Casio G’zOne Rock – Shockproof, Dustproof, Weatherproof

Cell Phones — By Ricky on December 14, 2009 at 4:23 am

Sum and Substance:

Thumbs Up:

Extremely rugged phone and has features like thermometer, astro calendar, sunset/sunrise application and digital compass.

Thumbs Down:

Low on music quality, call quality is bad.

Inside the Trunk:

Technology: CDMA2000 1X
Band: CDMA 800/1900 (Dual Band)
Phone design: Clamshell
Caller ID: Yes
Other features: Bluetooth, Music player, Integrated digital compass, Thermometer

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

The phone has two displays, the one on the lid is OLED display which has a resolution of 96X96 pixels and the interior 2.1 inch display has 240 x 320 pixels resolution. Casio G’zOne Rock battery has a talk time for 300 minutes and 80 hours of stand by time.

Music formats recognized are AAC +, AAC, WMA and MP3. On the back of the camera is a 2.0 mega pixel camera which gives resolutions of 160×120, 320×240, 640×480, 1280×960 and 1,600×1200. There are special effects like negative, black & white, sepia and normal. The phone supports expansion cards up to 16 GB. The phone has memory for 500 contact storage. You can download ringtones, games and applications.

Razzle Dazzle:

If you think rugged phones means ugly looks, then you’d better think again. This phone is pretty better than Sonim XP3 Quest handset that we reviewed earlier. The problem with looks of that phone was there was a lot of rubber padding around it which made the phone shock proof and water proof but it also made device look ugly. This phone is not that ugly but we won’t call it pretty either. The exterior of the phone is covered by tough plastic which makes the phone a bit heavy.

Inside Dope:

Casio G’zOne Rock is water proof cell phone which means you can take this baby with your while swimming or even talk on the phone while taking a shower. But the highlights of the phone have to be the inclusion of features like tidal graph and GPS-enabled compass.

Casio g'zone rock review

The phone has hard plastic all around it and the ports are covered with rubber padding to stop water from going in. This phone can withstand dust, shock, water, extreme temperatures, humidity, high altitude, fog, salt and vibration. The battery compartment is also covered with thick screw to stop water.

The phone has a clamshell design which gives way to two displays. The OLED monochrome display gives a resolution of 96X96 pixels and shows time, date, caller ID, signal strength and battery status. There are a few touch sensitive buttons on the lid which can be used for controlling music without opening the phone. The display on the lid can be used as a viewfinder for camera but with the black and white screen and choppy video quality, we recommend you to avoid it. Apart from all this, you get Push-to-Talk contacts access and some specific applications of Casio G’zOne Rock.

On the sides of the phone there is a button for push-to-talk, port for head set, charger jack, side key and volume rocker. You can open the phone with the side key and also assign a short cut to it.

For opening up the phone you can use the side button or manually open up the phone. The internal display of the phone is 2.1 inch yet looks spacious with the 240×320 pixel resolution. We found the display of the phone quite vibrant and text on the screen it was clear. You can change clock format, backlight time, dial fonts, menu style and font size of the menu. You can also personalize your device with display themes, wallpaper, alert tones, etc. There are no games built in but if you want some then you will have to buy them.

Below the display is the keypad. There are two soft touch buttons, talk and end buttons, clear button, speaker phone button, camcorder/camera key, and the numeric keypad. There is a four way navigation button and you can assign short cut applications to three of the buttons. The fourth one brings up another four list of short cuts for applications, which you allocate for the applications that you use the most. Typing on the keyboard was easy; it was not one of those cramped keypads which give a difficult time to fingers while typing.

For storing your contacts, there is a 500 memory phone book in the Casio G’zOne Rock. A single entry can take two address for emails, four numbers, street address and screen name for instant messenger. You can make groups and put callers in them, pair up a photo with the contact for photo caller ID or give a unique ring tone to a contact from the list of 12 ring tones. Other features on the phone, which are worth mentioning are calendar, stop watch, alarm clock, multimedia and text messaging, speakerphone, calculator, countdown timer, notepad and world clock.

The phone has instant messengers built in such as AOL, Yahoo and Windows Live to chat and share files with your friends. There is also a web browser but it doesn’t have lot of features that you would want. You can receive e-mail in your phone inbox with the support for POP and IMAP account syncing.

Along with this we were surprised to find a couple of features that you will seldom find in a mobile phone. Casio G’zOne Rock has an earth compass, thermometer with both Fahrenheit and Celsius format, sunset/sunrise feature which shows the position and time of sun, tidal graph application and a lunar cycle, which is shown by the astro calendar. The tidal graph application will be extremely use full if you are a fishing enthusiast.

For music the phone supports cards up to 16 GB and you can add music to the phone USB or putting the card in card reader. Music quality was average on the phone and so was the video quality. The phone recognizes formats of AAC +, AAC, WMA and MP3. You can use the 16 GB memory card as a mass storage device too.

Casio G’zOne Rock has a 2.0 mega pixel camera which is definitely better than 1.3 that Boulder had. But a 2.0 MP rated camera means that this is still a poor quality but the built in flash helped a bit to deliver in low light conditions, there are five possible resolutions – 160×120, 320×240, 640×480, 1280×960 and 1,600×1200 it has six effects for color and five white balance presets. Other features include self-timer, flash, brightness, toggle for shutter sound, night mode and multi shot mode. The flash behind the camera can also be used as a source of light. There are special effects like negative, black & white, sepia and normal.

Videos are captured in 320×240 resolution. You can’t shoot more than 60 seconds for MMS but you can record all you want if you are going to store the videos on internal memory.

Other features on the phone include stereo Bluetooth, Push-to-talk, GPS with turn-by-turn directions from VZ navigator.

Call quality on the Casio G’zOne Rock was bad. The voice sounded distorted and quite tinny. We couldn’t hear voice properly of our friends but they said we sounded fine. On the speaker phone the voice sounded a bit harsh and there was a lot of echo. This is one of the few phones wherein we have had call quality problems. Calls on the headset are the best and we would recommend you to use it all the time on this phone for calls.

The phone has a talk time of five hours and 26 days of stand by time.

Nitty Gritty:

Casio G’zOne Rock is shockproof, dustproof, weatherproof which is its main selling point. Buy it if the three features are important for you but we think that the phone is a bit low on features that advanced users might like.