Kyocera presents its first smartphone for Europe

Kyocera has presented its first smartphone for the European market. The sturdy smartphone is intended for business users in Germany and France and will go on sale in those countries this spring.

The manufacturer is silent about whether it will soon bring more devices to Europe and whether it wants to sell its phones in more countries than in Germany and France. The device that Kyocera now presents is called Torque. That is the same name as a device that the hardware maker released in the United States in 2013, but the new Torque seems to be a variant of the Brigadier smartphone that the hardware maker released last summer.

The Torque is dust- and waterproof and impact-resistant. In the American version, the device still had a sapphire screen, but that is missing on the European version. In order not to have to use the USB port, the phone has standard support for wireless charging via Qi chargers, but there is no charger in the box.

The device runs on Android 4.4 and has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400-soc at 1.2Ghz. The phone has 4G, presumably on frequencies used in Europe. There is no speaker above the screen, but the protective glass conducts the sound. The device, with type number KC-S701, should be released this spring.