Hisense has just announced that their C30 Rock smartphone has launched in South Africa – and this makes me pretty excited.

You might ask why, if you haven’t had a chance to get acquainted with their recent bevvy of smartphones – but Hisense is actually a rising star in the budget and mid-range smartphone sector.

I recently tried out the Hisense Infinity Faith and the Hisense Infinity Elegance, two budget smartphones ranging between around R2000 and R3000.

I’m currently writing out my review for the phones for Gearburn, but I can tell you I was definitely impressed with the products considering their prices.

The performance, appearance, battery life and usability of the phones were great and reminiscent of Xiaomi’s high quality for low prices.

Now Hisense has announced that a mid-range rugged smartphone has arrived on our shores – the C30 Rock.

It is definitely among the higher priced Hisense phones, with a recommended retail price of R4 499. But it is also equipped with Android Nougat, making it one of the cheapest handsets to come with the new Android version.

I took a quick look online at some of the mid-range devices available for purchase in South Africa which come with or are set to be updated with Android 7 to confirm this. The Huawei Nova is R6155 through Vodacom, the ZTE Axon 7 Mini is R6999 on Hi-Online  and the Moto G4 Plus – an older model set to get an upgrade to the new OS – is still R4 499 on Connected Devices, meaning the Hisense C30 Rock is definitely among the  cheapest Android 7 handsets at present.

So why is it rugged?

The OS is not the only reason this mid-range phone piqued my interest, but also its IP68 certification (meaning it’s waterproof for up to 30 minutes and a depth of 1.5 metres, as well as dust-resistant) and its rubber casing.

It’s relatively slim for a durable smartphone, at 7.95mm, making it slightly thicker than my Samsung Galaxy S6 (6mm).

It has a metal frame but a soft rubber outer-casing, which should protect it from inevitable falls. It also has a 3000mAh battery, giving it quite the decent battery life.

I’d be quite excited to see this iteration of a rugged phone, to see if Hisense can pull off a durable phone that’s not only appealing to action enthusiasts, but also the regular clumsy consumer.

For a sub-R5000 device, I also like the idea of a 16MP camera and would like to see how Hisense’s camera measures up to other higher-end models.

Other specifications include:

Conclusion

While I initially didn’t take much note of Hisense when they entered the smartphone market, being relatively unfamiliar with their brand, my recent experiences tell me that the company is capable of creating high performance devices at significantly more accessible price points than some of their competitors.

As more budget to mid-range phonemakers have been inflating their prices of late, it’s nice to see Hisense is more than ready to give us quality devices for low prices.

There’s no guarantee that the C30 Rock will be of the same quality of the recent Hisense Infinity phones, but signs are pointing in the right direction.