The rugged Sonim XP7 is a pricey all-weather workhorse
Phones
[MUSIC]
Hey, I'm Nate and today we're checking out the the Sonim XP 7. Now, this phone is available in Canada for about 750 Canadian Dollars unlocked and can be yours for about a hundred dollars with a two-year contract, depending on your carrier.
We should be hearing more about a US release later this year.
Now the phone is unapologetically bulky.
It weighs half a pound, and it's about 20 millimeters thick, eight tenths of an inch.
It technically fits in my pocket, but it's certainly not comfortable.
Now there's just one exposed port, the headphone jack.
Up on the top.
everything else is sealed up tight to keep out dust and water.
And the phone can survive in up to 2 meters of water for 30 minutes.
That's about 6 and a half feet.
It's also ready to survive drops to about 2 meters onto hard surfaces like concrete.
But you probably get that from the rubber shell.
Of course, that also means that the 4,800 milliamp powered battery is locked up tight.
But it gets about 40 hours of talk time.
I was generally fine when I was away from an outlet for a day, or two, or three.
Performance of a 1.2 Gigaherz quad core processor and it tackled all the apps and games I threw at it with ease.
Results are 16 gigs of internal storage and the phone runs Android 4.4 kit kat.
Call quALITY WAS great, though I tested it on AT&T's lte network in San Francisco.
Your experience will vary in Canada.
The noise canceling microphone helped people hear what I'm saying pretty clearly.
And if you're surrounded by loud machinery, don't worry, the speakerphone up top here gets really loud.
The display is a bit of a sore point.
It's got a lowly 800 by 480 pixel resolution and runs into problems with color shifting.
Colors start to look washed out when you look at the phone off axis.
But even though the colors can look a bit off, you'll always be able to see the screen pretty clearly even in direct sunlight.
The phone also supports things like push to talk and that red button on the side can call for twenty four seven emergency support hotline.
Aid to health workers who might be alone and in need of assistance somewhere.
Now, the Sonim XP 7 isn't a phone for everyone.
In fact, it's not really a phone for most people.
And there are things it could do better.
I'd like to see a high resolution screen, and the camera could be better.
Both of those would make for a really great experience if you, say, wanna share something with your fellow campers or if you're working offsite and you wanna share something with the folks back in civilization.
That being said, if your work keeps you out in the wild, or you just spend a lot of time camping and you want a device that can survive, the Sanima XG7 is going to get the job done.
I'm Nate Ralf.
Thanks for watching.
