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Smartphone for long trips


Hisu
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G'day, fellow nerds!

People aren't always by the power socket. Some of them even go out in the wild. Weird as it might be, I'm looking for a smartphone fitting this kind of activity. It doesn't have to be something with power enough to rival Deep Blue, or a camera that puts Hubble Space Telescope to shame. But it has to be something I can take on a week-long hiking trip and not have to drag powerbanks and generators along. Something that doesn't die because of little rain, or some dust, or from falling 6-10 feet and landing on a rock. Something that hangs on to a signal with steel teeth if it even smells one (yes, I'm looking at you and your shitty antennas, Samsung). And last but not least, it has to be something that doesn't suddenly start glitching up, because I usually don't carry a tech lab with me, either.

So far, my best bets are Conquest S8 Pro or S9, Snopow M9 and Runbo F1. But first seems to have a lot of software bugs (and is also un-root-able, which is unacceptable), second often having faulty hardware, and third eating up batteries far quicker than it should. Is there anything else? To recite: it has to last a week on single charge, shrug off falling on the floor, getting wet and dusty, and hold on weak signal for dear life. While being a smartphone and doing smartphon-ey things: 3G, LTE, WiFi, running games, reading books, etc.

So, I wonder if there are people who probably had the same problem looking for a phone and already solved it. Are there?

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Alas, a Nokia 3310 and a deck of cards used to go a long way for us nature treks, no more.

Any old Android brick can be thrown off a cliff and in to water with the right case:

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/smartphone-covers-that-takes-drops/

Most 'all in one' durable phones are a race to the bottom ordeal, I'd be weary of anything under $1500 that claims ruggedness, with those thin thin bumpers. You're paying a high premium on someone's niche use phone.

My $0.02,

~Sasha.

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Most phones are pretty similar in terms of battery life now. Though it also depends a lot on what you're doing. Like if you're on it constantly livestreaming or tweeting or whatever, it'll obviously die quicker. But if you're mainly using it to maybe take a few pictures and maybe listen to music, you might be fine. Either way, your best bet would be to get a powerbank. There are some pretty small ones that hold a pretty good charge.

Signal I think is more reliant on your carrier rather than the phone itself. I will say though, T-Mobile certainly does not work well in the mountains

Durability, much like battery life, is pretty similar too. I think Android phones might fair a little better than the iPhone, but it'll probably still shatter if you drop it on a rock. I'd suggest getting an Otterbox

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