• Analyst report claims primary smartphone market is expected to decline 14.8% in 2026
• Entry level smartphone prices have already risen more than 50% this year
• Refurbished smartphone sales grew 4% year-on-year during the first quarter of 2026

The global smartphone market is heading toward a difficult 2026 as rising component costs force manufacturers to increase device prices, new research has claimed.

New findings from FDM CCS Insight note the primary smartphone market is expected to decline by 14.8% in 2026 as memory shortages continue affecting production.

The decline follows a 4.4% year-on-year contraction in the primary smartphone market during 1Q26, despite manufacturers and retailers building inventory earlier.

Memory shortages push buyers toward refurbished smartphones

As consumers search for cheaper alternatives to new devices, the demand for refurbished smartphones is expected to increase but so is the price.

FDM CCS Insight reports that some entry-level smartphones have already experienced price increases exceeding 50% compared with the previous year.

“Many consumers will hold onto their phone for longer, and these effects will be much more pronounced for consumers buying phones under $500,” said Ben Hatton, Research Analyst at FDM CCS Insight.

“Some consumers will need a new phone…and so we do expect more demand for refurbished smartphones as many are priced out of the new device market.”

The memory shortage driving these price increases is largely attributed to surging demand from AI data centers and AI-accelerated computing infrastructure.

These facilities compete for the same DRAM and NAND flash production capacity that smartphone manufacturers depend on, leaving less supply available for consumer devices.

Memory components now represent more than 30% of the bill of materials for some smartphones, increasing pressure on manufacturers.

The impact is expected to continue to affect low- and mid-range devices as companies adjust pricing strategies throughout the year.

The secondary smartphone market has already started benefiting from changing consumer behaviour, with organized sales increasing by 4% year-on-year during 1Q26.

FDM CCS Insight forecasts this market segment will expand by 15.4% globally during 2026 as demand shifts away from new devices.

However, stronger demand could also create higher refurbished smartphone prices as available supply struggles to match consumer interest.

Supply challenges could determine refurbished market growth

The refurbished market faces a major challenge because expanding supply depends heavily on trade-ins, buybacks, and upgrade programmes.

FDM CCS Insight expects premium smartphones, particularly devices priced above $750, to continue driving much of the available trade-in supply.

These devices are less affected by current pricing pressures, allowing manufacturers and retailers to maintain stronger upgrade incentives.

"The secondary market has an opportunity to serve some of the demand that will be unfulfilled by the primary market. The major challenge in the near term is to grow supply during a fallow period of flagship launches,” Hatton said.

“Countries with mature trade-in programmes will be in a much stronger position to capitalize on this opportunity and maintain higher growth rates in the secondary market over the rest of the year.”

The shift suggests that consumers may increasingly evaluate refurbished smartphones as alternatives when new device prices continue rising.

“Demand continues to heavily outweigh supply in the global secondary market. Trade-in discounts, early upgrade offers and more-lucrative trade-in promotions will be key to unlocking the market's full growth potential in 2026 and 2027," he added.

Whether this trend produces sustained growth will depend on supply availability, pricing stability, and how manufacturers respond to changing market conditions.

Oukitel WP500 Ultra: 30-second review

Oukitel has plenty of mid-tier phones, but it’s always interesting to see what it comes up with for a flagship release.

The WP500 Ultra brings a 640 x 512 thermal camera, a hardware privacy kill switch, and a Dimensity 8300 chipset into a single package. Most of those things aren’t gimmicks and are potentially useful to the right buyer.

This design packs a punchy SoC with a good GPU and NPU in the package, plenty of RAM, tons of storage, and a decent camera cluster. But at the asking price of nearly $700, you might reasonably expect that, and possibly more than the 10000mAh of battery.

But the headline feature here is the AI thermal imaging solution using Smart ClearTherm and SceneSync Fusion. This produces remarkably detailed thermal images and video.

For those professionals who want a rugged worksite phone that does most things, the Oukitel WP500 Ultra ticks plenty of boxes. But the asking price still seems a little on the high side for a company that makes some excellent $200 rugged phones.

The only thing stopping this from being one of the best rugged phones we’ve tested this year is the price.

Oukitel WP500 Ultra: price and availability

• How much does it cost? $700/£522/€604
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? Direct from the maker or via an online retailer

The Oukitel WP500 Ultra launched with an MSRP of $1,099.99. Direct from Oukitel, the ‘Early Bird’ price is $699.99 in the USA, £521.77 in the UK and €603.86 for those in Europe.

I do hope those lower prices stick a little, because north of $1,000 seems excessive even with these specifications.

At this price, the hardware package is genuinely strong. A Dimensity 8300, 1TB of storage, and a 640 x 512 thermal camera at under $700 would have been exceptional by 2024 standards. And, in the middle of 2026, the price point remains an important factor.

The caveat is that the specialist features inflate the cost relative to buyers who do not need them. A user who wants only a fast, durable, rugged phone can spend less and get a comparable daily-use experience. The WP500 Ultra makes the most sense for buyers who will actively use the thermal camera and the special privacy switch.

To a certain degree, Oukitel is competing with itself for rugged phones with thermal cameras, since they also have the WP61 Ultra. That design costs about $30 less and has double the battery capacity, but that comes with a weight and size penalty.

A phone with thermal vision is the AGM G3 Pro, which sells for the same price, but has less storage, a less powerful SoC and a lower thermal resolution.

If you just want thermal vision and don’t care about the resolution of the sensor, Blackview still makes the BL9000 Pro, which can be found for as little as $550.

Overall, the Oukitel WP500 is offering a better platform than the majority of competing options, but matching their price isn't easy.

• Value score: 4/5

Oukitel WP500 Ultra: Specs

Oukitel WP500 Ultra: Design

• Chunky rugged phone
• Anti leaking technology
• No SDCard slot

There is no pretending the WP500 Ultra is anything other than an industrial tool. It is big, heavy, and it is built to take punishment. At 414.3g and nearly 23mm thick, this is a device that earns its keep rather than lives in your pocket unnoticed.

The chassis is reinforced polymer with rubberised grips along the sides and corner armour that looks like it means business. It does. The thermal camera module dominates the rear panel. It is the largest single element on the back of the device and leaves nobody in any doubt about what this phone does for a living. Unless they mistake it for a speaker.

Oukitel has covered all the certification bases. IP68 handles immersion to 1.5 metres. IP69K adds resistance to high-pressure water jets at close range. MIL-STD-810H extends protection to extreme temperatures, shock, vibration, and altitude. That is the full rugged stack. Nothing has been left out.

The screen is covered by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 at 1.1mm. That is a sensible, honest choice. The privacy kill switch sits alongside the standard power and volume controls on the chassis. Its position matters. It needs to be reachable with gloves on, and Oukitel appears to have thought about that.

However, the phone comes with a bumper that left this reviewer entirely confused. In other Oukitel phones I’ve seen recently, a soft TPU bumper was included, but this is a hard, rigid plastic that is as likely to transmit any shock it receives to the phone as it is to protect it.

There is another issue with this bumper that I’ll discuss in the camera section, which might encourage many to dump it.

Where Oukitel haven’t wandered off the rugged phone highway is with the button layout, which has all the usual suspects located where you might reasonably expect them.

The one exception to this model is an extra button that Oukitel amusingly labelled as the “Anti leakage button” and also as ‘the one click encryption button’, or even ‘Privacy kill Switch’, depending on where in their documentation you look.

So what does it actually do, you might reasonably wonder? According to Oukitel, “A single slide instantly disables cameras, microphones, and GPS, preventing photos, videos, audio, and location data from being captured. Ideal for sensitive meetings, confidential work, and situations where privacy matters most.”

My immediate reaction is that it’s a feature someone involved in a criminal enterprise might like, but it makes almost no sense in a business context. Because if you are your worst security threat, and record conversations and take pictures in sensitive meetings, then you’re probably not going to click this button to stop yourself, are you?

And if the phone is doing all these things on its own because it’s been compromised by malware, then that’s probably disabled the button anyway.

Oukitel promises peace of mind with this feature, but presumably only if you don’t think about it.

Other aspects of this design seem better considered, especially the screen.

The 6.78-inch panel runs at 1080 x 2460 with a 120Hz refresh rate. Those numbers sit comfortably alongside mainstream mid-range phones. That is exactly where you want a rugged display to be in 2026. Peak brightness comes in at 550 nits. It is adequate for most conditions, but in direct sunlight, it will test it severely.

