Rugby almost comes to 3, just in time for the Six Nations

Samsung’s candy bar phone the B2700, also known as Samsung Rugby in its flip format to our American cousins has just been announced for the 3 network.

The B2700 is in the same league as SGH-A837, AKA Rugby and is joining the union of tough phones on the market such as the Sonim handsets XP1 and XP3.

They’ve propped up the announcement with claims along the lines of: ‘resistant to being dropped, shaken, splashed with water, covered in dirt, sand and dust or even run over by a car . It’s encased in shock-proof urethane to protect itself from demanding environments, on and off the pitch.

Samsung’s phone comes along the inside centre with an Ingress Protection rating of 54, for its durability. The 5 stands for ‘Protection from the amount of dust that would interfere with the operation of the equipment’ and the 4 just means ‘Protection from splashed water.’

Coincidentally it has the same rating as the very first Sonim XP1 handset, but not the latest incarnation – which has an IP57 score. In this case, the 7 stands for ‘Protection against immersion’ and to a depth of 1 metre; scrumming it down against the B2700 wouldn’t be fair with that IP mark.

However, they have locked it down with an almost Number 8 set of decent tools, with a built-in torch, compass, pedometer, altimeter, built-in FM radio player, 2megapixel camera and an MP3 player.

The B2700 is winging its way to you now on one of 3’s business tariffs, with Quad Band, 3G, 350 standby and 5 massive hours of talktime.

Here’s hoping for a grand slam with the handset, before 3 has to full back on other mobiles as we’re not entirety sold, hook, line and sinker.