I discovered while using this, but I really wouldn't have expected to see on a phone like this.

You know it's kind of easier to talk about what this phone is than what it isn't, because if you started going down that road, it would probably be an hour-long video, because this isn't our smartphone. It's not really a phone that a lot of us are looking to do a ton on bunt. It does have a lot to offer, so I'm going to start out by talking about all the pros of the phone. There are some cons, but let's go ahead and break it down into some categories. So the first one I'm going to talk about is calls, so the most reliable part about this phone is the call quality, and it should be because to me, if you haven't Sic phone, it's you know it needs to do the core things right with calls.

These are my pros, so just to start out the call quality is excellent. I live in an area that the call quality and signal for Verizon isn't the best, and there are a lot of areas that I drop. Calls in, so I was pretty excited to see how this phone would do, because, like some of you may or may not know that Verizon now requires voice over LTE 4G on their phones in order for it to be activated. So you know a large majority of older phones, including some older smartphones, with 4G, can't even be activated on Verizon because they lack the voice-over LTE, and this one has it, and the one thing I was kind of concerned about is living in an area that has not the best reception of how this one would hold up, because a lot of the newer basic phone offerings rely on 4G and my 4G can be kind of low in this area. But it has really surprised me and, like I, said, I've been using an iPhone 10 for close to two years and out of the five signal bars that shows up.

My phone I typically only get two out of five, and while using this Kyocera dirt, XP extreme I always had at least one more bar of signal than I would have on my iPhone 10 and the call quality I just can't stress enough. How much I want to use this phone because of the cause they are so crystal cleaner and not to sound like a mother's boy, but I called my mom and have her do a test call with me, and she instantly said that it sounded like I was in the room with her and I agreed. I hadn't realized that this call quality on my iPhone 10, really wasn't that great and using this phone has really opened up that there's definitely better options out there for call quality and the flip-phone. Does it way better than my phone, so part of that being is this phone has a dual mic: noise cancellation? It also has an HD voice and as feature that really surprised me is it has Wi-Fi calling. It also has a really loudspeaker volume and the front-facing speakers.

I read off of the promotional sheet. It reaches a hundred decimals plus. So that's really, really loud, translating that into like actual use. That just means you're gonna, have really loud volume for your ringer, so you're going to be able to hear your phone really well when it rings, and also when you're doing speakerphone calls, it's going to be very, very loud, but I'll get into that later, and also to mention this phone has push-to-talk over Wi-Fi or cellular, and one thing to note is on the outside of this phone. If you want to accept a call you can, there are some buttons on top that, allowing you to go ahead and answer a phone call and there's also a lock button.

So you're not going to be accidentally answering phone calls accidentally when the phone is closed in your pocket. You just first hit the unlock button and then hit the other key next to it, and that answers the phone call, and it goes ahead and lets you answer that call on speakerphone, and then it also lets you place a call by holding down that same lock button to unlock it the call button, and then you can scroll through your recent calls to make a phone call. One other feature: that's pretty nice is when you are in your phone, opened up, and you're dialing, and you're, making a call if you're on speakerphone, and you close the phone it's going to resume that call in speakerphone very seamlessly. Okay, so I've talked about the pros of calling, and I do have one con to mention from my use. So when you are on a speakerphone call, this thing does get really loud.

So when you're on that speakerphone call, if you haven't turned up absolutely as high, it can go it, actually. The sound is so powerful that you can hear a slight distortion because of this flip closed, so it covers just the very like top half of the speaker. It doesn't interfere with you being able to hear, but on your, and you are kind of experiencing a little of a muffled sound because of that flip closure. So if you turn the speakerphone down just one notch, oh really, there's like ten nine to ten levels of loudness. If you turn it down just one level, it's still very, very loud, very legible, but you are just not going to experience like a muffled Less when it's closed.