As for the rest of this design, there are a few things that look a little rushed or that ended up entirely omitted. On the rushed side are holes for a lanyard, where one isn’t included in the box. And missing in action are a headphone jack and a MicroSD card slot.

What’s truly odd about the MicroSD card situation is that on Oukitel’s specification, it mentions storage expansion being a 2TB TF card. But unless I’m being remarkably dumb, there is no place for this to go. The SIM card tray is incredibly small and only carries two Nano SIMs back-to-back. If this phone does take a memory card, I’m interested to know where it goes.

Those points aside, the design of this phone isn’t terrible, but a few things, like the misplaced features and issues with the bumper, do hint that it might have been brought to market at such a pace that didn’t allow these details to be ironed out.

Design score: 3.5/5

Oukitel WP500 Ultra: Hardware

• MediaTek Dimensity 8300
• 1TB of storage
• 10000 mAh battery

The Dimensity 8300 is the right chip for a phone at this price. It is built on TSMC's 4nm process, uses Armv9 CPU cores, and pairs with the Mali G615 GPU. Benchmarks from other devices using the same chip place it ahead of the Snapdragon 778G and close to the older Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in sustained loads. This is not a mid-range chip in a rugged case. It is a proper performance part.

Previous Oukitel flagships relied on the Helio G99 or Dimensity 7050. Both chips did their jobs. Neither came close to the 8300. The step up here is real, and it shows in everyday use.

I’ve yet to test a device using the new 9000 series chips, which can use 10667 MHz RAM, but until those become more common, chips like the Dimensity 8300 are a solid choice for both compute and graphics.

The 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM is the honest figure to focus on. Some listings inflate RAM numbers by using virtual memory expansion, which uses storage space rather than physical chips.

Oukitel are one of these, putting 36GB in big letters on the box, and then in a much smaller font 12+24GB below. Yes, you can map 24GB of storage as if it were memory, and with 1TB, you have plenty to spare, but it doesn’t mean this phone has 36GB.

Anyway, 12GB physical is a good number for this category, and it will handle multitasking and demanding applications without complaint.

The 1TB of internal storage is where the WP500 Ultra genuinely pulls ahead. That capacity rivals that of a budget laptop and gives field professionals ample room for thermal imaging, 4K video, and documentation without worrying about running out of space for some time.

Unless weight is a big priority, a 10,000mAh battery is expected at this level. What changes the runtime picture compared with older rugged phones is the chipset. The Dimensity 8300 is a 4nm part, and it is noticeably more efficient than the 6nm and 7nm designs it replaces. That efficiency advantage compounds across a full working day, allowing the WP500 Ultra to perform more and extend its running time significantly.

The 45W wired charging is acceptable, and better than some 33W options we’ve seen elsewhere. Filling a 10,000mAh cell from flat at 45W takes close to two hours and fifteen minutes. Some competitors at this price point have moved to 66W and above, but even with 45W, you can get the battery half full in around thirty-five minutes from flat.

Sadly, there is no wireless charging, and Oukitel could reasonably have done better here given the asking price.

The quoted video playback time is 15 hours, and the standby is a whopping 1754 hours, or just over 73 days.

Some will wonder why it doesn’t have a 20000mAh battery, but that would have elevated the weight closer to 600g, and 414g is enough without making it entirely impractical to carry.

• Hardware score: 4/5

Oukitel WP500 Ultra: Cameras

• 108MP, 8MP and thermal on the rear
• 32MP on the front
• Four cameras in total

The Oukitel WP500 Ultra has four cameras:

Rear camera: 108MP Samsung ISOCELL S5KHM6, Samsung 8MP S5K4H8, Thermal AI sensor
Front camera: 32MP Sony IMX616

This camera arrangement can be confusing, especially from the Android 16 OS perspective.

If you ask the phone how many camera sensors it has, it will tell you it has five, not four, but it's obvious, examining the cluster, that there are three cameras on the rear, and another on the front.

The confusion comes with the 8MP S5K4H8, because the phone thinks it has two of these, where in reality it has one pulling double duty. Normally, it is a night vision sensor that uses infrared to illuminate the darkness and capture images.

But it also provides a source for the thermal camera to mix into its data to improve the detail and context of its thermal image captures.

This is where the WP500 Ultra makes its case. A 640 x 512 thermal camera is the highest resolution sensor currently found in a rugged smartphone. The AGM G3 Pro sits at 512 x 384. The Blackview BL9000 Pro manages 160 x 120. Oukitel leads the segment on this single metric, and the gap is not small.

Resolution tells part of the story. NETD tells the rest. The WP500 Ultra claims a figure below 50 millikelvin. NETD measures thermal sensitivity. A lower value means the sensor can resolve finer temperature differences, which produces more useful images in real conditions. The stated accuracy of plus or minus 2 degrees Celsius is standard for sensors in this class.

Two AI processing layers sit on top of the raw sensor output. Smart ClearTherm handles image enhancement. SceneSync Fusion attempts real-time scene interpretation and object classification.

The problem here is that I’ve no idea what the actual sensor is, because Oukitel haven’t divulged that. And, it might be that what I’m seeing is 320 x 256 thermal data that is then AI processed with the 8MP data from the S5K4H8. That said, however these results are achieved, it looks remarkably good in my examples.

(ed: The actual resolution of thermal imaging is 640X512. AI-upscaled to 1440×1080 in RGB mode)

The practical applications are genuine. Electricians finding overheating components, surveyors checking insulation continuity, security professionals detecting heat signatures, and maintenance engineers spotting failing machinery before it breaks are all realistic use cases for this technology.

If you want to take ordinary pictures, the 108MP Samsung ISOCELL S5KHM6 is a stalwart, delivering great colour-balanced images that are sharp and have a great dynamic range even without HDR turned on.

However, it was when I was taking night vision images that I ran into some issues, specifically in relation to the hard plastic bumper.

It appears that the IR lights used to illuminate scenes interact with the bumper, causing it to emit or refract light back into the Samsung 8MP S5K4H8. This causes odd reflections and smears that can clearly be seen. In one of my example images is a printer, and there is one of these aberrations crossing over it. Once I removed the bumper, these went away, and the images had significantly more contrast.

This is clearly a problem Oukitel overlooked, and those who use the night vision mode will need to ditch the bumper and find something else.

To finish on a high note, Oukitel used some of the asking price to cover Widevine L1 certification. That means Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+ deliver full-resolution content rather than a downgraded stream. For professionals on extended deployments who want something decent to watch in the evening, it is a useful detail.

Oukitel WP500 Ultra Camera samples

• Camera score: 4/5

Oukitel WP500 Ultra: Performance

• 4nm SoC
• High-tier performance

Initially, I was going to compare the WP500 Ultra with another phone that had thermal credentials, but my tests don’t cover that aspect, so I went with a different approach.

From the same brand, the WP210 has similar specifications but a smaller battery and no thermal camera. The smaller battery sheds 25% of the weight, though the Dimensity 8200 isn’t far from what its 8300 brother offers at computing tasks.

Where the 8300 excels is with its GPU, which, in a few tests, was 70% quicker at OpenGL and Vulkan. But deep diving into the data I captured when I tested these phones, the GPU improvements mostly come from the memory model each phone deploys.

On the WP210, the average memory latency was 42.5 ns, and database operations were 55,8 KOps per second, whereas on the WP500 Ultra, those numbers were only 32.7ns latency and 228 KOps per second. Those memory enhancements, coupled with the 4th Gen Valhall architecture improvements in the Mali-G615 MC6, explain why the 8300 is that much better at graphics than the 8200.

While the battery life looks similar, as I recall, the WP210 was completely exhausted at 22 hours and 44 minutes, whereas the WP500 Ultra still had 19% capacity left. That implies another 4 or more hours of runtime to completely empty the battery.

A slightly sobering point is that you can get the WP210 direct from Oukitel for $449.99/£295.99, making it substantially cheaper than the WP500 Ultra. It comes down to whether you need the thermal camera or the extra performance if you wish to invest another $250 in the WP500 Ultra.

