Kyocera Hydro Life
Phone Scoop Review
Dec 8, 2014 by Eric M. Zeman
The Hydro Life is an affordable waterproof handset from Kyocera that offers all the power of Android in a compact package that goes where you go. Here is Phone Scoop's full report. read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
hide detailed ratings
Not bad if you're clumsy
Carrier: Metro
I've dropped this thing five feet into two inches of water and a hard bottom and picked it up and picked up where I left off like nothing happened. It runs fairly well too. My only complaints are the amount of free storage and the kyocera ui but overall it's still decent. It is my backup phone now. I just upgraded and haven't had my new phone long enough to know if I may end up having to come back to this one.
hide detailed ratings
Issues start after the first month of use
Carrier: Metro
After having this model for a month the phone starts to flash a dark screen. During this time you can barely see what is on the screen but everything is still there. Also at this same time you loose all service, phone, internet, and 4G. When I went back to where I got the phone from I was told I was not the first to bring this to their attention, I was the third IN 24 HOURS. This should have thrown up a red flag to them but instead they told me that this was a singular issue and that I had to go to the manufacturer if I could get the phone to do it again. All they told me about the manufacture is that they had a place in our area and they would not tell me where this place was. Today I had to take the battery out six (6) times in less than ten (10) minutes (their fix) to try and fix the issue with the dark screen. Tomorrow if the store I got the phone from does not honor their warranty they are going to be one less customer.
hide detailed ratings
This Is A Nice Phone
Carrier: Metro
OK, I also got it for $29 so there's no way I can go wrong, right?
But the call quality is great, the screen is very good, it's fast to respond, the browser is fast even when it's not in Wi-Fi, it has a good camera, texts are immediate, has an eco-mode to help save power but also has options within that eco mode. I managed to drop it already within 24 hours and it's fine, it also rained like crazy here today and the phone is fine.
In regard to battery life, maybe I'm still learning the adjustments however it does seem to eat battery.
I guess because I don't use a $600 phone that I can't compare it to one of those, but for making calls, taking shots, texting, email, it's fine. Oh and no dropped calls.
So especially for the porice, at $29 this is more than worth it.
hide detailed ratings
First Day with Kyocera Hydro LIFE
Carrier: Metro
The overall specs for the Hydro Life sparked my interest and I opted to transfer my Metro service from an LG F6. It was a smart move. The phone is all that I expected it to be in addition to having great shock and waterproof specs. I wanted more ROM than provided by the F6 and the Hydro Life meets my requirements. It is such a pleasure being able to download new apps vs. having to continually uninstall programs due to insufficient memory on the F6.
I found the Hydro Life to be very similar to the F6 in overall dimensions, screen size, camera specs and ease of use. I was very pleased with the photo quality of both indoor (with flash) and outdoor shots. Screen resolution is very good for indoor usage but has definite washout in sunlight.....which I expected after using the LG F6 for the past several months.
The quad-core processor is fast and very responsive.
Call quality is very good and the speaker phone sound is top notch.
Battery life is good. I have pushed the phone extensively today and after 8 hrs of hard usage the battery level shows 40% remaining
I highly recommend this phone and consider the current Metro PCS sales price of only $49 to be a steal.