So that's something to keep in mind. It's not a huge con in my opinion, because if you just turn it down one notch, it's not going to do that, but it is pretty cool to see that if you want it to be that super loud, this phone gets so loud that it's going to actually rattle the phone a little. But if you flip it open, you don't experience that, because the top closure of the phone isn't touching and covering part of the speaker. Okay, moving on to texting, so I'm going to go through my pros. First, it's good to be positive, but it's also good to bring up any concerns, because I want to do this review absolutely as well-rounded as possible.

So texting a pro for me is this foam. It has threaded messaging for texting. So that means it's going to be more of a chat style. Just a nice a little more organized way to see your text. If you do choose to text on this phone, which I'd imagine even on a flip phone, a lot of people are probably still going to be texting.

So that's a perfect thing to know is they are making it easier. It's not just a set and received folder that you get the sift through per person. Each person's text is organized by that person, and it shows on each part of the screen, who's sending, and then they're receiving okay. So this one surprised me I have not used an updated flip phone I have not used personally any of Verizon's new 4G flip phones that they've had but the past, maybe three years, but this one does offer emoji support, so it will send a select number of emojis and those are a huge list. But what's really cool is that it will receive and show all emojis from at least my iPhone and I went through, and I picked up some really like bizarre ones like a ping-pong paddle and a person doing gymnastics and a couple other ones that just you would think that maybe they wouldn't have included, but I went through and like picked up some of the most obscure ones, and they still showed up on this phone, which is really awesome because I remember on older, flip phones like a couple of years ago, when I would use them.

People would send you an emoji, and you would get like this little box with an X in it. You didn't know what it was, so you kind of just ignored it. But it's really nice that, even though you can't send every single emoji ever made, there's probably a good, maybe 25 that you can send, which are more of like the regular like most used one. So I would say, but it's pretty cool that no matter what emoji someone's sending you, you can see it in another CRO when you're texting, it's very fast. So on some flip phones, even flip phones back in the day, I remember depending on what phone you got, but when you would text the phone kid and keep up with you basically.

So when you would like scroll through with the d-pad on the phone, you would just kind of have to wait a little and even though it's just a little, that amount really adds up, especially when you're trying to speed through a text or whatever else you're doing. But this phone has no issues with that. So that's really nice to see and the texting layout is slightly different and some other flip phones I'm used in the past. But it's just my personal learning curve like hitting the down button instead of the right key when you're using word to text little stuff like that, has nothing to do with the performance. But it was a slight learning curve from the last flip phone I used, but that's more of a personal issue and the last kind of Pro wanted to mention is on the outside screen.

When you get the text, it's going to show a preview of your most recent text, so it is a tiny screen, but it will slide through, like the text will drag through, and it will show you the whole text of your most recent text without having to open it, so that could be kind of convenient if you're just pulling at your phone and looking for a quick response, you're able to read that text without opening up your phone or unlocking it. It's just going to show it right there on the front screen. Ok, so into the cons of texting, Owen doesn't have Verizon messaging. The only phone I have ever known that Verizon's offer that on for a flip phone was the LG and so LTE, which they no longer sell. That honestly was one of the few other, reliable good flip phones that Verizon has sold in modern day.

Aside from this one, this one definitely surpasses it in many areas, though I do refer back to that. One is kind of the standard, because that and previous to this was the only phone I would have ever recommended someone by if they're. Looking for a current flip phone, but you get back into Verizon messages, this phone does not support that, and basically the benefit of having Verizon messages would be I believed you could use Verizon messaging and access that on another device. So if you were logged into it, you can access that on your computer, and it did offer a little more of a modern feel when it came to texting, but with this one being able to support viewing all emojis and having threaded text I, really don't miss the Verizon messaging okay. So now that we've had the two major staples of what a flip phone can do, texting and calling I'm going to go ahead and talk about the pros of the design, but I've noticed I feel like I have to talk about the durability first, because the Kyocera Current XV extreme I mean the name kind of says it all its extreme.