• Performance score: 4/5

Oukitel WP500 Ultra: Final verdict

The Oukitel WP500 Ultra is a phone with a clear identity. It knows exactly who it is built for, and it does not try to be something else. The thermal camera resolution leads the segment, and the hardware kill switch is a unique feature in consumer smartphones.

The Dimensity 8300 and 1TB storage give it a performance foundation that most rugged phones cannot match.

The price is the problem. At $699.99, the WP500 Ultra faces serious competition from the AGM G3 Pro. Both offer compelling alternatives for buyers who do not need a hardware privacy disconnect. Oukitel wins on specialisation. It loses on the value aspect for the general buyer.

For professionals who regularly work with thermal imaging, operate in environments where hardware privacy controls are not optional, and need a rugged phone that can keep up with serious workloads, the WP500 Ultra earns its price. For everyone else, the AGM G3 Pro is the smarter spend.

One thing needs resolving before any enterprise buyer commits. Oukitel must confirm its software update policy. Seven years is the benchmark. Anything less at this price needs to be disclosed clearly and reflected in the final recommendation.

That said, no other phone matches 640 x 512 thermal resolution at this cost. The Dimensity 8300 is genuinely fast, and the 1TB of storage is exceptional. For professionals who will use those tools every day, these features might justify the outlay. For everyone else, there might be cheaper alternatives elsewhere.

Should I buy a Oukitel WP500 Ultra?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also Consider

For more ruggedized devices, we've reviewed the best rugged tablets, the best rugged laptops, and the best rugged hard drives

Oukitel WP66: 30-second review

.Oukitel seems to have a particular strategy in the rugged phone market that involves launching lots of products, presumably on the assumption that a percentage of them will find favour with some customers.

The WP66 is at the end of a long list of recent phones, which includes devices I’ve covered, like the WP61 Plus, WP60 and WP30 Pro. Typically, these devices are affordable, rugged designs which avoid the latest SoC technology but often have some core features that make them attractive.

On paper, the WP66 isn’t much of a step away from its WP61 Plus predecessor, using the same MediaTek Dimensity 7025 SoC, identical memory and storage sizes, However, the WP66 has roughly half the battery capacity, and that makes it much easier to use as a daily driver.

With this level of practicality baked in, this is probably Oukitel's most design-aware rugged phone yet. It trades brute bulk for a slimmer profile and adds a neat 1.81-inch secondary display that does real work. The 11,000mAh battery is the headline number, and it delivers genuinely exceptional runtime. The Dimensity 7025 is capable enough for daily tasks, but it is not a performance chip.

Camera quality is fine in good light and ordinary in other conditions. At under $450 from the makers, this is a competitive proposition for anyone who needs genuine ruggedness without the usual aesthetic punishment.

It’s mostly the SoC that stops this from being one of the best rugged phones we’ve seen this year.

Oukitel WP66: price and availability

• How much does it cost? $450/£337/€390
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? Direct from the maker or via an online retailer

Oukitel is one of those phone makers that likes to discount its phones at launch and sets a huge MSRP that the device is never sold at. Doing that in Europe isn’t legal, but it's something Chinese phone makers don’t appear concerned about.

It's available in the US via Oukitel's official site, where the MSRP for the WP66 is $639.99 - but at the time of review, it's down to $450. On Oukitel's UK site, it retailss for £474.99, while currently being discounted to £287.99.

Considering the specifications and features of this phone, the price seems competitive enough, but how they came up with the MSRP values is a mystery.

The phone most likely to be compared is the Doogee S200, as it also has a rear display. The Doogee phone typically sells for $360/£285/€328 via AliExpress. But the processor in it is less powerful, it has half the storage and can’t do 4K video. However, it has twice the battery capacity if you need longer runtime.

Given the recent price increases for both RAM and storage, the Oukitel WP66 is probably priced right, but maybe in the next six months, it needs to get a little cheaper to cope with phones with more concurrent technology being released into the busy mid-tier market.

• Value score: 4/5

Oukitel WP66: Specs

Oukitel WP66: Design

• Slim for a rugged phone
• No wireless charging
• Rear display

The WP66 that Oukitel sent was the orange model, and I think this version looks much more interesting than the one with a black colour scheme.

One oddity I noticed almost immediately is that on the rear of the case is a GT logo, and this also appears on the maker's webpage. But this phone isn’t the WP66 GT; it's just the WP66, which suggests a change of plan in the naming scheme before launch.

Another chin-scratcher is that this phone has holes in the bottom-right corner for a lanyard, but there isn’t one in the box. It also comes with a TPU bumper that has a slot for the same purpose.

I’m glad about the bumper, because if it weren’t attached, the camera cluster would be excessively prominent, with each of the three elements sticking out at least 2mm. The included bumper guaranteed that this phone doesn’t have wireless charging, and to confirm that, I removed it and tested for wireless functionality. That’s a shame, because below the camera and rear display, the underside of the WP66 is extremely flat.

What I liked was that WP66 bucks the rugged phone aesthetic in a meaningful way. Most rugged devices lean into aggressive styling: heavy frames, pronounced corner armour, and military-surplus colour palettes. The WP66 is comparatively restrained. The Orange colourway is vibrant rather than utilitarian, and the Black variant suits a professional context.

At 15.8mm thick, this is slim territory for a phone carrying an 11,000mAh battery. The trade-off is visible: the bezels around the main display are wider than a mainstream consumer phone would accept in 2026. The screen-to-body ratio sits at roughly 75%. For a rugged device, that is acceptable. For anyone accustomed to modern frameless designs, it might feel dated.

The secondary display on the rear panel is the most distinctive design element. It sits cleanly within the casing and gives the phone a dual-screen character that most rivals lack entirely.

Oukitel has packed the rear display with functionality, showing you a calendar, battery status, messages, and a million other things. My only issue with it is that by the time you’ve scrolled through all the functions to find the one you want, you could have easily turned the phone over and gone directly to that information three or four times over.

The button layout is by-the-numbers, and the designer has resisted the temptation to add extra buttons when they’re not specifically required. The right side has the power button with integrated fingerprint reader and volume controls, and the left has a single user-definable button and the SIM card slot. The card slot supports a MicroSD card and a Nano SIM, or you can forgo the MicroSD card and use a second Nano SIM. As this phone comes with 512GB of storage, not having a MicroSD card isn’t that limiting.

Overall, for a business user who might want a rugged phone for site visits or other outdoor work, the WP66 is pleasantly restrained, and it's not so big and heavy that it couldn’t be used as a daily driver.

Design score: 4/5

Oukitel WP66: Hardware

• MediaTek Dimensity 7025
• 512GB of storage
• 11000 mAh battery

In other reviews, I’ve talked about the current MediaTek strategy that involves taking older technology and rebranding it with relatively small changes to make it look current.

What they can’t paper over is that the Dimensity 7025 is a 6nm SoC, because its origins are the Dimensity 930, an SoC that first appeared in 2022.

Oukitel used this in the WP300, WP60 and WP55 Pro, so this will be the fourth design to use the same platform.

My view of this silicon is that the CPU is workable, but the PowerVR IMG BXM-8-256 GPU is a poor GPU that struggles with the OpenGL and Vulkan APIs.

What challenges the GPU in this phone design is that the display is 1080 by 2408 pixels, whereas in the WP60, as an example, it only had a 720 x 1560 pixel screen.

If you like to game or use more demanding 3D titles, this probably isn’t the platform for you, but for everyday use, it works well enough to navigate Android.

What many people might consider a high point of this design is the 512GB of storage, which is enough when combined with the 12GB of RAM to handle plenty of applications and the data that comes with them. This SoC doesn’t have an NPU; instead, it has an APU, which is the CPU and GPU merged to perform a similar function. Thankfully, most AI done from phones is cloud-based anyway.

One interesting change from its predecessor is that the battery is now rated at 11,000mAh, where the WP58 Pro and WP60 had 10,000mAh. That’s not a huge increase, but it might take you 10% further depending on how you use it.

While the makers did source a larger-capacity battery, they didn’t find one that charged any faster or delivered more power to other phones.

It’s got the same 33W wired charge and 7.5W reverse-charging specs as the 10000mAh devices, which translates to a full recharge from flat in under two hours.

Like most of the Oukitel designs I’ve seen in the past two years, the WP66 doesn’t represent cutting-edge technology. It’s assembled from a collection of parts that are chosen based entirely on price, and that create an ensemble of functions that can attract customers at the right cost.

