Gadgetory

so as a tech reviewer I'm obviously someone who really enjoyed technology and that's one of the coolest things about working for Android Authority I get to play with all sorts of really cool technology unfortunately a lot of the time that technology is kind of boring it's lots of squares with screens on them and there's not tons to get excited about however when I was sent to the do GS 92 review I knew that I was looking at something a little bit different the first thing that clued me into that fact was the box which was gigantic and had a drawer and just assembling all the different parts that it came with all the modules I felt a bit like James Bond or some kind of super spy looking at all the stuff that Q had given me for my latest mission so this is a much more exciting phone than most like a lot of more out there technology the new GS 90 began life on Kickstarter that's where it got funded it's massively exceeded its goal already by a huge margin and it's still rank so if you want to get involved you still can and that's how to get hold of one of these as cheaply as possible but should you get involved would you want to get hold of one of these well that's what I'm gonna be looking at here so other than the fact that this device comes with lots of modules lots of add-ons things to lose if you're me the other notable aspect of this device is its heft this is a rugged device it's supposed to be adaptable for adventuresome type so if you go on lots of hikes if you go rock climbing if you go skiing then this is the phone you'll want to bring with you that's the sales pitch to that end it's incredibly durable and can withstand all sorts of attacks it's waterproof dust resistant all that stuff that you'd expect it's got bumpers around the edge it's military spec it can withstand being submerged in water 1.5 meters for two weeks apparently which is quite impressive it's got these old-school flaps and it's thick and heavy unfortunately is any Gorilla Glass 4 which is already slightly out of date so that's a bit disappointing but other than that this is a phone that should have a hard time destroying so if you were to drop it in a puddle or you to run over it with your push bike then it should be fine in theory I did actually test it there's some slightly drop testing dropped into some muddy puddles and one of the buttons which we'll come to in a moment stop working and I don't know if that's because of me or if it's because of a quality control issue or what but yeah something to keep in mind despite being so thick and bulky I do you think it has its own kind of rugged charm and actually hate the look of it they've got some nice touches around it's got this kind of hexagonal pattern which kind of makes it look a bit futuristic the screws that are visible look like they're meant to be there and to be fair if you're so many needs a really rugged phone chances are you're gonna add a really thick case to it in theory this doesn't need a thick case you might just want a screen protector and so actually the difference in size might not be that noticeable if you're that audience and this is a phone that really knows its audience and it's not for everyone and that's fine one other thing I'll say that I didn't really like about the design so much is the reflective screen which obviously makes legibility in direct sunlight a bit difficult which doesn't make a lot of sense for a device that you're supposed to be using outdoors there's also no headphone jack which kind of sucks but you can understand why they admitted it and opening up these flaps gets pretty old pretty fast other than the shininess the LCD screen is nice and big and this fhd plus is fine for media playback and the sounds perfectly adequate as well what's really cool is the number of buttons on this thing and only do you have your usual volume rocker and power button you also have a custom button which you can set to all sorts of different things you can program single clicks double clicks along clicks like I say mine stopped working but in theory that's really good and you get a camera button so what's really good about that is that normally when you get a custom button the first thing a lot of people are going to do is set it to launch the camera app but because you've already got a camera button here you can do all sorts of things with that and that's going to be really useful if you are at the top of a mountain with thick gloves on or if it's freezing cold and you don't want to use the screen I would say though that this button is a little bit easy to hit by accident and that can be a bit annoying but I'm sure you'll get used to it over time in general this is a phone that does require some learning you need to develop the muscle memory for it in terms of specs it's fairly middling as you might expect you get a Helio P 60 chipset you get six gigabytes of RAM 128 gigabytes of storage which is quite nice and performance is fine for swiping through the UI reading webpages etc and you can even do some light gaming something like pub G ran just fine on medium settings the one module I didn't get to try actually is a gamepad module I guess it wasn't ready at the time they sent this out for the review and it looks quite cool it attaches on and lets you play with physical keys however given the chipset it doesn't really make tons of sense seeing as this isn't exactly a gaming phone and at the same time it's a bit off brands as far as I'm concerned I mean you're not gonna be up mountain playing pub G probably so bit random but I guess why not other than durability something else that's quite important for someone who's going on a hike on adventure is the camera unfortunately the performance of this camera is really fairly middling you get a dual lens camera at the back you can't do bakka effects or anything like that with it it's got an F 2.0 aperture which isn't particularly impressive and performance is just really average and even poor in some cases I mean it takes photos of stuff and endure some photos come out okay there's not much post-processing they're a bit bland to put they'll do the job however when you take it outside it really seems to struggle with exposure even with the HDR mode on which is off by default so you get these white skies and these really bland looking scenes Detailers a bit lacking it seems to be over sharpened in some cases like I say it's fine if you want to just take photos of your dog to upload to social media but if you're an adventurer and you've just reached the summit of an amazing climb and you want to take out a camera and take a photo to capture that amazing moment you're not gonna want to do it on this one which is a shame because that would have been an obvious match that's for the front-facing camera it's an 8 megapixel camera doesn't do anything fancy would have been so cool to have like a wide-angle lens here so you could get yourself and your friends at the top of a mountain in general