After years of quite breaking fragile phones whilst Geocaching, when it was time to renew my ageing iPhone I took a look at the market place. One other thing that had bugged me over the years is having to charge a phone daily and if GPS is used heavily having to cart a powerpack to top up the battery, I’m operating system agnostic so wasn’t too bothered the Android iOs ‘wars’. There was one phone brand that leapt out at me which was Doogee’ a Chinese phone brand that is focused on rugged designs. Doogee is part of KVD International Group Limited headquartered in Shenzhen, China, since 2013, which is a long time in the small player mobile-phone world. The phone has a military hardware styling and claims to meet military standards for ruggedness which I don’t doubt. The 10000mAh battery lasts about a week between charges and with heavy GPS use about 3 days and as a bonus can reverse wireless charge other phones to share the power. For positioning, it can utilise GPS, GPS-A, GLONASS & BeiDou and lock times are impressive, with surprising accuracy. It’s tough, heavy and reliable, but it’s not all roses, being a Chinese phone there’s little or no support if anything goes wrong so my tip is to buy off Amazon and use a credit card to have even any hope of warranty.
Update: The SIM card holder broke on the third time inserting. Despite repeated attempts to contact Doodee support, I got no reply. Amazon stepped in and refunded my money, it’s a shame that what was a promising phone was let down by non-existent support and a £2 sim holder .
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My verdict
On paper, the S88 Pro is astounding value. Plenty of CPU power, long battery life and fully-featured GPS, bulletproof construction but it is too big to fit in a normal-sized pocket and very heavy. Not my daily driver but, for long Geocaching adventures, it’s ideal.
Specs
Android 10
CPU: MTK6771T Helio P70 Octa Core up to 2.0GHz
GPU: ARM Mali-G72
RAM: 6GB
Storage: 128GB
Screen size: 6.3-inch
Resolution: 2340 x 1080
Weight: 372g
Dimensions: 171.6 x 85.5 x 18.7mm
Rear camera: SONY IMX230 21.4 MP + 8 MP + 8 MP
Front camera: Samsung S5K3 16 MP
OS: Android 10
Battery: 10000mAh
Available from Amazon Doogee S88pro
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