Oukitel aren’t the only Chinese rugged phone maker using the same approach or with a selection of middle-of-the-road devices that use older technology, but there aren’t any huge surprises here for those willing to do their research about this brand.

• Hardware score: 3.5/5

Oukitel WP66: Cameras

• 108MP and 2MP on the rear
• 32MP on the front
• Three cameras in total

The Oukitel WP66 has three cameras:

Rear camera: 108MP Samsung ISOCELL S5KHM6, Macro 2MP GalaxyCore GC02M1
Front camera: 32MP GalaxyCore GC32E1

This is a similar camera arrangement to the WP61 Plus, with the primary sensor being the excellent Samsung S5KHM6, supported by a less-than-epic 2MP macro camera from GalaxyCore. What’s missing, and was on the WP61 Plus, is a night vision sensor.

The primary sensor can produce some top-notch results in bright lighting, ideally outdoors, but it's not as impressive when there is less light. But the worst aspect of this design is the 2MP macro camera, a camera that produces results from the dawn of cameras on phones.

It’s grainy, difficult to get the optimal focus and often not worth the effort.

What’s also crushingly disappointing is that even with a 108MP sensor and 512GB of storage to handle some big recordings, this phone doesn’t offer 4K video. The best it can manage is 2K video at 30fps, which, considering the capabilities of the ISOCELL S5KHM6, is pitiful.

Also, like all the Oukitel phones I’ve tried recently, this phone doesn’t support Widevine L1, so streaming services are often reduced to 480p resolution.

You can take good pictures with this phone, but it takes more effort than it should.

Oukitel WP66 Camera samples

• Camera score: 3.5/5

Oukitel WP66: Performance

• 6nm SoC
• Mid-tier performance

Even if initially, this looks like a pointless comparison, since both phones use the same SoC, there is some interesting data in these tests to examine. For most benchmarks, the difference between the two is within the standard deviation.

But it’s interesting to note that now running Android 16, the WP66 can run Wildlife and Nomad Lite, where the WP61 Plus, which was also running the same OS, could not. The obvious conclusion is that the WP61 Plus launched with some issues that may have been resolved, or that UL has tweaked 3DMark to make it more forgiving.

This isn’t to say that the WP66 runs either of the benchmarks well, but at least it pops out a number. It also succeeds on GeekBench for OpenGL and Vulkan, where it previously failed on the WP61 Plus, but the numbers are still horrible. The IMG BXM-8-256 isn’t a GPU anyone would want if they got a choice.

What I found most fascinating about these results was the battery performance, with the WP61 Plus running longer than the WP66. That’s not much of a revelation given the relative battery capacities, but it is worth noting that the WP61 Plus lasts only 17% longer despite having nearly twice the battery capacity.

This makes little sense, since they use a practically identical platform, and if I still had the WP61 Plus, I’d be curious to see what it was when running that used up the battery. It would be guesswork to pin this on any aspect of that phone, but it does suggest that the WP66 may be in a better place at launch than its predecessor.

Looking at these numbers overall, neither of these phones is ideal for gaming or VR, since the GPU can’t offer the range of features that more modern silicon can.

Battery life is decent, but everything else is bordering on an entry-level performance envelope.

• Performance score: 3.5/5

Oukitel WP66: Final verdict

The Oukitel WP66 is the rugged phone that does not punish you for choosing durability. The slim profile, the secondary display, and the extraordinary battery life form a compelling package. The Dimensity 7025 processor is an honest mid-range device that does support 5G, but isn’t a gaming platform.

The camera is capable in daylight and ordinary in poor light. The 33W charging rate is the one frustrating limitation in an otherwise well-considered design. At the launch price of $450, this is one of the more interesting propositions in the mid-market rugged segment.

With Oukitel having so many phones in the WP series, the company's shotgun approach aims to make a handset that’s perfect for most customers. The WP66 is aimed at those who want a rugged phone without impractical size or weight. It manages that, and it even shows off a little with its rear-facing display.

I’m just not convinced that with such relatively old technology on the SoC, there is much longevity to be had. There are similarly priced rugged phones with better cameras and newer silicon for those who can spot them. The WP66 has a platform on its fourth outing for Oukitel, and that might be one or two bites of that cherry more than the Dimensity 7025 deserves.

Should I buy a Oukitel WP66?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also Consider

For more ruggedized devices, we've reviewed the best rugged tablets, the best rugged laptops, and the best rugged hard drives

RugOne Xever 8: 30-second review

While this phone won’t make our best rugged phone collection, what it offers might be perfect for some customers, and it is reasonably affordable for a phone with a swappable battery.

RugOne is Ulefone's premium rugged sub-brand, launched in late 2025. It targets buyers who want a genuinely capable device rather than a cheap, rough-and-ready handset. The Xever 8 is the entry point to the second generation of that vision. It arrived in May 2026 and carries forward the headline idea from the Xever 7 series: a battery you can swap without powering down the phone.

That concept matures here into what RugOne calls Swappable Battery 2.0. The claim is that critical apps stay running throughout the swap, and within quite narrow criteria, it achieves that.

I can confirm that the Xever 8 ships with two 4,800mAh batteries and a charging dock in the box. For field workers and outdoor users who simply cannot afford downtime, the proposition is clear.

There is a catch, though, and it is worth addressing upfront. The Xever 7 was a 5G device with a Dimensity 8020 chipset. The Xever 8 steps down to a Helio G200 on a 4G-only platform. For a phone launching in 2026, that is a significant concession, and it, to some degree, negates some of the advantages this phone has over its previous generation. RugOne made a deliberate trade-off, prioritising the battery system and audio hardware over performance. Whether buyers agree that trade is fair depends heavily on what they need most.

With a better SoC, this might have been one of the best rugged phones, but it appears that we might need to wait until the Xever 9 to get all these ducks in a row.

RugOne Xever 8: price and availability

• How much does it cost? $368/£380
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? You can get it directly from RugOne or via many online retailers such as AliExpress.

The RugOne Xever 8 comes in two colors, Back and Sand Dune, and each of these offers two SKUs, one with 128GB of storage and another with 256GB.

While the machine is shown on the RugOne website, there isn’t any option to buy it from the maker, and I was forced to search for it elsewhere. The only place I could find it was AliExpress, and for US customers, the only option is the 128GB model for $367.99.

UK customers get both capacity phones, with the 128GB being £379.39 and the 256GB option (reviewed here) being £414.59. Spending £35.20 and getting an extra 128GB of storage doesn’t seem like a poor deal. It doesn’t appear to be available to those in the EU at this time, but I suspect it will be at some point.

I complained that the previous RugOne Xever 7 Pro was too expensive, and admittedly, its predecessor, the Xever 8, is cheaper. However, given its specifications, it should be less.

The obvious competitor for this phone is the Samsung Galaxy XCover7 Pro, a phone that sells for roughly $560 in the USA, and £425 in the UK. That’s for a phone with only 128GB of storage and a single battery. Batteries are freely available for around £22 each. The Samsung Galaxy XCover7 Pro uses a Snapdragon 7 Gen3 SoC, making it a substantially more powerful device, justifying some of that extra cost.

The Xever 8 is a better value than its Xever 7 Pro predecessor, but it's hardly a bargain in the remarkably competitive rugged phone sector. What helps RugOne justify the price somewhat is the relatively small number of designs with replaceable batteries.

• Value score: 4/5

RugOne Xever 8: Specs

RugOne Xever 8: Design

• Industrial aesthetic
• Extra custom buttons
• Easily swappable batteries

In many ways, this phone is a derivative of the Xever 7 Pro, but with some extra elegance and refinement in places. That it comes with the charging stand, a second battery, a charger, and a bunch of other accessories does make it feel more worthy of the asking price.

The Xever 8 measures 168 x 80 x 14mm and weighs 320g. It is not especially light or slim, but it fits better into a pocket than some rugged phones I’ve reviewed. That is the reality of a phone engineered to survive two-metre drops, high-pressure water jets, and the demands of MIL-STD-810H testing. The IP69K rating alongside IP68 is notable. IP69K specifically covers resistance to high-temperature, high-pressure water streams, which is relevant in agricultural and industrial settings where a regular waterproof phone would fail.

