They're just your typical Android phones. Nothing special. medium resolution touch screen, a little bit of extra heavy plastic on the case. The usual OEM crapware is permanently installed on the device, and sending analytics back to the mothership.
I know the hardware specs are nothing special. I don't need them to be. I'm asking about the Cat-specific features. Ruggedness, waterproofing, extra-long battery life, IR camera--do they work as advertised? Does the extra bulk affect usability?
The OEM crapware is an issue, but from a quick google it seems like Cat phones are rootable, yes? So it should be possible to fix that manually.
If you buy it directly from Catphones, you just get the usual Google crapware, which can be disabled. Plus an "app store", which you don't have to use. I installed F-Droid and removed all the Google apps, and use only F-Droid open source apps.
