CAT S42 review
The cheap CAT phone, and the one owners keep for three years instead of six months.
The verdict
Modest hardware in a body that outlives everything else these people own. Owner accounts here are extreme even by rugged-phone standards, and the two useful catches are both fixable: it will not work on Verizon, and there is a preinstalled app worth removing.
Buy it if
- You break phones constantly and want the cheapest way to stop
- You are on AT&T or T-Mobile — but not Verizon
- You want a 3.5 mm headphone jack and a memory card slot
- You live somewhere with poor coverage and would use Wi-Fi calling heavily
Skip it if
- You are on Verizon — this one is explicitly excluded
- You want a large, sharp screen or a good camera
- You want stereo speakers; there is one
- You want long software support — the promise is 90-day security patches
Prices change daily, so we don't list them here. The button opens the current listing.
Specifications
| Operating system | Android 10 with an upgrade to 11; owners report units auto-upgrading to Android 12 |
|---|---|
| Security updates | 90-day patch cycle as advertised |
| Display | 5.5 in, 18:9 — see the resolution note below |
| Glass | Corning Gorilla Glass 5 |
| Touch | Wet-finger and glove-on working technology |
| Chipset | 1.8 GHz quad-core — see the chipset note below |
| RAM | 3 GB |
| Memory card | microSD; 256 GB officially, owners run 512 GB with a caveat |
| Rear camera | 13 MP, f/2.0, PDAF |
| Battery | 4200 mAh — owners report about two days |
| Durability | IP68 and IP69, MIL-SPEC 810H; drop tested to 1.8 m (6 ft) onto steel |
| Water resistance | Up to 1.5 m for 35 minutes |
| Dimensions | 6.34 x 3.04 x 0.5 in |
| Weight | 220 g |
| Audio | 3.5 mm stereo jack; single speaker |
| Connectivity | NFC, Bluetooth 5.0, dual-band Wi-Fi 2.4/5 GHz, dual SIM |
| Networks | 4G LTE bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 12, 13, 14, 17, 25, 26, 41, 66, 71; 3G bands 1, 2, 4, 5, 8 |
| Carriers | Optimised for North America. Will not work on Verizon |
| Warranty | Listing advertises 2 years, US and Canada — confirm with the seller |
What it is
The entry point to the CAT range: a 5.5-inch rugged Android phone with modest hardware, a 4200 mAh battery and Gorilla Glass 5, sold as a North America variant with an advertised two-year warranty — worth confirming with the seller.
It is not fast and the camera is ordinary. What it does is survive, and the owner accounts on this model are the most extreme we have read for any phone on this site.
What owners actually put it through
One buyer, a tradesman, describes going through seven phones of various makes in a single year before this one. None lasted six months. The S42 reached a year with nothing but a replaced screen protector — and that was swapped because it had gone cloudy, not because it cracked.
Another, on his third CAT phone, describes dropping it in wet manure and then holding it under a tap and scrubbing it with a toothbrush. He rates the screen as readable in direct sunlight and his only complaint is the single speaker.
A third account runs three years of genuinely absurd abuse — fire, water, being run over, repeatedly stepped on and chewed by a dog — before the volume keys and then the power button failed. The phone still charges and still receives notifications; it just will not turn on.
Take the details with the humour they were written with. The pattern across all of them is the same and it is the reason to buy this phone.
Verizon is out, and AT&T has history
The listing is explicit: optimised for North American carriers, will not work on Verizon. Treat that as final.
AT&T needs a footnote. An owner reports that in autumn 2021 the S42 had not yet cleared AT&T's device approval process and there were problems; that was resolved in early 2022. Since then the same owner has run it on both AT&T and T-Mobile LTE without trouble, and another reports setting it up on AT&T easily with the Android 11 update arriving immediately.
There is no 5G. One owner makes the fair point that 5G is only meaningfully available in large cities and LTE will be around for a long time yet.
Wi-Fi calling is the underrated feature
An owner living fifteen miles from the nearest tower reports VoLTE and Wi-Fi calling working out of the box with an existing T-Mobile SIM, with seamless handover between the two, and no more dropped calls.
If you live or work somewhere with marginal coverage, that is worth more than any specification on the page. The phone also works well as a hotspot, with owners reporting usable signal through several interior walls.
Two things to do after you unbox it
First, the memory card. The manufacturer states 256 GB as the maximum; an owner successfully ran a 512 GB card in Separate Storage mode. The catch he found is specific: files downloaded straight to the card appear as zero bytes when viewed on the phone, although the file is genuinely there. He went back to a 256 GB card rather than deal with it. Use 256 GB unless you have a reason not to.
Second, check your preinstalled apps. One owner found a non-removable app with permissions covering all files, email, calls and messages, with no notification to the user. CAT's customer service replied within twelve hours saying the app was not theirs and suggested a fix — the likely source is bloatware picked up during setup. Worth a look through your app list on day one.
A charging trick for people who tether
Small and genuinely useful. If you use the phone tethered over USB for long periods, the battery can be configured to stay between 30 and 70 percent rather than sitting at 100 percent permanently.
Holding a lithium battery at full charge is what kills it, and very few phones let you cap it. If the S42 is going to live plugged into a laptop or a vehicle, set this up.
Two spec figures that do not add up
The listing names a MediaTek Kompanio 800T at 1.8 GHz. Kompanio is MediaTek's Chromebook line, not a phone platform, and the manufacturer's own material says only 1.8 GHz quad-core. Someone has entered the wrong part.
The display is the other one. The listing says 1920 x 1080 at 120 Hz; the manufacturer's comparison material describes a 5.5-inch HD+ 1440 x 720 IPS panel. A 120 Hz screen on a rugged phone at this price would be remarkable, and it is almost certainly a listing error.
Who it competes with
Against the CAT S48c you give up Verizon certification and the hazardous-area marking, and gain a larger screen, a bigger battery and a much lower price.
Against the CAT S62 you give up a far better chip, a 48 MP camera and 128 GB of storage.
Against a mainstream budget phone in a rugged case, you give up the camera and the software support, and gain a phone that people genuinely keep for three years of abuse.
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