RugOne has tried to soften the bulk with bevelled edges designed for grip. The company calls the speaker and camera module arrangement symmetrical, which is unusual in this category. Two colourways are available: Black and Sand Dune. The latter is a muted, low-saturation tone clearly inspired by the rugged outdoor aesthetic that is now common across the category.

The rear cover is removable, obviously, since the battery sits beneath it. The dual-latch system on that cover is a practical addition. An internal latch secures the battery cell itself, and the outer cover adds a second retention point. The claim is that this significantly improves drop resistance at the point where a single-latch design would typically allow the battery to shift on impact.

A dedicated button on the side can be used to activate the TorchX flashlight, rated at 230 lumens. That is a useful addition for anyone working in unlit environments. The 3.5mm headphone jack is also present on the top edge. These are small decisions that matter to the people this phone is built for.

The Xever 8 uses a 6.5-inch IPS LCD panel running at 1080 x 2400 pixels. At 405 pixels per inch, sharpness is not an issue. The 120Hz refresh rate makes scrolling and navigation feel fluid. Peak brightness reaches 680 nits in high brightness mode, which should be adequate for outdoor use in most conditions, though it does not match the 1,000-plus nit figures now appearing on flagship OLED panels.

Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protects the display. That is two generations behind Gorilla Glass 5 and four behind Gorilla Glass Victus, both of which appear on competing devices in this price range. It is functional protection, and the overall rugged construction means the chassis absorbs much of the shock that would otherwise reach the screen, but it is worth noting for buyers who have had cracked screens before.

The aspect ratio is 20:9, which suits one-handed use in portrait mode. RugOne says the display is grip-friendly, and the physical dimensions suggest the narrower 80mm width helps with that. All the buttons are metal, which does give the Xever 8 a premium feel.

Design score: 4/5

RugOne Xever 8: Hardware

• MediaTek Helio G200
• UFS 2.2 storage
• Swappable batteries

The MediaTek Helio G200 is a 6nm octa-core chip running two Cortex-A76 performance cores at 2.2GHz alongside six Cortex-A55 efficiency cores at 2.0GHz. The GPU is a Mali-G57 MC2.

If you didn’t read the clues in those statements, this is a mid-range platform, not a flagship one. For everyday use, including calls, navigation, messaging, and camera work, it will perform without complaint. Gaming above casual titles and GPU-intensive tasks is where this chip reaches its ceiling.

The RAM configuration is 8GB physical with an additional 8GB of virtual dynamic RAM. Storage ships in 128GB and 256GB variants, both using UFS 2.2. That is an area where the Xever 7 series outshone this device. UFS 2.2 is not slow, but the step from higher-grade storage feels like a backwards move in a product that otherwise claims to be purpose-built for professional use.

USB connectivity is USB 2.0. There is no video output. For a field worker wanting to mirror the screen to a display or transfer large files quickly, that is a real limitation. The Xever 7 Pro carried the same USB 2.0 restriction and received criticism for it. The Xever 8 repeats that choice, though that’s another feature that hinges on the choice of the SoC.

Where the Xever 8 makes its strongest argument is in the battery department, because in theory, it could have a massive capacity. Each battery holds 4,800mAh. Two are included.

The Swappable Battery 2.0 system allows one to be replaced while the phone keeps running. A small internal power buffer maintains the system during the swap. RugOne states that critical apps, calls, and GPS remain active throughout, provided the swap is completed within two minutes. Beyond two minutes, the phone enters a 60-second safety lockout to protect data.

In practice, that means a user carrying one spare battery has access to something approaching 9,600mAh of usable capacity across a working day without needing a cable at all. The four-in-one charging station that comes in the box charges batteries independently, so the spare can top up while the device is in use.

However, where this scheme trips up somewhat is with respect to charging, which peaks at 18W wired. That is not fast by 2026 standards, but the swappable system largely renders charging speed less critical than it is on sealed-battery devices. The phone also supports 10W reverse wired charging, allowing it to top up other devices.

One concern raised in early community commentary is that RugOne's customer support has indicated that additional batteries are not sold separately. Buyers receive what comes in the box and cannot stock spare cells beyond that. This is a significant limitation if a battery degrades over time, or you wish to carry more than one replacement.

For this reviewer, the biggest issue here is the G200 CPU, as it's far from modern phone technology, and it doesn’t support 5G comms, only 4G LTE. This choice seems to fly in the face of the notion that newer designs should have better technology.

As a platform, the Xever 8 is underwhelming.

• Hardware score: 3/5

RugOne Xever 8: Cameras

• 64MP, 20MP on the rear
• 32MP on the front
• Three cameras in total

The RugOne Xever 8 has three cameras:

Rear camera: 64MP Sony IMX682, 20MP Sony IMX350 Night vision,
Front camera: 32MP GalaxyCore GC32E1

The main sensor is a 64MP Sony IMX682 with an f/1.9 aperture and PDAF. This is a well-regarded 1/1.7-inch sensor that appears across a range of mid-to-high-end devices. Paired with sufficient processing and a capable aperture, it can produce usable results in daylight. Video tops out at 2K at 30fps, which is adequate but hardly wonderful.

The second rear camera is the more interesting choice for this category. It is a 20MP night vision camera with an f/1.8 aperture and two integrated infrared emitters. In total darkness, without any visible light, this sensor can produce usable images and video.

The applications this is suitable for are straightforward: wildlife observation, search and rescue, perimeter checks, and pinhole camera detection. It is a genuinely specialist capability that most smartphones simply do not offer.

Oddly, in the supported camera section of Android, it mentions that this version of the OS was compiled with support for the GalaxyCore GC8034, an 8MP sensor often used for special focus scenarios like Bokeh mode. But I couldn’t find any evidence for this hardware in the camera app, so it might have been omitted from the final phone.

On the front, a 32MP f/2.5 selfie camera covers video calls and self-documentation. The 0.7-micron pixel size is small, which may limit low-light performance, but the resolution is generous for the category.

An underwater camera mode is included, accessible via side buttons to avoid touchscreen failures when submerged. Given the realistic limits on how deep you can submerge a phone like this, I’m not sure providing an underwater mode is a good idea. Take it much beyond the two-metre depth limit, and pressure will force water inside, ending the fun abruptly.

For still image capture, the primary camera on the Xever 8 is effective, and the night vision sensor is a tried-and-tested solution. There are also plenty of special modes such as slow motion, time lapse, panorama, document capture, group photo, dual video, sports and Pro controls.

What’s less wonderful is that there are only two levels of digital zoom, and the maximum video resolution is only 2K. Note that the Sony IMX682 supports 4K capture, whereas the G200 SoC can only handle 2K video. Yet another way that the SoC choice stymied this design.

RugOne Xever 8 Camera samples

• Camera score: 3.5/5

RugOne Xever 8: Performance

• 6nm SoC
• Mid-tier performance

If the Xever 7 Pro were made by a different brand, then perhaps comparing it to the Xever 8 might be considered unfair, but it's mostly the numbering convention here that sends a confused signal.

From a hardware perspective, the Xever 8 is a retrograde step, with the exception of graphics. The IMG BXM-8-256 used on the Xever 7 Pro is a horrific GPU that doesn’t support OpenGL or Vulkan properly, and it gets outperformed by the modest Mali-G57 MC2. To anchor that assessment, the Xever 8 still isn’t a gaming phone, or anything approaching that.

Where these scores get interesting is when we look at the battery, because the Xever 8 has a smaller battery than the Xever 7 Pro, but manages similar efficiency. As I recall, on the Xever 7 Pro, the phone was entirely exhausted after the battery benchmark, but the Xever 8 still had 15% battery left. If you at 15% to the running time of the Xever 8, it’s almost exactly the same time as the Xever 7 Pro.

Except, it has 14% less battery capacity. That demonstrates that the Helio G200 is more efficient than the Dimensity 7025. But compared to a modern 4nm SoC, it's not that efficient.

Overall, neither of these devices is anything more than a mid-tier device, and by the end of this year, they’ll be entry-level. But if you do invest in the Xever 8, it’s nice to know you have more than 30 hours of runtime with both batteries.

• Performance score: 3/5

RugOne Xever 8: Final verdict

Before I wrote this review, I immediately looked at my RugOne Xever 7 Pro piece, and was amused by the first paragraph in that verdict. I’d said the Xever 7 Pro design had gone somewhat off the rails when they discovered that the 5550mAh battery in that phone wasn’t enough for the SoC that RugOne had probably planned for it. It was a guess on my part that the Dimensity 7025 used in that design was an alternative that better fitted the battery capacity.

