Land Rover phone, Hummer phone, Ferrary phone etc. sound OK; but naming smart phone to a smart car branded phone wouldn't be very smart :D

Would a Ferrari phone be anything more than a red phone? In the way the 'Prada phone' was simply a bit of styling.

The 'Land Rover' phone is actually a unique beast, with unique capabilities. Hence the co-branding helps get it out there, it appeals for function, not for fashion/vanity (although, like 4x4 purchases, some will buy purely for looks/implicit ruggedness. "I'm as tough as my mobile" etc etc)

They have sold 300,000 of the 'JCB' model at £250 a pop (or thereabouts, I think the CEO said). That's a serious market already established. If they make $100 profit per handset, that's $30m. Nice. This one has GPS and is even tougher, and the publicity with Land Rover will roll on. I expect they will continue to do well. It's made in China (as all mobiles are), at 300k+ already they have scale, and any compromise on build quality/environment spec would make it pointless, so the opportunity for being undercut by a major player - Nokia / SEM / HTC - is unlikely given the relatively small current market for this sort of phone.

Unique-ish. It looks identical to the Sonim XP3 Quest - I wonder if Land Rover have anything changed except some branding.

A few years back I would have loved getting a handset like this for all my climbing and mountaineering activities.

Funnily, it's the same phone with a Land Rover badge ;-) Didn't mean to imply otherwise. (Actually, didn't realise the XP3 Quest existed - had to Google it. That's why they did the tie-in otherwise no-one would have known about it. Just like the JCB tie-in last year.)

My point being: The marketing wins for both brands. Sonim get Sir Ran Fiennes and a ton of bloke-appealing coverage, LR extend their brand buy-in into the most intimate area of modern life - the mobile. Both products are at the top of their segments for durability, so they don't compromise by the association.

Googlephone, Facebookphone, Landroverphone. Makes sense to the masses. Pradaphone kind of sank without much trace.

#Sonim CEO Bob Plaschke writes on his blog - "The eagle-eyed among you will notice that it looks pretty much the same as the XP3. In fact, from the front, it looks so much like the XP3. The fun stuff is happening round the back. You can read fully blog at - http://toughestphone.typepad.com/bobs_blog/2009....

So I think #LandRover S1 looks like XP3, but its not the same phone branded as S1. XP3 doesn't have camera I guess.

Interesting. I was actually pointing at the XP3 Quest though, not the XP3. Their product page shows different information for each, with the Quest having the digital camera you mention.

lol, "Ferrary" sorry, I mean Ferrari. I won't post without checking after fast writting again ;)

Yes, but will it survive Whatleydude taking it to Glastonbury next week??

I can see a use for this at some of the utilities I have been with. First line emergency call out (both water and gas) often is in dreadful conditions at night and, often enough, in trenches. 3 or 4 hours of continuous call time would make a big difference to these guys.

The API would also mean companies doing works management systems (e.g. Maximo) can put "in the field" interfaces onto a device like this and it won't matter if it gets dropped in a flooded trench where they are bashing things with large steel pipes trying to stop the leaks. I'm over selling it, but a lot of this work does happen in bad conditions and lots of water is fairly typical.

I do wonder about the man-down function. You drop your phone and it rings emergency services: I can see that getting very tiring very fast.

Hate the damn thing, as i do all badge engineered Sonim based rip offs, 80% of the asking price goes on protection you'll never need or use.
Money would be better spent on a "normal" phone tied with a decent quality protective case, i have family members who work on Oil-rigs and building sites who manage A OK with their Blackberrys and Nokias suitably protected.
Unless your the sort of person who enjoys including your mobile in deranged S&M; sessions steer well clear, this is the kind of phone that's purchased by people with over much disposable income, who derive childish pleasure from dropping their mobile in a pint of best bitter on a Saturday night just to prove how waterproof it is, and how devoid of brain cells they are.

The point is it's not for 'normal' usage - it's for very very extreme use. And £299 sim-free is effectively free on all but the very lowest contracts. The guarantee's worth that price alone in my book. I don't need one, but my mate the ski instructor does...

Mark, I disagree with your blanket statement that IP57 protection is "never need[ed] or use[d]"

I partake in Adventure Racing. Mobiles are always on the compulsory kit list. I've only done single day races, but even these involved 3hrs of running and 3hrs of MTB riding in fairly atrocious conditions. After a few hours of gale-force rain even the most expensive triple-layer Goretex kit is sodden. My trusty but rather expensive N95 8GB was well-wrapped in a special waterproof case, but if I needed to use it, the chances of it getting dropped by numb, wet fingers into mud/water would have been pretty high. Bye-bye £500 phone. I would have liked to take snaps as I trotted along, but it was just too wet/windy to risk it. My wife called me half way through the day, and this required a lot of faffing to get the phone out and shield it from the pouring rain to answer.

No matter how good your waterproof case is, there is a chance it will leak due to even a pinhole. When it is being bashed about inside a rucksack for days along with other kit the chances of springing a leak are pretty good.

