Gadgetory

hey what is going on guys lawn here from andrew authority and most phones nowadays are designed to be thin and good-looking at the sacrifice of durability but sonim has a phone that deviates from all of that but is a phone built to take a lot of abuse worth the investment well that's what we're going to find out with the sonim xp1 the sonim xp1 sleek lightweight or good-looking in any way but it wasn't meant to be in fact it's actually everything most current day smartphones aren't it's thick bulky and heavy and it feels like a brick in both the hand and the pocket but there's a reason for it all this phone was designed for people that live a very rough lifestyle and they need a phone that can keep up this is far and away from a phone that's made for the casual user the phone isn't indestructible and I eventually was able to damage it but it can take one hell of a beating and keep on ticking the hard rubberized outer casing not only protects it against the most brutal of drops but also makes the phone resistant to puncture it can also withstand corrosive chemicals and oils extreme pressure and sudden shocks or vibrations just to name a few the package wouldn't be complete without a rating of ip68 that makes it resistance dust and water for up to two meters for 30 minutes and IP 69 for resistance against high temperature pressure wash taking a look at the rest of the hardware the xp7 comes with only 16 gigabytes of storage with no option for expansion so you're pretty much stuck with the on-board storage and cloud-based services you'll find the volume rocker on the right side with a red button to contact Sodom's emergency support line for loan workers the service isn't currently available but is expected to launch this year on the left side is a dedicated camera key a push-to-talk button and a very awkwardly placed power button the buttons on the front are physical and you can wake the display with the home button so that will help cut down on how often you have to reach for that power button on top is a very bright and handy notification light accompanied by a 3.5 mm headset jack and a SIM card slot which are both covered by flaps held in with work screws the headphone jack can be accessed without removing the Torx screw but the SIM card slot will require you to remove them with the tool included in the box before you can insert your SIM the charging port is located on the bottom but it's a proprietary magnetic port instead of the usual microUSB which is kind of unfortunate considering how prevalent microUSB is these speakers on the front which is nice however it's only one speaker and even though it gets extremely loud the audio sounds are very Hollow and tinny it can get pretty obnoxious at high volumes and I found myself keeping the volume low a lot because of how harsh it sounds the good majority of the specs is basically low end to mid range and the display is going to make you feel like you're back in 2010 it's a four inch screen with WVGA resolution and it's functional but in this day and age it's a pretty poor looking panel on top of being low res the colors are washed out there's a lot of color shifting when viewing off axis and it doesn't create for a very good gaming or media consuming experience you won't be able to view videos in high resolutions or take full advantage of high-end games which to me is the biggest downside of this display on the bright side the screen is usable with gloves which complements the hardware keys well but that is really the only feature that makes this screen stand out for the processing package the sonim xp1 packs the very commonly used Snapdragon 400 processor and one gigabyte of RAM like most phones running a Snapdragon 400 the performance is quite respectable and everyday use the xb7 runs very smoothly absolute quickly and graphic intensive gaming is also a breeze it probably also helps that the processor doesn't have as many pixels to push around due to the low resolution display and that is running a basically stock version of Android the camera on the back of the XP 7 is of the 8 megapixel variety and since it's running stock Android you're dealing with the stock Android camera it's not the more up-to-date Google camera so if you want to use that you'll have to download it from Google Play the stock Android camera if you aren't familiar with it is a pretty bare-bones experience with just the essential features like HDR exposure panorama and a few other basic camera settings the picture quality I would say is OK at best there's certainly a lot better than I expected with a fairly decent amount of color and detail the only things I really noticed was that a lot of the photos tend to have a very cold or bluish cast of them and the lack of dynamic range HDR will help bring out more detail but it does so at the expense of introducing more noise into the picture one of the biggest highlights of the sonim xp1 definitely has to be the battery life it's a huge 4,800 milliamp hour battery and when you combine that with the fact that the processor isn't pushing very many pixels due to that low resolution display you pretty much have a recipe for really awesome battery life with 48 hours off the charger and almost 11 hours of screen on time I have no doubts that you can go a weekend road trip with this phone and not have to worry about bringing a charger and this is what's really heavy usage like playing games and watching a lot of YouTube and I still had a really hard time killing the battery on this phone so I was really pleasantly surprised by how long it lasted on a single charge like I mentioned a few times already the sonim xp1 is running what it's basically a stock Android experience of 4.4 kitkat there's a few Telus applications and FM radio and a couple of useful additions like a flashlight toggle on the lockscreen but otherwise it's a very pure experience that will keep things running very smooth and fast the sonim XP 7 is designed for Canadian carriers like Telus and Bell but it will work on t-mobile and AT&T LTE networks it does go for six hundred and fifty dollars off contract which is really expensive for what is essentially a mid-range phone so in order to justify the price you really have to want its ruggedized capabilities but even then that might not be compelling enough for some users but that is going to do it for the sonim xp1 something to keep in mind with this phone is that it's not meant for everyone it's a very niche product with a very specific audience so if you're a casual user this phone is not not going to be worth it but if you happen to have the lifestyle to match it it could potentially pay for itself in the long run as always guys thank you so much for watching this review if you did enjoy it please give it a thumbs up down below and also subscribe to the channel which is also down below if you haven't already and don't forget to check out the website for more in-depth coverage and Road Authority calm because we are your source for all things Android