And, now in the Xever 8, I’m getting the same vibe. Instead of starting with the SoC and then designing the battery system to work with that, it looks like RugOne started with the battery and worked backwards. Which is how this machine ended up with the G200 SoC.

For those familiar with MediaTek’s range, the G200 only appeared in mid-2025, although its technology dates back to the G100 (2024) and the G99 (2022). And, the giveaway about the underlying age of this design is that it's fabricated at 6nm, not the 4nm that MediaTek sells for mid-tier designs, or the 3nm (soon to be 2nm) on its flagship chips. The G99 wasn’t entirely new when it was launched, and the G200 is three iterations from that.

The irony is that a newer SoC might have allowed the battery in the Xever 8 to last even longer if used correctly, and enabled more concurrent features like 5G comms and 4K video.

Overall, for someone who can work with these specifications, the Xever 8 is a workable solution, but, like the Xever 7 Pro, it's compromised in several important areas.

Should I buy a RugOne Xever 8?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also Consider

For more ruggedized devices, we've reviewed the best rugged tablets, the best rugged laptops, and the best rugged hard drives

In the face of huge demand, we are officially extending the entry deadline for the Mobile Industry Awards 2026!

You now have one more week to submit your entry for this years Mobile Industry Awards - so if you want to be in with a chance of joining our elite band of winners, you now have until 6pm on Friday 16 June.

Taking place on 17 September 2026 at the stunning Royal Lancaster London, the Mobile Industry Awards are the gold standard of excellence - from the boardroom to the grassroots, the entrants represent the best and brightest the UK mobile industry has to offer.

It's the perfect setting for a night of fine dining, networking and industry celebration, and you can be in with a chance of joining our elite band of winners as entries for the Mobile Industry Awards 2026 are now open.

Here are this year's MIA 2026 categories in full

INDIVIDUAL CATEGORIES

Person of the Year 2026 (Power 50 winner)

Future Stars 2026

COMPANY CATEGORIES

Best Customer Service (Business)

Best Customer Service (Consumer)

Best Place to Work (Over 1,000 employees)

Best Place to Work (Under 1,000 employees)

Marketing Campaign of the Year

CSR Initiative of the Year

Sustainability Initiative of the Year

Team of the Year

Sales team of the Year - NEW FOR 2026

CHANNEL & SERVICE

Best Mobile Service & Solution Provider

Best Wholesale Service & Solution Provider

Best Mobile/Gadget Insurance Service

Distributor of the Year

RETAIL CATEGORIES

Retailer of the Year (High Street and Online)

Best Repair Service

Best Recycling and Refurbishing Service

Best Reseller and/or Distributor

Distributor of the Year

NETWORK CATEGORIES

Best eSIM Provider

Best MVNO

Best Network for Business

Best Network for Consumers

Best SIM-Only Network

Innovation of the Year Product or Service

PHONES & ACCESSORIES CATEGORIES

Accessory Manufacturer of the Year

Smartphone Manufacturer Of The Year

MIA 2026 entry process

Entering the Mobile Industry Awards 2026 is the easiest decision you make this year - our entry portal is user-friendly and our team are here to help you every step of the way, and what’s more it’s free to enter.

START YOUR ENTRY HERE!

All entries must be submitted by no later than 6pm on June 16 2026.

Tables will be available on a first come first served basis, so we invite you to go online and select your table packages - we can either take card payment or organise an invoice to send to you.

8849 TANK Pad Ultra: 2-minute review

The 8849 Tank Pad Ultra arrives as the company's most ambitious device to date. It builds on the original Tank Pad's projector concept and refines it considerably. Where the first Tank Pad offered a dim 100-lumen DLP unit running at sub-HD resolution, the Ultra steps up to 260 lumens and native 1920x1080 output. That is a 2.6x improvement in brightness in one generation, and it matters enormously in practice.

The hardware underneath is a MediaTek Dimensity 8200 paired with 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB of storage. This is not the fastest platform available in 2026, but it is more than sufficient for field work, document management, and media playback. Android 15 ships out of the box, which is a refreshing improvement over the Android 14 found on many rivals.

The camera cluster is genuinely impressive for a rugged device. A Sony IMX766 50MP main sensor sits alongside a 64MP night-vision camera using an OmniVision OV64B sensor backed by four infrared LEDs. The 32MP front camera uses a Sony IMX616. This is a meaningful step beyond the dual-camera arrangements on most competing rugged tablets.

Battery capacity is the headline stat: 23,400mAh. 8849 claims this is 11% larger than its predecessor. Charging speed is 66W, which is serviceable but falls well short of the 120W found on the recently launched Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra. At that battery capacity, 66W takes over two hours to fully recharge.

The body measures 268.3 x 170.3 x 24mm and weighs 1.345kg. It is a heavy device, though it sits below the Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra's 1.6kg. The integrated handle doubles as a kickstand and is the most practical design element here for outdoor projection use.

IP68 and IP69K certification allows for both submersion and high-pressure water jets. That is the expected baseline for a device at this price and positioning. A 4-metre laser rangefinder and an 800-lumen camping light round out the utility toolkit.

In the annals of tablets that came with a projector, this is clearly one of the best rugged tablets so far.

8849 TANK Pad Ultra: price and availability

• How much does it cost? $690/£524/€605
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? You can get it directly from 8849.

The Tank Pad Ultra is available in a range of territories and regions via the official 8849tech website here.

At $689.99, this rugged tablet is priced way below the Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra, which commands closer to $799. It sits significantly above the original Tank Pad's sub-$400 positioning. The price increase reflects genuine hardware improvements rather than marketing inflation, particularly in the projector and camera departments.

UK pricing is £525.84 and in the EU its €604.79. There is a summer sale for US, EU, UK and CA customers with a further $20 reduction until the 12th of June.

Currently, this machine isn't on Amazon.com, but given that everything else 8849-branded is, it's probably only a matter of time before it is. The hardware is also sold by AliExpress, but it was more expensive than buying it directly for whatever reason.

Given the specification, even if the TANK Pad Ultra isn't exactly cheap, it offers the best value for a tablet with a projector.

• Value score: 4/5

8849 TANK Pad Ultra: Specs

8849 TANK Pad Ultra: design

• Heavy duty
• Kickstand issues
• Idiosyncratic layout

On paper, the Tank Pad Ultra follows the established formula for rugged tablets. The body is thick and reinforced, with corner bumpers and rubberised edges. At 24mm deep it is not a device that slips into a jacket pocket unless you’re a friendly giant. The intention is clear: this is business equipment, not a lifestyle accessory.

The integrated handle on the rear is a practical touch. It locks flat against the body for carrying and swings out to serve as a kickstand for projection or media use. For a device this heavy, the handle is not an option, it is a functional necessity.

Which is why I was annoyed when I couldn’t get the one that came with my tablet to fit correctly. The stand is metal and is pinned to the TANK Pad Ultra by a single large bolt that has a straight slot that a ‘8849 coin’ is provided to tighten. On mine, it would never tighten enough to fully engage the stand, making it loose.

Initially, I thought this was because of an excessive amount of blue thread-locker on the bolt, but after I’d scraped that off and realised it didn’t fix the problem, I concluded the thread in the tablet was poorly manufactured.

I didn’t have the thread cutter to fix this handy, so I filed the bolt down a little to make it extend less, and it fitted much better. Not sure why 8849 quality assurance didn’t notice this, but they need to make sure that they do in the future.

One oddity about the stand is that it has a square profile that engages, allowing for four possible ways to attach it. Except that only one direction works properly, because the others interfere either with the camera cluster or the camping light. Perhaps a polariser is needed to help users put it on correctly?

The top edge houses the volume keys and two PPT buttons in roughly the middle of that side, with the projector mounted to the left. The power button with an integrated fingerprint scanner is on the left side, where I kept accidentally hitting it while trying to take photos.

I tried to set that button up with fingerprint unlock and failed miserably. When you enter the fingerprint training mode, it tells you to firmly press the button, and when you do, the tablet turns off. Thankfully, the face unlock works much better, so it’s hardly a deal breaker.

The SIM tray is on the lower edge, and the USB-C and audio jack ports are under a rubber plug on the right side.