So when a phone comes along at £300, that will stand up to anything, AND has a 3-year no-quibble warranty, I say it's a sure-fire bet for the AR crowd - and it's a large crowd these days too. Ditto mountaineers, kayakers, sailors, fell runners - in fact anyone who ventures seriously outdoors and needs comms.

Plus the 75-day standby time means you are sorted with one charge for all but the most lengthy expedition.

My father-in-law is a plumber, and goes through a phone every year at least through wear and tear. With networks less keen to subsidise handsets, SIM-free is a great alternative.

And the 'Quality protective cases' are uniformly large and ungainly, obscuring ports, buttons, screens etc. The good ones cost a lot too, and none of them protect phone internals from shock if dropped. People have used them because in the past they HAD to, not because they wanted to. The Sonim is the first (OK, the old SEM sharkfin was a good try) phone for those who give their mobiles a punishing, but don't want the faff of a) insurance replacements b) cost if no insurance is had c) the mucking about and downtime of getting a new mobile d) getting tied to yet another contract to get it cheap/free.

Mark, do you hassle people who buy watches waterproof to 30m? or cars that can do 150MPH? Or jackets insulated to -20? or cameras that can blow up images to the size of a billboard?

All the above are highly unlikely to ever be needed by just about anyone. But a phone that can survive being dropped on the footpath or in a puddle unscathed, as many times as you like? Actually, really, useful.

Mike

Excellent comment, I've spent a lot of time in the moutains over the years, often going away for a couple of weeks at a time, and this would certainly be a great option for me as I wouldn't have to worry about charging it, taking much care of it etc. I think a lot of mountain rescue teams would snap this thing up.

I spent several years working in oil exploration in West Africa, we'd have bought dozens of these for our crews. They're built for a specific user base who work in unusual places and conditions. Regular users wouldn't begin to imagine the uses for this phone but those of us who have need of them can see many more.

It's a great price and an amazing warranty, I expect them to shift as many as they can build.

J.

Best.Interview.Ever.

Period.

If I was going trecking i would defo get one of these...the fact that it comes with a 3 year no-quibble warranty is perfect because no-one else offers that so what ever you do to the phone you know you can always get it replaced.

So... we need a new camera then? ;)

Don't be silly, half an hour in the tumble dryer and it'll be fine!

humm...that's a good guarantee claim for that phone...I put the phone in the tumble dryer because it was wet and it melted!!!

I was talking about the wet camera (see last 5 seconds of the video). I've seen the earlier Sonim XP3 survive a washer dryer on full wash/dry cycle.

yer i know, but just thought that would be some nice claim to go on their top list...if not dryer, "I accidentally put it in the oven for 6 hours" try to read the IMEI off that one!

What's the chance of the dryer tripping the accelerometer and calling the emergency services?

ps. great vid!

this is the future of all journalism on the subject of mobile, the moving subject is now a reallymobileproject staple :) Had to watch in again because the laughing is so good.

If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs....

I vote that all interviews you do take place in extreme environments. Roller coasters, skydiving, assault courses. If the CEO can keep talking during that experience - he really knows his product.

And, only £300? I hope to never go anywhere that would need that ruggedness, but at that price, it's worth buying just in case of alien invasion.

Yes, I was very impressed with Bob's ability to answer questions while being thrown around the back of that car!

Samsung B2100 anyone ? No BS, just a phone. 3x cheaper.
And Mark Webster is right. Nobody needs this.

'No one needs this'? They've sole hundreds of thousands... and the Samsung is nowhere near as tough.

The design of the phone looks very similar to the Nokia 5140, which passed numerous tests on The Gadget Show a few years ago. Are Land Rover actually developing the phone in-house, or is it a partnership with a handset manufacturer?

It's developed by Sonim and is tested to IP67 (from memory) which is an industrial standard of ingress protection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_Code)... much more demanding than the Nokia which was a consumer product.

Please elaborate on nowhere near as tough. I believe the 2100 has the US millspec. rating
and the EU bla bla labels. Or is this not your point ?

Good find - at €170 that's a lot of competition for the Sonim. No GPS though, for people looking for the man-down function, and about half the battery. The review I read mentioned a 1m drop test rating. The Sonim is 2m. 'scuse my physics, but I believe that makes the Sonim considerably tougher on paper, in a lab. Is Samsung stretching their figure while Sonim play conservative? Or vice-versa? Or are they both on the money?

I'd like to see a crush/drop test shootout. I wonder if Samsung would be up for it? C'mon Tim!...I mean, TRMP!

And Pieter - you/Mark are right and wrong - No-one NEEDS this phone. In fact, all you NEED is oxygen, food and water. No-one NEEDS any kind of phone, ever. But they make life easier/safer/more enjoyable. Some people spend time in the outdoors or in harsh work environments, and for them phones this tough are very useful.

Mike

Point taken....

That was one cool video! Now if I can just get my hands on one of those S1, I too will strap it on to my LR and make my own, LOL.

Really Tough....!

http://nokia-betalabs.blogspot.com/