Announcement. Cat S75, Motorola Defy 2, Defy Satellite Link - twin smartphones with two-way satellite communication plus a very useful device

Two-way satellite communication has reached the world of android smartphones. The Motorola Defy 2 and Cat S75 smartphones announced today can both send messages via satellite and receive them.

In order.

MediaTek has developed a special chipMT6825 for smartphone manufacturers. Like, put this chip in your smartphones and get satellite communications on them. (By the way, not only in smartphones, but more on that later).

The Bullitt Group, which producesSmartphones under the Cat brand (Caterpillar) became friends with Motorola and released the aforementioned couple of smartphones that are equipped with just this chip. In fact, Motorola Defy 2 and Cat S75 are the same smartphone. Only the design of the back is slightly different. And maybe different LTE / 5G bands are supported there, I don’t know. Why was it necessary to produce two devices? They are for different geographies. Motorola will be sold in the Americas. Cat - in other regions of our globe.

Everything is implemented, judging by the description, quitegracefully. On smartphones, a special application is installed - Bullitt Satellite Messenger. If you decide to send a message through it, it first tries to send it via Wi-Fi or mobile Internet, and only if this fails, it starts knocking on the sky.

The recipient of the message receives it in the form of a regular SMS. Plus, he is invited to download the same application that will allow him to send a response message.

Also, of course, a satellite SOS service is attached to the new smartphones.

About ordinary smartphone characteristics.

Motorola Defy 2 and Cat S75 arearmored smartphones of a typical middle class. A complete armor-piercing set has been announced - IP68, IP69K, MIL-STD-810H. Can be washed with soap, wiped with alcohol, photographed under water, dropped on smooth steel plates from a height of six feet.

Rare chipset - MediaTek Dimensity 930.I don't have any performance data yet. I predict that AnTuTu will have around 400,000 parrots, which fits in well with the modern, fancy middle class.

Memory. Here they were a little greedy. In such interesting and serious devices, it could have been put more. But no. Only 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage. Support for memory cards is available.

The screen is pretty standard. Diagonal 6.58 ″ (105 cm²), resolution 1080 × 2400 (400 ppi), refresh rate up to 120 Hz.

The battery is average, 5000 mAh. For some reason, they attached wireless charging. The thing, of course, is good, but is it really necessary in “extreme” smartphones? It would be better to add an extra ampere-hour.

Cameras. Here, apparently, everything is rather modest. 8 MP front, 50+8+2 MP rear. What sensor is in the main camera, we do not know yet.

The fingerprint scanner was sent to the back. There is Type-C and dual-band Wi-Fi. There is no standard audio output. The NFC module is not mentioned.

About money. $599 (₽44800) for the USA (including a year of SOS Assist), €599 (₽47700, $638) for Europe (including 3 months of free messages, but no more than 30 messages per month).

Tariffs for satellite communications do not look very brutal. They start from $5 (₽374) / €5 (₽398, $5.33) for the same 30 posts.

But, in fact, God bless them, with these smartphones. However, they are quite specific.

What is much more interesting, at the same time as they wereannounced an extremely useful device called Motorola Defy Satellite Link (70 grams, 600 mAh, GPS, IP68, 810H). Which can be connected to any smartphone via Bluetooth and which provides exactly the same features. Those. it has the same MediaTek MT6825 chip and it can also receive and send messages via satellite in the same way. Well, on a smartphone - on any smartphone - we put exactly the same messenger. And we get exactly the same satellite connection as on Motorola Defy 2 or Cat S75.

$99 (₽7400) for all the fun (i.e. for the device itself). Plus a subscription to a tariff plan, of course.

Main characteristics of Caterpillar Cat S75

ScreenS-IPS, 6.58″, 105 cm², 1080×2400, 400 ppi, 120 Hz, 16M colors, touch, capacitive, multi-touch, Gorilla Glass Victus
HardwareMediaTek Dimensity 930
2.2 GHz, 2 x Cortex-A78, 6 x Cortex-A55, IMG BXM-8-256
Memory RAM 6 GB, ROM 128 GB, Micro-SD
Mobile Internet5G
LTE
HSDPA, HSUPA
Edge
Mobile networks5G Bands 1-3,5,7,8,20,28,38,40,41,75,77,78
LTE Bands 1-5,7,8,20,28,32,38-41
UMTS Bands 1 (2100), 2 (1900), 4 (1700), 5 (850), 8 (900)
GSM Bands 2 (1900), 3 (1800), 5 (850), 8 (900)
Rechargeable Li-Pol, 5000 mAh, wireless charging 15.00 W
Dimensions171 x 80 x 11.9 mm
Weight268 g
Rear Camera: Triple, Flash, Auto Focus

- 50 MP, f / 1.8

- 8 MP, wide-angle, f / 2.2

- 2 MP, macro, f / 2.4
front camera: 8 MP, f / 2.0, no flash, no autofocus
NavigationGPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo
OSAndroid 12
SensorsAccelerometer, Gyroscope, Compass, Approximation, Illumination, Fingerprint Scanner (back)
USBType-C

Key features of the Motorola Defy 2

ScreenS-IPS, 6.58″, 105 cm², 1080×2400, 400 ppi, 120 Hz, 16M colors, touch, capacitive, multi-touch, Gorilla Glass Victus
HardwareMediaTek Dimensity 930
2.2 GHz, 2 x Cortex-A78, 6 x Cortex-A55, IMG BXM-8-256
Memory RAM 6 GB, ROM 128 GB, Micro-SD
Mobile Internet5G
LTE
HSDPA, HSUPA
Edge
Mobile networks5G
LTE
UMTS
GSM
Li-Pol battery, 5000 mAh, fast charging 15 W
Dimensions171 x 50 x 11.9 mm
Weight268 g
Rear Camera: Triple, Flash, Auto Focus

- 50 MP, f / 1.8

- 8 MP, wide-angle, f / 2.2

- 2 MP, macro, f / 2.4
front camera: 8 MP, f / 2.0, no flash, no autofocus
NavigationGPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo
OSAndroid 12
SensorsAccelerometer, Gyroscope, Compass, Approximation, Illumination, Fingerprint Scanner (back)
USBType-C

George Kiselyov