What’s missing here is any pogo pin pads or extra USB port that could be used to connect the tablet to a vehicle cradle. Which, when you have a tablet that’s 1345 g, you would reasonably expect to exist. There isn’t one, which explains why the designers never considered supporting that functionality.

Overall, the layout of this tablet isn’t the best I’ve seen, but most people could probably adapt to it.

Design score: 3.5/5

8849 TANK Pad Ultra: hardware

• MediaTek Dimensity 8200 5G
• 260 Lumen Projector
• 23,400 mAh battery

The Dimensity 8200 is a solid midrange to upper-midrange platform. Built on a 4nm process, it delivers capable performance for multitasking, Android gaming, and field software use. It is not the Dimensity 9000 series or a Snapdragon 8 Gen equivalent, and buyers with heavy sustained workloads should note the distinction. For the use cases this device targets, it is more than adequate and a step up from the Dimensity 7400X that Ulefone used in its most recent design.

For no logical reason, rugged tablet makers seem to think decent processors or camera sensors aren’t required, when they’re as critical as they are in phones.

Sixteen gigabytes of LPDDR5 RAM is generous. Combined with the expandable storage via microSD, the Tank Pad Ultra avoids the storage cliff that afflicts cheaper rugged tablets.

But it's the DLP projector that is the engineering centrepiece in this design. At 260 lumens, it is 2.6 times brighter than the original Tank Pad's 100-lumen unit. Auto-focus handles throw distances between 0.5 and 4 metres. A micro-ranging laser assists the focus calibration for precise image sharpness. The native output resolution of 1920x1080 is a substantial step up from the 854x480 of the original device, and better than the 960 x 540 projector on the Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra.

My only issue with the projector is that 8849 didn’t implement a low-throw solution where the tablet could be flat on a desk and still project an image on the wall. With this design, you need to use the stand or a pile of books to elevate the tablet to a height where the projection will work.

The 23,400mAh battery is enormous, even if some rugged tablets have even more. Runtime estimates in the field will depend heavily on whether the projector, camping light, and 5G radio are active simultaneously. With the projector running, expect significantly reduced endurance versus a typical standby or browsing scenario.

One last special feature of this tablet is the GPS solution. It uses dual frequencies L1+L5 GPS for more precise positioning, in theory. I've not seen this in a rugged tablet before, and it could be genuinely useful for those flying drones or doing surveys. In my testing, it did seem marginally more accurate than the GPS in a typical phone.

• Hardware score: 4.5/5

8849 TANK Pad Ultra: cameras

• 50MP, 64MP on the rear
• 32MP on the front
• Three cameras in total

The 8849 Tank Pad Ultra has three cameras:

Rear cameras: 50MP Sony IMX766 , 64MP Omnivision OV64B1B Sensor (Night Vision)
Front camera: 32MP Sony IMX616

The camera configuration is one of the Tank Pad Ultra's stronger arguments over rivals. Most rugged tablets treat imaging as an afterthought. 8849 has invested meaningfully here.

The main camera uses a Sony IMX766 sensor at 50MP. This is the same sensor found in numerous premium Android smartphones, so expectations for image quality are reasonably well established. The large 1/1.56-inch format and all-pixel autofocus should deliver solid results in good light.

The night-vision camera is the headline differentiator. The 64MP OmniVision OV64B sensor is backed by four infrared LEDs and a dual-tone LED flash capable of 1.5A output. 8849 claims usable images in near-total darkness. This is genuinely useful for inspection work, security documentation, or field work in unlit environments.

The 32MP Sony IMX616 front camera is well specified for video calls and document scanning. For remote workers filing from a site office, the quality here matters more than it might for a consumer device.

Looking through my examples, the rear camera on this tablet produces some excellent results. The colour is accurate and not oversaturated, the edges of objects are crisp, and even the sky avoids being blown out. Using editing tools, it’s easy to get extra detail out of shadows and crop without making images appear blocky.

And, the 64MP Omnivision OV64B1B is one of the best choices for a night vision sensor, currently.

There are limited special photo modes, but you do get timelapse, super resolution, and QR codes, and there is a PRO mode. Video capture has scene modes and a full spectrum of resolutions from VGA up to 4K.

The only way this could get much better is if the optics had a proper zoom and not a digital one, but relatively few phones or tablets have that feature.

The only blot here is that 8849 wouldn’t pay for Widevine L1 encryption, so the best resolution you can stream from major providers is 480P, even if the screen would handle 1080p easily. Unfortunate, but a predictable limitation.

That point aside, this is one of the best camera solutions on a rugged tablet I’ve encountered, and for those doing surveys or wanting to capture property or vehicle damage, the provided tools are more than most will realistically need.

8849 TANK Pad Ultra Camera samples

• Camera score: 4/5

8849 TANK Pad Ultra: Performance

• Modern SoC
• Good battery life

The Dimensity 8200 platform performs comfortably in daily use. Android 15 runs without the stuttering or lag that can affect less powerful rugged tablets. Multitasking between field apps, maps, and documents is smooth.

Gaming performance is functional rather than flagship. The Mali-G610 MC6 GPU handles lighter titles well. Sustained gaming or graphics-intensive applications will cause throttling, as is typical for this class of chip under prolonged load.

The projector introduces a notable power draw. Thermal management under combined projector and processing load is an area worth monitoring in extended field scenarios. The device body will warm noticeably during sustained projection.

If we compare the 8200 with the 7400X that the Ulefone tablet uses, this SoC is roughly 25% quicker across the board, and better than that in graphics performance.

However, with great performance comes even greater power consumption. And, while the battery life of the machine looks good at 30 hours and 43 minutes, there is a caveat that the Ulefone device still had 27% of its battery unused when the benchmark aborted. Where the 8849 machine only had 5%, therefore the win should go to the Ulefone.

That said, this is more than enough capacity for most uses, and if curated, a running time of more than five days is easily within reach.

• Performance score: 4.5/5

8849 TANK Pad Ultra: Final verdict

For field engineers, survey teams, and outdoor professionals who project content regularly and need the clearest image possible from an integrated device, the Tank Pad Ultra earns a confident recommendation. For everyone else, the 8849 Tank Pad Ultra is the current high-water mark for built-in pico projection in a rugged tablet.

The leap from 100 lumens and 854x480 to 260 lumens and native 1080p is a generational step, not an incremental one. Add a Sony sensor main camera, a 64MP night-vision unit, a laser rangefinder, and a 23,400mAh battery at $690, and the value proposition is difficult to argue against.

The shortcomings are real but predictable. Sixty-six watts of charging is slow for a battery this large, even if it can manage a complete cycle in two hours. The device is heavy and thick by any standard other than the rugged-tablet category it occupies. The Dimensity 8200, while capable, is not a premium 2026 platform, even if it’s the exception to the rule that rugged tablets are typically underpowered.

Against the Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra, its most direct rival, the Tank Pad Ultra wins on projector brightness, projector resolution, SoC power, weight and price. It loses on charging speed and the dual-floodlight provision. Which device wins depends entirely on which compromises suit your workflow, and how tight your budget is.

Should I buy a 8849 TANK Pad Ultra?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also Consider

For more ruggedized devices, we've reviewed the best rugged phones, the best rugged laptops and the best rugged hard drives

• Cable theft costs the UK £500 million yearly, and it continues to grow
• Over 100,000 customers have been impacted and 1.2 million hours lost since April 2024
• Openreach partners with EMR and Crimestoppers, deploys DNA tracers and grid alarms

According to new information from Openreach, metal theft has cost the UK economy an estimated £4.3 billion since 2013, and it’s now estimated to sit at £500 million per year as the problem continues to escalate.

This comes as the cost of copper continues to rise, hitting all-time highs in early 2026 and expected to rise even further given its status as a ‘critical material’ for sustainable, low-carbon infrastructure and technology.

Openreach warns that criminals have ripped out 153km of copper cable from its network since April 2024 alone – the same distance as London to Bristol.

‘Metal theft isn’t a victimless crime’, Openreach says

Inconvenience and cost aside, Openreach worries that cable theft has a major impact on customers across the UK, with more than 100,000 citizens having lost access to landlines, broadband or both since April 2024. With remote working now normalized and ecommerce accounting for a major portion of Internet traffic, the BT-owned network infrastructure company stressed the effects can be much broader.

