Home  Out Now  Coming Soon Advertise  WAP  Search  Subscribe   RSS 2.0 Feed   YouTube   
 

 

Sonim XP3 Enduro

 Sonim XP3 Available now
24th November 2008

 Watch video  Talk about this article  Add to social bookmarks

The Sonim XP3 Enduro is the follow-up to the Sonim XP1 (also called the JCB TOUGHPHONE). The XP1 had a reputation for being pretty much unbreakable.. but evidently that wasn't quite enough for the folks at Sonim who have made the XP3 even tougher.

No, we don't know what happened to the XP2. We assume that it is on some deep-cover black ops mission somewhere on a mission to save the world.

Where the old XP1 was "only" an IP-54 certified device, the XP3 is IP-57 certified. That's almost as tough as an electronic device can get.. to put it another way, the XP3 is fully waterproof and can be submersed under 1 metre of water, or can be dropped 2 metres onto concrete and still survive. The XP3 is more-or-less dustproof and is resistant to vibration, and the keypad buttons have been tested to half a million keypresses. It also has MIL-810F certification against salt, thermal shock, transport shock and even fog. Yes, the old XP1 is tough.. this is really tough.

 Sonim XP3 in Black The Sonim XP3 Enduro's robustness is due in part to the injection moulded rubber. Everything is reinforced, all the ports are covered in rubber and the entire construction process has been designed to make the XP3 as tough and reliable as possible.

 

Usefully, the Sonim XP3 has a built-in torch.. something that more phones should come with as standard. You can fit an external antenna to it too, which is useful if you are using the XP3 in a poor reception area. The beefy 1180 mAh battery gives up to 5.5 hours talktime and 9 days standby time. The speakerphone and ringtones have been made VERY LOUD so that you can hear the XP3 in difficult environments.

The XP3 Enduro's robustness does come with some drawbacks. For example, the screen is only a basic 128 x 160 pixel 65,000 colour panel. Why? Well, we guess that the main reason is that bigger displays break more easily, and the XP3 really doesn't compromise when it comes to toughness. There's no camera, memory slot, or any frippery like that for the same reason - these things tend to compromise the integrity of the phone. You might guess that the XP3 doesn't support 3G.. because frankly what would you do with 3G on a phone like this?

But the XP3 Enduro does come with a WAP browser, Outlook synchronisation, a to-do list ("kill baddies"?), and Bluetooth. It also supports MP3 ringtones (James Bond? Jaws? The A-Team?) and has a photo organiser (presumably to help you recognise the arch-villain when you trap him in his layer).

Sonim can also provide some very sensible management tools for people who want to use Push-To-Talk Over Cellular (PoC) functionality, this can bring "walkie talkie" style functionality to the XP1 and XP3 and also allows alerts to be broadcast. You can see that this might make the Sonim XP1 and XP3 handy for major construction projects and similar tasks.

The Sonim XP3 Enduro is available in "Shoot Me" Yellow or a rather more discrete Black colour scheme. In the UK, the XP3 will be available for £245 (including VAT) without a contract, or free when taken with a new Vodafone contract. Sonim say that the XP3 should be in the shops for Christmas. More details can be found here.

 Comments    |     Slashdot Slashdot It    Digg this Digg this     Post to del.icio.us Post to del.icio.us

 Subscribe to our newsletter or RSS feed for more news on upcoming releases
 

Sonim XP3 Enduro at a glance

Available:

Q4 2008

Network:

GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900

Data:

GPRS

Screen:

128 x 160 pixels, 65k colours

Camera:

No

Size:

Large monoblock
119 x 56 x 25mm / 140 grams

Bluetooth:

Yes

Memory card:

No

Infra-red:

No

Polyphonic:

No

Java:

No

GPS:

No

Battery life:

5.5 hours talk / 9 days standby

 

 About Us       Links

Copyright (c) 2014 - Unauthorised copying is prohibited by law. Use of this site means that you agree to our privacy and cookie policies.

Quantcast