So this phone is ip68 water and dust resistant, and you're, probably familiar with hearing that term on those phones right now, they're either ip67 are ip68 water and dust resistant, and that's great, it's great that this one has that it's the only other phone that Verizon offers right now that has that certification. This phone can withstand a lot more than your typical ip68 certification. Another thing I like about the design is, it does have a removable and replaceable battery. So when you think about the longevity of this phone and being able to repair it yourself being able to take out that battery and swap it out for a new one, is a really great thing and is super sustainable for both your cost and the environment. The overall construction, the phone is just really nice.

The buttons aren't very, very click, but I like that. It has a slightly rubberized coating on it, they're very well spaced, and as far as using this phone with gloves, it will be no problem. The phone is very sturdy. The hinge typically on a phone when you have a clip like this would be up here at the top part, so you can see right here how it's actually on the front. It's not actually built back into the phone.

It is sitting on top, so it really feels sturdy when you open close this phone, and you just feel like it's not going to go anywhere. Furthermore, it doesn't even flip close when you do that. That being said, when you do a flip, it opens and close, it can't be slightly tough. But in my opinion, that's a good thing, because you don't really want this phone accidentally closing when you're making the phone call. It's just not going to give you that satisfying snap.

It gives you a little of one, but if you've used the flip phone in the past, you know what I mean and the reason it doesn't give you that snap is because it's me to be more durable, and it has this little kind of extra little plate built on top, and that is allowing it to close securely at the bottom, and that looks like it is keeping it from getting more dust in between the screen and the phone itself. There's not much room in between there, but I. Imagine that lip is probably doing a lot when it comes to debris getting in the phone. So you know I'll sacrifice the more satisfying clothes for some durability. Keeping on the subject of design.

This phone has a USB-C for charging, which is very nice, because that is the standard for charging. So as the years come by, you're going to be able to locate a charger for this just about anywhere because all the modern phones, aside from iPhones, are using USB-C. So it's very nice to see that they went ahead and included that and on all of these they have very thick seals for water resistance, waterproofing and up here which I'll go ahead and mention now is it does have a standard, three-and-a-half millimeter, headphone jack, that is covered by that same gasket cover to keep it from getting wet. This one has a flashlight, which is very, very handy. It also has a button here on the side that it's called SOS key, and this is a programmable key for a long list of different things that you can set it to do, as well as on the left-hand side.

There is a button for push the talk if you're not using push-to-talk feature, it's really nice that they considered of everybody, because you were able to reprogram this key as a shortcut key, just like the SOS key on the other side. So you do have a total of two programmable keys on this phone right-hand side on my shortcut key I have it set to be a flashlight and to access that you do just unlock the outside screen, but when you're on the inside, if you go ahead and hit that it automatically turns on a very bright LED, flashlight and I believe, lastly, for design I want to talk about screen viewing angles. So what I've noticed on this phone is when you have the phone tilted this direction, so when you're bringing it like towards you and away from you, the viewing angle is very questionable as far as images. So what I mean by that is, if you are viewing your wallpaper or some of the graphics on the menus. The pictures don't look so great when you start tilting the phone either away from you or towards you, but the text is always clear and legible, and that is the most important part.

So, even if you are tilted into the phone, far away from you or very close, this way, you're still able to read the text. So if I'm going to complain about that, at least the text is always there, no matter what angle and to me that is the most important part, because this phone isn't really focused on consuming media. That being said, if you tilt the phone from the other direction from the right to the left, it maintains just as clear as if you're looking at it straight ahead. Okay, so let's talk about some features. That might surprise you, because this was like the most fun part for me to get to explore about this phone, because this does offer a lot more than just those basics of phone calls and texting like you're, expecting from a phone already things that I've discovered on the phone is that I have Wi-Fi so, like I said before, the phone has Wi-Fi calling probably expected that the phone has Wi-Fi, and it does really excite that you can use the phone on Wi-Fi you're, also able to use this phone as a hotspot for up to ten devices which is really handy, especially if you plan to use this phone for business.

