Why You Can Trust CNET Sonim XP7 review: An all-weather workhorse
The Sonim XP7 is a rugged, LTE-capable smartphone that stands up to the elements.
Rugged devices occupy a curious niche, generally falling into one of two categories. You have your consumer-klutz grade approach, which takes a "normal" phone and tacks on a bit of added durability to weather splashes and falls -- consider the Samsung Galaxy S5 Active . And then there are behemoths like the Sonim XP7, a tool purpose built for survival.
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
The XP7 is expensive, currently available in Canada for 750 Canadian dollars unlocked (about $665), and starting at about 100 Canadian dollars with a two-year contract -- we should be hearing more news about a US release later this year. But that premium price gets you a device built to operate in the worst conditions.
My job as a reviews editor rarely puts me in harm's way, but I do like to get out of the office from time to time. I brought the XP7 along on my last excursion, consisting of several nights of cantankerous weather, an unreasonable amount of mud and an ill-advised bit of rock scaling. Neither I nor the phone came back unscathed, but I did return impressed.
Design and specs
The Sonim XP7 is...let's call it utilitarian. You'll find no concessions to form here, no subtle curves or grippy, textured bits to hold on to. Picking it up feels like wrapping my hand around a tool, a mallet's handle or -- more appropriately here -- a rubber brick that's 0.8 inch thick. It weighs 290 grams, or just over half a pound. That isn't light by any stretch, but still surprisingly totable for something that looks like it could comfortably plow through a windshield.
The 4-inch display has a lowly 800x480-pixel resolution; it's serviceable, if not especially impressive. Colors look washed out when the phone is held at an angle, but everything on the screen is otherwise clearly visible. The display is fairly bright and more importantly, easy to see outside, even in direct sunlight. I imagine that Sonim's target audience spends more time outdoors glancing at emails and texts than showing off the photos they take with the 8-megapixel camera that sits on the rear, so the trade-off works here.
Nigh-indestructible
The phone feels indestructible, which instills a sort of bravado in me I wouldn't normally find when wielding expensive gadgets. Its spec sheet rattles off all manner of details on its resilience: IP68 certification to protect against microparticles and up to 2 meters of water (6.5 feet) for 30 minutes, and IP69 certification, for "resistance to high-temperature pressure wash."
I didn't try pressure-washing it. But the storm that hit the lake bed my friends and I had set up camp in gave me plenty of opportunities to try out the rest of the claims. The display will register inputs from gloves -- even soaked, muddy ones using the phone's LED flashlight to hunt for guylines that had been yanked free of their stakes. It's hard to be precise with gloves on, though, so don't expect to hammer out messages. Gusts of wind repeatedly blew the phone from its perch on a camping chair into patches of mud. I wiped it off and it seemed to shrug, obviously having a better time than I was. And after three nights spent taking photos, and yes, browsing the Web and posting status updates from the middle of the Mojave desert, the 4,800mAh battery still had plenty of life left to give.
Of course, it isn't actually indestructible. That bravado got the best of me, and as the sun rose on my last day I decided to scale some rocks and maybe get a better "hero" shot for my review. The mud wasn't as dry as I'd hoped and I took a fall, landing rather unceremoniously among some rocks. I was far more concerned about my camera, but then noticed the unsightly crack in the top right corner of the XP7's Gorilla Glass display. The phone was unfazed: I tested its features, ran my finger along the screen, looking for some sign of greater damage. I like to imagine it just sort of grinned, and asked "what's next?" Sonim offers a comprehensive three-year warranty, covering even accidental damage.
Not for the faint of heart
This is not a phone I'd like to use every day. It really starts to weigh on you, and doesn't fit comfortably in my pants pockets. The phone also uses a proprietary magnetic charging cable, which is a bit annoying. It removes one potential point of failure for dust and water to get in, and you can plug it in to a standard USB socket, but that still means toting along yet another cable when you want to top the device off.
