Sonim XP3300 Force rugged mobile phone

California-based phone manufacturer Sonim may not be an instantly recognisable name but it’s no stranger to making robust mobile phones. It was behind the first JCB phone and currently builds the S1 for Land Rover. The XP3300 Force is Sonim’s latest and greatest, the toughest of the tough, the bravest of the brave, the Marshal …

[Marvin the Martian]

Doubt remains...

Would it withstand attacks by teething toddlers? Then do me one.

[M Gale]

See now...

..that's a phone.

As in Crocodile Dundee telling you that in fact, no, that is not a knife you have right there.

[Lottie]

me likey!

It looks like a Nokia that's been on a steroid binge. For once, I can see the price justification in a phone. I suspect in the wild, you could put it in a sock and club a bear to death with it.

[Anonymous Coward]

hope its been redesigned...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8450385.stm

[Anonymous Coward]

ah,

I was wondering if it was the same one, is it the same one as they broke on that awful The One Show as well?

[Dapprman]

That the one the Click presenter broke in front of the CEO ?

(I've no video at work).

If it is, then yes - the CEO even invited Click back this year to test the updated design - this time it did survive.

[dave 46]

The question nobody ever answers

How good is the reception on poor signal areas?

The chances are people will use this somewhere outside the M25 and some of the more 'rugged' parts of the UK barely get a sniff of GSM.

[Anonymous Coward]

Previa

You 'fessed up to owning a Previa...you're a brave man.

Thankfully it's mostly out of shot, so I'll be able to keep my breakfast down.

[Matt_payne666]

a-gps

a-gps still uses satellites, but cell triangulation to get an inital bearing quicker... all that would happen is this phone would react much like a real gps and take 15 mins or so to build its almanac when its sufficently out of range of its last fix....

[Anomalous Cowturd]

@ Matt Re: 15 minutes

Even my 12 year old Garmin GPS 12 gets a "cold" fix in under 10 minutes. Less if I give it a country to start in. A newer Sirf III jobby does it in about 45 seconds...

Now, where did I leave the bloody thing?

[Al Taylor]

GPS etc

Erik, the handset is A-GPS equipped but I tested it in a local zero-GSM-reception black spot in the Pennines and still got a position lock in 15 seconds.

dave46 - reception was good everywhere I tried it - not better than my Nokia C1-01 but invariably I had an extra bar compared to my Motorola Defy so the radio stack is good if not exceptional.

As for the BBC's bash-it-against- a-fish-tank test, well, as I said, I'm pretty sure you could break it if you hit it with something hard and sharp enough but you would really need to try. Running it over with a two-tonne people carrier on a gravel drive seemed a more realistic test to me!

[Whitter]

@Al Taylor

Hardly "bash against fish tank", more "slowy immerse in water - much slower than meaningful - and it went kaputt". Simple fail.

[Al Taylor]

@ Whitter

If you watch the video the phone works perfectly well when it comes out of the drink, it's the slamming of the handset against the corner of the fish tank that seems to crack the screen.

[fluppet]

Dictionary

Hope they've added the ability to edit the dictionary this time round as that was the only thing that let the S1 down

[Bronek Kozicki]

niiiice!

I almost bought it, even though I already have working rugged phone!

[Anonymous Coward]

What a coincidence....

"I hit it with a hammer and then drove over it with a Toyota Previa...

That's funny - I've felt like doing that to my BlackBerry Torch for quite some time.