You can provide this to use as a hotspot for things, or it's pretty cool that if you are choosing to buy this phone, you want to just get away from your smartphone for a while and just pop your SIM card out of your phone put it in this one for the weekend. If you do decide to bring your smartphone along for, let's say a GPS, because as far as I know, I haven't been able to find turn by turn directions on this. You could just temporarily connect your smartphone to the Wi-Fi hotspot on this. This phone also has email support. So if you're looking to have a little extended accessibility, you are able to have your email set up a right to this phone, but it is good to know that you can watch this phone and, of course, I wouldn't be like putting anything like super heavy on it.

But you know some soap and water with your hands just to kill any bacteria on your phone, because that stuff builds up really fast, and I'm. Sure we've all heard that our phones have more bacteria on them than like a bathroom toilet seat, which is disgusting. Everyone doesn't really wash my phone ever so having the peace of mind, of knowing that this phone can handle watched is reliving, I'll go through a couple. Other features that are a huge benefit, and we're surprising to me is this phone has two gigs of RAM with a 1.2 gigahertz, 64-bit quad-core processor, and that would explain why this phone is so speedy and literally keeps up with anything I do on it. Even the basics can be kind of a struggle on some basic phones to navigate their menus and have function of their keys very quickly.

So it's good to know that this phone will keep up with you. The phone also has SD card support up to 512 gigs as 16 gigs. On already it has a music player that looks very simplistic, and I've also had an FM radio. So if you decide to plug it in your wired, headphones through the headphone jack, that is how you access your FM radio, the phone offers, but it calls eco-mode. So it's basically going to let you prolong the life of your battery, so it gives you a couple different options and things to toggle on and off, depending on your needs, when it's in Eco mode, you can have it come on automatically when the phone, which is a certain percent, to keep it lasting longer and then also it has a feature with battery health.

So if you are a type of person that keeps your phone plugged in overnight or if you plug this phone into the available accessory cradle for charging, that does not come included, but I'll talk about accessories a little later, then the phone will not try to start recharging until it reaches at least 85% or below, so you're, not going to be sitting with that phone on all night and a constantly pushing power to keep it fully charged. It's going to allow the phone to maintain its battery hell of a lot longer. If you turn that feature on which is optional, another feature that was really nice and unexpected is again with the battery. When you're going to settings and about phone it lets. You view the battery, and it shows you an approximate amount of how long the battery will last you.

So you have your typical status bar battery indicator, the four bars, but this one actually tells you an actual percent of the battery, and then it also gives you a little marker that says approximately how many hours or in this case days you have left on your battery, and it judges that, based on what your use has been so far, so if your phone has been sitting around all day, you haven't really been using it that much except for texting and calling you can expect it to say days. But if you've been using the web browser or listening to a lot of music, then it's going to give you a more accurate representation of how long that 60 percent you have left is going to last you. So if you're on you know the mobile web browser which is very, very functional but again now super enticing to use. But it's kind of the whole point: it's gonna! Let you know that if you keep doing what you're doing and using up that battery that 60 percent may only last you 45 minutes. But if you stop using that feature and let your phone sit for a while, and then it shows that you have 58 percent battery life, it may tell you that you have several days left again, because it's anticipating you using your phone, like you, have been based on previous use.

But you know to clear all that up, it's really nice to see that they tank battery into a very big consideration, and it's just a nice extra feature to have. Let's move to go in and actually see what that percentage of battery is going to get you and give you an estimate is really, really handy, and I've used that a lot in my time of using this phone, especially when I have chosen to use the internet on it, it's good to look into that setting and see how long I have left and then, when I stop using it to see how many days I have left on standby. Okay, so I have to talk about this mobile web browser, and I'll. Try to insert a little clip, I believe that I have from our earlier, but it loads so fast, and I know it's like not a full-fledged web browser. It's still considered, and you know it's like a mobile version, but when you go into the web browser and type in your URL it loads instantly.