I also spend most of my days behind a desk, so most of the concessions made to durability are wasted on me. The rest of the phone's functions are built into evenly distributed, raised buttons that are easy to hit with gloves -- the push-to-talk and camera shutter button on the left side of the phone, volume control and a red emergency support button on the right. The headphone jack sits up top, hidden behind a flap. The bulging antenna on the top right corner also houses the really loud speaker, and is capped off with a bright notification light that's easily visible in the depths of my camera bag, where I generally kept the phone. The phone also offers NFC connectivity.
Software and features
The Sonim XP7 runs Android 4.4 KitKat, and is largely free of extraneous apps or features -- just the way I like it. A shortcut for the LED flashlight sits right on the lock screen, which proves very useful if your tent is literally blowing away and you don't want to futz around for a light source.
There's an app for the FM radio, a file manager, apps to manage software updates and your phone carrier's account, as well as software to set up the push-to-talk functionality. The Sonim Protect system won't be available until 2015, but it will offer a dedicated emergency line for monitoring and assisting stranded workers.
Performance
This quad-band phone runs on LTE networks, and is available from Bell and Telus in Canada. The models I reviewed were outfitted with AT&T SIM cards for my testing, and performed ably. There's a 1.4GHz quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM, which aren't exactly standout specs -- especially at this price -- but serve the XP7 well. The phone flies through general use, and the games I brought along with me -- Dead Trigger 2 and Angry Birds: Transformers -- skipped along without missing a beat.
The 4,800mAh battery is rated at up to 40 hours of talk time. My own use involved lots of Web browsing (and hunting for a signal in the desert), snapping photos, and making calls once I returned to civilization. Four days later when I finally got around to plugging it in, the phone hovered at about 22 percent battery life.
Call quality was excellent: the people I spoke to could hear me clearly, and the noise-canceling microphone does a good job of quelling the noise around me. And the front-facing speaker is loud, so I didn't have any trouble carrying on a conversation. You'll want to stick to headphones for music, though, as the bass is a little weak, which can make audio sound a little tinny.
Camera
I honestly wasn't expecting too much out of the 8-megapixel camera that sits on the rear of the XP7. Image quality isn't stellar, and details are muddled, but these conditions -- a rainy, cloudy day -- were far from ideal. The autofocus isn't too sluggish, and the camera is ready to go within a second and a half of tapping the camera app icon, or holding down the dedicated shutter button on the left side of the phone.
This shot is a little overexposed but the primary subject is largely noise-free. That said, the colors are a bit off: everything is a tad cooler than it should be, as you can see in the bluish-tint on the whites here.
I took this shot in fairly strong sunlight at about 7 in the morning, and that blue tint is present here, too. A quick trip to the camera settings to fix tweak the white balance might improve the overall look, but all of the details in the shrubbery up front are lost to image noise.
Conclusion
This phone isn't for everyone. It isn't for most. The average person would be better served by something like the Kyocera Brigadier ($50 on contract, $400 unlocked), which packs about 10 hours of battery life into a sturdy, water-resistant shell.
But the Sonim XP7 sits in an entirely different category, aimed at businesses that need reliable performance in the worst conditions. I can certainly manage to find an outlet every few days to keep my gadgets topped up. I don't often need to check my email while wearing snowboarding gloves, caked in mud and dust. And I wouldn't dream of trusting most cell phones to bear sheeting rain and howling winds with gusto while I hurriedly tore down a tent that was obviously built for milder climes. At least, not without worry.
The XP7 says "don't worry." It's a tool, and can be treated as one. And while it didn't prove indestructible (glass is glass), it took concentrated buffoonery to wear it down; Sonim says that accidental damage is covered by the three-year warranty. I'm not the right fit for this phone, and found that the user experience suffers from that focus on durability. But if you need a reliable device to get you through hazard-filled days, the Sonim XP7 will get the job done.