Samsung Galaxy Active Neo is the Latest Rugged Smartphone Priced at $167

Samsung continued to be the largest smartphone brand in terms of global shipments in the Q2 2015. In North America, it stood at No.2 position while Apple is at No.1 position, the company has also seen a major decline in market share from 36.2% from Q2 2014 compared with 26.2% in Q2 2015. With the launch of iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, we expect the market share to be declined further. Few rumors also suggest that the upcoming flagship Galaxy S7 will be launched in early 2016 to maintain it’s top spot.

The company has launched a new mid-range rugged smartphone called ‘Samsung Galaxy Active Neo‘ exclusively for the Japanese market. It is priced at just JPY 20,000 (approx $167), which makes it most affordable, rugged smartphone from the company. The device comes with IP67 certification making it dust and water resistant.

The device sports a 4.5-inch WVGA display along with a Gorilla Glass 4 protection. Under the hood, it has 64-bit Snapdragon 410 quad-core processor clocked at 1.2GHz along with 2GB of RAM. There is 16GB of internal storage and also a microSD card slot for storage expansion up to 128GB.

Talking about the camera, it has an 8MP rear camera with LED flash that can record Full HD videos at 30fps. On the front is a 2MP camera for selfies and video calls. A battery of 2,200mAh capacity keeps the device powered on. It runs on Android 5.1.1 lollipop based TouchWiz UI.

With the extra bit of protection, the device feels little thick at 10.1mm and weighs 154 grams. Connectivity on this device includes 4G LTE, NFC, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS/A-GPS, and MicroUSB 2.0. The device comes available in the colors – Camo White and Solid Black. Below the screen we can find the three physical button instead of the normal capacitive button.

As of now the device is limited to Japenese markets but in the months we expect it to be launched in few other markets. The device looks like a mini variant for the earlier launched Galaxy S6 Active. While the S6 Active is more like a flagship device, the Galaxy Active Neo is a mid-range device with same rugged capabilities.