So when you're searching for Amazon- and you go to amazon. com when you hit it, and you scroll the page scrolls all the way to the bottom and every graphic every text, everything is loaded as soon as you type if it's very, very nice, and I would say the web browser is more than great if you're on the go, and you're looking up a phone number, if you're checking the radar, if you want to order something up, Amazon, quick any of that stuff and actually loaded, YouTube and I, actually am blown away. How fast it was- and it's really nice, because you can turn the phone sideways and take advantage of all the screen space that it has, and the front-facing speakers, because you have the phone open, is really nice, and I have to say it sounds way better than my iPhone 10 and I kind of liked watching video on this sounds crazy, and it may look a little crazy too, but if you want to watch a YouTube video on this, your battery life is not going to last an insane amount, because I don't believe this phone can really withstand using those powerful features for too long, at least from my experience. I've noticed significant battery drops whenever I choose to do that. But I have had this phone for quite a while and I yet to charge it and I watched a YouTube video, but on Amazon a few times and made some calls and texts, and I'm still up like 40 percent.

Okay, so I've been saving this part for last one of the biggest things that surprised me about this phone is what Kyocera caused the total solution, and this is for people looking for this phone for business, so this phone comes with what they call total solution, and that gives you features to manage these phones and usage for when you issue them to your employees. So there are a few different things that you can do with this, and it allows you to restrict certain things to keep track of certain things and see usage. So if you don't want your employees accessing certain features, you can determine which ones that they access and also get more insight on how it's being used. So you can definitely check into what those features do I'm, not the type of person that can take advantage of those things, but they do offer many things for people who are looking to issue this phone from a business standpoint and also included that for everyone, you get a 2-year warranty with this phone, so they are keeping longevity and the total cost of owning this device super low. So if you look anywhere else, you're, pretty that's going to find standard, a one-year warranty with their devices.

This phone offers two years, which is great and a ring back up again at the spoon has a removable battery, so that is HUGE on keeping a cost down for repairs. This phone is going to be very easy for you to access those batteries and years to come when they start to age, like all batteries do. But if it's past that two-year mark- and you need to purchase a battery, you can do so instead of purchasing a whole new device and setting up a whole new system for your business. The other important thing to mention, too, is this ties into business as well as personal, because anyone could buy these, but they offer these big cradle Doc's to sit and multiple of these phones or batteries and to charge, so I got your workstation or when people are done with the devices for the day, they can all return them to this docking system, and it charges with the two pins on the back. So you don't have to mess with cords, and all of these phones can just be very easily placed in this dock and then issue out the next time that they're needed- and there are many other unique accessories available for this phone I took out a few of them.

But I will leave a link for you to be able to go and check out their website, and you can kind of get a feel for what this phone has and how it can cater to you and your personal life and your business, and it's pretty unique, because not many other phones have their own accessory page that offer things that they do so yeah right under settings. There's a separate tab for business tools as well as general tools, but in the business tools, you're going to access the push-to-talk, the field, force, manager, device control and the car kit power on and off, so I believe with a car kit, and that is with the accessories. Are you can have the device turn on with the engines powered on? And you know other features like that which I'm not totally familiar with because I'm not accessing these features. But if you are looking to issue phone as a business phone I strongly suggest that you check out this phone in depth even more because there's a lot of things that can be very useful for that area and then, under those and services you have tabs to call customer support, call business support, find accessories and battery care. So in the support and services tab it lets you call customer support, call business support, find accessories and your battery care.

It offered this phone in an on camera variant, and they sell right alongside this one. So when you go to Verizon and to purchase the phone, they are going to have the non camera right alongside it, and you can purchase that one if you're looking to buy this phone for more sensitive areas of work, that you wouldn't necessarily want your employees having access to a camera. So it's very rare to find a phone that's available with no camera. Yes, you can cover the camera, but to have no camera really eliminates a lot of stress and issues for an employer. So that's something to definitely consider when you're looking at different devices to issue because going and thinking about purchasing a smartphone for your business or these durable flip phones.

