Casio Exilim Mobile info gives glimpse at tough military testing

Casio Exilim 2009 model hybrid camera phoneAdding phone functionality to a camera, instead of the other way around -- that's not such a stretch these days, which makes Casio's new Exilim Mobile... telecamera? photophone?... interesting rather than a weird outlier. If you want outliers, you'll have to look to the testing process it went through to reach market.

In the process of browsing around the Exilim Mobile site, we noticed that along with the usual tech specifications, Casio lists the MIL-STD-810 tests for which the handset is certified. Those tests -- the Department of Defense Test Method Standard for Environmental Engineering Considerations and Laboratory Tests, to give them their full name -- replicate the effects of the environments gear might encounter during life in the company of a service member. And frankly, the tests sound a lot more fun than the namby-pamby civilian stuff -- never mind voice quality, how does it hold up in a sandstorm?!

Casio tested the Exilim Mobile using the Revision F test series, one revision behind the G series currently in use. Casio lists eight tests to which the Exilim was subjected. The Water Resistance test aims to replicate the effect of being stuck in a 4"-per-hour rainstorm with 30mph winds. The Immersion test dunks the handset in a meter of water for half an hour. The Humidity test replicates 95% humidity for ten days with temperatures ranging from 86 to 149 degrees. [They tested in Nebraska in July, you say?]

Salt Fog tests keep the handset in a 48-hour mist of saline and water. The Drop test, from four feet up, involves concrete, plywood, steel and 26 gravity-facilitated introductions to same. The Vibration test straps the handset to an electrodynamic shaker and lets loose along the x axis, then y, then z. (The new Revision G tests do all three axes at once.) Dust Resistance testing took place at 95 degrees and within a cloud of "silica flour," which many servicemen will claim comes directly from the mess hall. And Solar Radiation testing involves shooting the handset into the sun blasting the handset with three days of temperatures between 90 and 120 degrees and solar intensities of 1120 watts per square meter.

And, according to the Casio site, the handset passed them all. Other perils against which the Casio people could have tested their new camera-phone-camera include fungus (for those unruly gym bags), high level random vibration / sine-on-random vibration / narrowband random-on-random vibration conditions (for use in aircraft with onboard guns, probably not a factor as long as one can't make in-flight mobile calls), and acidic atmospheres (for those users who dock their mobile phones in the tailpipes of their cars).

For civilian purposes, from what we can tell from the product information the phone's got plenty of charm (albeit a rather, well, camera-shaped form factor) -- browser, GPS, a 2.3" LCD, and of course the 5 Mpx camera with 3x optical zoom. The camera also does video and visual voice mail -- and just in case, you can do all that in the middle of a desert sandstorm, or from within a bank of salt fog.

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