I personally hate smartphones. Well, I hate all phones, but my ire is truly directed toward the current crop of smartphones, as not only am I never truly away from my desk, but because all modern smartphones are built like they're made out of tinfoil, i.e. I tend to break them a lot and in truly weird ways.
And, to be fair, back in the day with brick-like Nokias, ones that were supposedly "military-spec," I'd break those too. I recall one such phone snapping in half, which I don't think Nokia even though possible. But I always like to joke that I'm an engineer's worst nightmare. I am the edge-case scenario, the engineering required to go past 135% of users.
It's why I refuse to entrust my safety to anything but a Garmin inReach device in the backcountry as, even though Apple now offers smartphones with satellite capability, I literally just shattered the entire back of my iPhone after it had been in my pocket for the last three months and encased in a protective case. How did I do that, I honestly don't know.
But this supposedly rugged, outdoor-spec smartphone from the Chinese brand Oukitel may just be the answer to my smartphone needs. At least, that's what it promises. But I've never met a phone I can't break, so let's talk details and see if I'll be replacing my Garmin soon.
LOL, I wouldn't dare.
The Oukitel WP210 harkens back to the Nokias of old, but is designed to give them an iPhone update. First and foremost, it's both waterproof and dustproof to IP68 and IP69K, respectively, and can supposedly withstand a fall from 5 feet without issue. The face of the phone also uses Gorilla Glass 5, both for the face and the camera lenses, the latest and strongest from the outfit, which is supposedly scratch-proof—I'll be the judge of that.
Its aluminum frame is also a pretty hefty 0.5-inch thick, which is about the same size as my current iPhone with a case ensconcing it. That said, according to the brand, it's gone through 200-plus drum drops, 10,000 micro drops, 10-plus impact drops, and can survive underwater for over 2 hours without damage.
As for your regular smartphone needs, according to our friends at New Atlas, the 8800mAh battery is good for "20 hours of video watching, 52 hours of continuous talk time or 26 hours of mobile gaming," and can backward-capable charge your wireless headphones if need be. A 45-watt fast charger also means you can go from zero to 100% charged with relative ease and speed. Oukitel also gave the WP210 a 6.7-inch FHD+ AMOLED Display, with a 500-nit typical brightness.
You also get a four-lens camera setup, with a 0.3 megapixel depth camera, a 2 megapixel macro lens, a 108 megapixel main camera, and a 32 megapixel front-facing camera. There's also 12GB of RAM, and it comes with half a terabyte of storage space. According to the brand, it's also satellite-capable, working with GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and Beidou networks, but I'm unsure how those specifically work and whether you'd be able to use them to text or relay your position when you're out in the wild.
It also runs on an Android operating system, as of course it does.
As for price, you can pick up an Oukitel WP210 for $599 off Amazon, which is significantly less than any of your regular smartphones if you go through your carrier. You do, however, get the option for two SIM cards, which is nice. That said, while the specs seem solid, I'd still be concerned with adopting it for my safety, even with all the upgraded intrusion protection features, super-strong glass, and satellite capability. I'd love to test it and put it against a Garmin device to see if it could hang, though.