You can think about you know if you can't find a smartphone that doesn't have a camera having these and having some smart features on them. This might be all you need at house, email, house calling and house texting. It has Wi-Fi hotspot and very durable. No camera has business tools and features and plenty of accessories for your business. So it's just something to consider.

These are very low cost to own down the road as far as being able to you know, find batteries for them and such so. It's just something to keep in mind, and these are the things you have to ask yourself if this is what you want from a device and if it can do everything that you need it to and whenever I watched phone reviews I just always want them to show all the wallpapers. Like I just I really like default wallpapers I know you can go out and download them, but everyone does you want offline, but for me, it's just like I love using the default ones on the phones and same thing as the ringtones, and it's like I want to know what ringtones it has I want to know what wallpapers it has, so I'm for the sake of the video not being too long. I literally cannot sacrifice this, because if I make a phone review and I don't include these things like who Hooves am I, so I'm going to put them at the end of the video. If you wanna, look through the list of wallpapers like I, would its thing? If you don't want to then I'm going to go ahead and, like conclude, the review end it and then include the extra clips.

So you don't have to sit there. Anything you don't want to see alright guys. Thank you. So much for watching it's been really fun to make a video. It's been very exciting, to have a phone sent to me to do a review on.

It's just been really awesome. I really enjoyed it, it's been fun getting to know a new phone I haven't used your new phone in quite a while. It's not really like me to keep the same phone as long as I have, but I've done a pretty good job, so yeah. If you can't tell I've, had the phone and thank you again to who sent me this phone. It means a lot to me.

I hope you learned a lot about this phone. I learned a lot about it from using it, and hopefully you can make your own decision but, like I, says the beginning of the video honestly. If you're looking for a flip phone, you already know you want one, and you're on Verizon. I only suggest this one had to ask me before I discovered this phone, I wouldn't been able to suggest any of them. I would have told you to somehow locate one of those old LG exalt LTE's, which one helps super expensive, because everyone knows that's like looking for a reliable 4G, flip phone Verizon that that was the only one that like works.

If you look at any of the reviews for any of the other flip phones on Verizon, they're kind of garbage and I really hate to say that, but it's just the truth: I wouldn't recommend those to anybody, and I'm very thankful that Kyocera brought this phone to Verizon at all, because it is the only reliable one that I can recommend to people, and I'm glad that I have one that I can recommend, and they really go above and beyond. Because not only is this now a reliable phone for people looking for a flip phone Verizon, it is also now a reliable phone that has all of these extra features that previous models did not have. So even for the average customer not looking for any of the special and really appreciated business tools that this phone has you're getting the durable phone. That's water resistant! You can replace the battery great signal, and also you're getting speeds on this phone that are really great to have in an emergency like if you're, a person that does not want to use an app on your phone. You never have to use it on here, but if you're stuck in a situation where you just like, really want to look up a phone number for something or access the radar for weather or get directions because you can still access Google Maps on this, going to like Google, Maps, comm or searching maps in Google you're not going to get turn-by-turn directions, it's not gonna! Let you, unless you have an app downloaded, but you are still going to be able to see a list view of directions and pinpoint locations, look up, addresses and also superfast.

You never have to wait on this phone. It has 4G and the signal strength is perfect. Okay, so I don't want to Rainbow like literally forever, because I can do that very easily, but I wanted to provide a well-rounded review. I hope you got that have any questions. I'll try to answer as many as I can in the comments and if not I am gonna, provide some links to more information about this phone.

If I didn't cover absolutely everything you were looking for and if you're looking more details about the business tools this phone has to offer. There are so many that I literally can't cover them all I suggest that you go to Kyra Sarah's website and check them out for yourselves, because I think you can get kind of a better idea of what you're looking for, and then you can kind of go down the route of the feature that you are most interested in guys. So, thanks for watching and until next time, I'll see you.

Source : gGadget