there's lots of missed opportunities and strange design decisions like the gorilla glass like the reflective screen like the lack of great front-facing camera but it's not highly expensive device and considering everything you get you can see why some corners had to be cut the software experience is built on Android 8.1 but actually there is a fair amount of customization here some of which is a hit and some of which is a miss so you get gesture controls which is really cool so you can wake your phone by wiggling it and you can launch apps by wiggling it and that's really useful again if you've got thick gloves on and you also get a bunch of custom apps which is really cool you get something called the tool which basically gives you access to all sorts of things that take advantage of some of the unique senses in here like the barometer so you can measure altitude and you can measure gradients and you can even use it for hanging a picture which i think is quite cool there's a compass in here and that's all pretty neat unfortunately there are also some customizations I wasn't so keen on for instance like Samsung you get a bunch of duplicate apps in here it makes more sense from Samsung Bing as Samsung as a massive company I don't know why I do G feels the need to give us their own browser but it's there and you can't delete it bit annoying not the end of the world my slightly more obtrusive perhaps is some of the aesthetic decisions that design decisions around the UI you get this kind of black gray and gold color scheme or bronze which looks nice enough but it's not so nice on those big skeuomorphic icons which unfortunately are also present in the settings menu so you can't get rid of them completely probably what you really want to hear about is those modules so how are they are they worth it do they add much extra functionality well if you go for the full caboodle then in the box to get a wireless charger which isn't a module but is a nice touch you also get a puzzle which is weird but other than that you get four modules three of which I've been able to test walk and talk hello night-vision camera extra battery oh it's an extra battery and there's a gamepad that haven't been out the test as well and if you back this product on Kickstarter you'll either be able to get the full kit with everything included or you can buy just the phone and then optionally buy additional modules just picking and choosing the ones that you need the modules clip on and off really quickly using a magnet there's no need to reboot the phone and in theory it's a really cool concept extra battery you already have in here a five thousand milliamp hour battery there's actually 5050 or that's a lot of juice and then when you add this you get an extra five thousand and so with that clipped on then in theory you go for a long camping trip you could for a long hike and really not worry about having to plug in and charge anywhere which is obviously really useful if you're the sort of person who does that kind of thing a lot then you get the walkie-talkie the idea being of course if you're somewhere that doesn't get signal or if you want to spare your data then you can speak to someone else who's got another walkie-talkie it doesn't have to be a do G just as long as they're able to pick up the same frequency which I don't know much about walkie-talkies but that sounds good I guess and the last module was the one I was most excited about and unfortunately the mo disappointed with theory this is an awesome idea I'd love a night-vision camera myself however its performance is really middling the low-light performance of the main camera is abysmal you won't really be able to take any photos if it's even slightly dark add this on and you get a significant upgrade to the clarity unfortunately you can only take photos in 1080p and there's a big fish eye effect and so you think well that's pretty cool until you compare it to something like the note 9 and you realize that the note 9 is able to take better low-light photos with no gimmick with no reduction in quality with no fisheye lens than this can with that attachment rendering it almost completely useless which is a big shame I mean that's a bit of fun and if you want it then sure it will upgrade the camera you haven't here generally but don't buy this thing because you want a night-vision camera just don't but on the whole what do I make of the digi s 90 well it's a really difficult one for me to review fairly because I had a ton of fun with it normally when I'm reviewing a phone I use two litmus tests and decide if I like them or not one is how much am I looking forward to getting back to using my daily driver than no.9 and the other is how sad am I to have to give it back and the weird thing about this one is that I was really sad to give it back but also I couldn't wait to stop using it which is a bit strange and that's probably because it's a really nice frame that might appeal to a very specific group of people it's exciting but it also has a lot of shortcomings and setbacks so that makes it even more niche someone who works in construction who isn't hugely into technology might enjoy having a really thick rugged phone with a massive battery life that they can throw around that can get dusty and in theory other than this button it should be able to stand up to that punishment I'm pretty sure that's just my model I wouldn't you know assume that every phone is going to break like that it's not coming back likewise if you are someone who hikes and explores and adventures and you want a phone like this then this could be really useful and some of the modules could be handy maybe the walkie talkie certainly the battery pack in that scenario likewise it's useful as a backup phone if you want something that's tough and it's going to last a long time if you haven't be going on a camping trip even if you're not like an adventurer type of an explorer but most people I'm going to want to frame this big the shortcomings are a nuisance it can be a pain to use so I really wouldn't recommend this to the majority of people and like I say certainly knowing with a small pocket or small hands but like I say I loved reviewing it it was tons of fun and I think doogee deserves some credit to trying something different and being inventive so that's they do GS 90 something really different and really interesting and whilst it might not be the best phone in the world it did make me feel a bit like James Bond for a little bit so I like it don't necessarily buy it I hope you found this video useful and interesting if you did then please share around please leave a like comment down below let me know what you think of this thing maybe what other modules you'd like to see and check out the full review over and Rathore's comm where you can also find tons of news features dev posts all the usual stuff because we are your source for all things 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