With many cables running through rural areas, the report also details how farmers’ fields and crops can be damaged, pushing the effects down the chain to food supply.

Two incidents have already occurred recently, in May 2026, when one gang cut connectivity for around 5,000 residents near Birmingham and another group used three vehicles to pull cables out of rural field in Wateringbury, Kent. Another incident earlier in January left 2,500 Moulton Chapel, Lincolnshire residents without connection.

“Cable theft causes serious damage, unacceptable disruption to communities and can put vulnerable people at risk,” Openreach Director of Resilience and Integrity Andy Shepherd said.

The company even noted that it’s had to divert 1.2 million working hours to repairing theft-related damage since April 2024, likely slowing down network improvements including full fiber rollout.

Working with partners to stamp out cable theft

To tackle the issue, Openreach has partnered with European Metal Recycling (EMR), a major metal recycler in the UK, to block stolen telecom assets from being exchanged for cash at its sites. EMR will operate a zero-tolerance policy, refusing any scrap metal or cable suspected of being criminally sourced.

“By working together, we can help protect critical infrastructure, support local communities and ensure valuable resources are recycled responsibly,” EMR Commercial Director Bruce Miller added.

Cables are also set to be treated with synthetic, invisible DNA tracers that transfer onto the skin, clothing and tools of thieves. Armed with this information, police and scrap dealers can use UV light to not only identify the criminal, but even trace the location of the cable theft.

Independent charity Crimestoppers is also set to help Openreach, urging the public to report suspicious activity around telecoms infrastructure by calling 0800 555 111 or submitting a log online. To provide some guidance, examples cited by Openreach include unmarked vehicles lifting manhole covers and working in fields late at night.

Additionally, localized grid alarms will alert Openreach’s centralized security center as soon as interference is detected, allowing police and rapid-response security teams to be dispatched.

• Two-thirds of Brits say slow and unreliable broadband is their pet peeve
• 3.7m UK homes still don't have full fiber (60% of which are in cities)
• Vodafone's 5G/full fiber can now reach 26 million homes

Vodafone says it's researched what bothers UK consumers the most, with 67% of citizens stating that slow and unreliable broadband is now their biggest pet peeve.

The issue is so significant, Vodafone found, that more than 20 million people say they would consider moving home to secure a better broadband connection, with many regions yet to receive full fiber rollout.

With hybrid working now commonplace and other factors like connected devices all driving traffic higher, 87% of Brits now consider fast broadband essential for daily life.

Vodafone believes 5G Broadband could plug current fiber gaps

In response to growing concerns over slow and unreliable broadband, the company, which recently merged with Three, has launched its own mobile broadband package to provide customers with cellular connections throughout their homes as an alternative to cable connections.

According to the firm, more than 26 million UK homes can now access full fiber or 5G broadband on its network, which it says is more than any other UK provider.

Cellular connections play an important part in the rollout of full fiber – those 5G networks already exist for smartphone connectivity, however around 3.7 million UK homes are still limited to old copper cables or part-fiber. Interestingly, it's not necessarily a rural issue, with three in five of those remaining homes actually located in cities.

Mobile networks already play a role, with half (49%) of Brits using a smartphone hotspot when broadband is an issue. Having this type of connection available via a router or a mesh Wi-Fi network would enable all devices to connect – not just those within reach of a smartphone (when the smartphone is home).

"This launch means we’re giving customers real choice: full‑fibre broadband where it’s available, and powerful 5G Broadband where it’s not – plus, better options for anyone just wanting speed with ease and flexibility," VodafoneThree said.

Vodafone's website is now showing 5G Broadband deals supporting up to 150Mbps, priced from £19 to £29 per month for 30-day and 24-month contracts.

Lenovo ThinkTab X11 Gen 1: 30-second review

The ThinkTab X11 Gen 1 is Lenovo's first serious push into rugged Android territory. It arrives with MIL-STD-810H certification, an IP68 rating, and a genuinely useful screwless removable battery.

To avoid the power demands of PC hardware, Lenovo went with an ARM-based architecture, using the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 to deliver capable everyday performance. This SoC is combined with a modest 10.95-inch display that is sharp and readable outdoors.

One interesting feature in all SKUs is that this tablet has a replaceable battery. But given the exercise to change it isn’t something you’ll want to be doing on a regular basis, this feature is more about extending the tablet’s life, not giving it extended run time with extra batteries.

While it ticks lots of boxes for performance and durability, the one major weakness of this option is its cameras, which are low quality by modern phone standards

The starting price of around £499 is competitive with the Samsung Galaxy Tab Active5 Pro, which appears to be the inspiration for this device.

If your work takes place on a factory floor, a building site, or in a vehicle cab, this is a credible option. Those looking for a general-purpose consumer tablet should look elsewhere, but if you need a go-anywhere tablet for drone flying or collecting data outdoors, this could be one of the best rugged tablet choices.

Lenovo ThinkTab X11 Gen 1: price and availability

• How much does it cost? £499/€499
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? You can get it from online retailers such as Insight in the UK.

Lenovo announced the ThinkTab X11 Gen 1 at MWC 2026 in Barcelona on 2 March 2026. It's currently listed as 'Coming soon' on the UK website.

Availability was confirmed for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa from April 2026. At the time of writing, Lenovo has not confirmed a US retail date, describing the X11 as a commercial product with pricing starting at €499 in the Eurozone.

What’s likely to confuse customers is the sheer number of SKUs that Lenovo has in this product line, which is ridiculous. In the UK alone, they make eight different options. The differences are primarily the storage capacity (typically 128GB or 256GB) and whether it includes mobile phone comms.

But there are models with no (Beidou + GPS + GLONASS + Galileo + QZSS + A-GPS), because the market for people who don’t want to know where they are is obviously huge. Some models come with a pen, while others do not.

The review hardware was a ZAHL0035GB, which comes with 256GB of storage, the Rugged Smart Case and Lenovo Tab Pen XE, but no slot for a mobile SIM.

That puts it directly in the orbit of the Samsung Galaxy Tab Active5 Pro, which carries a street price of between £499 and £549 in the UK, depending on configuration. Samsung uses the same Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chipset, so the competition is genuinely close on paper.

The UK retailer Insight carries three models, the cheapest being £563.99 inc. VAT for one with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, but no 5G SIM card slot. The top model has 256GB of storage and is 5G-capable, and has a price of £615.49.

Higher-specified configurations with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage will command a premium when they become available. Lenovo has not published a full pricing matrix for all SKUs at launch. Business buyers will typically be quoted against volume contracts rather than consumer retail pricing, so the headline €499 figure should be treated as a floor.

• Value score: 4/5

Lenovo ThinkTab X11 Gen 1: Specs

Lenovo ThinkTab X11 Gen 1: design

• Lightweight
• Rubber bumper
• Toolless battery change
• Camera postioning

Pick up the ThinkTab X11, and the premise is immediately clear. This is not a tablet designed for the sofa. The chassis is thick by consumer standards, sitting at 9.9mm, and the 650g weight is modest for the category but noticeably heavier than a consumer 11-inch slate.

In the review hardware, it came with a soft silicon bumper that didn’t obscure any of the ports and is relatively easy to remove should you want to access the battery compartment.

The MIL-STD-810H certification covers a demanding set of environmental tests. That includes thermal extremes, vibration, altitude, humidity, and shock. The IP68 rating means submersion in up to 1.5 metres of water for 30 minutes, and that’s without a rubber plug in the USB-C port. For field workers in manufacturing, utilities, or construction, these are not marketing checkboxes. They are basic requirements.

To get inside requires one strong fingernail to be inserted into a cutout on the back that then starts popping clips to remove a cover. To be clear, taking this cover off isn’t easy, and it isn’t something I’ve want to do multiple times. But when the tablet arrives, the battery isn’t installed, so it’s necessary to get it working.

Where I’d place this in the Parthenon of replaceable battery systems is that it's good that you can swap the battery, especially because it could extend the working life of the device, but it isn’t something you would want to consider doing on a regular basis. Eventually, the clips on the cover will fail, and with them goes the environmental protection.

It's worth noting that you also need to access the battery area for the installation of a MicroSD, or if you have a 5G capable model, the Nano SIM slot. I think an approach more like the Samsung Active5G with screws might have been a better plan, I’d assert.

That said, most tablets don’t allow the battery to be replaced without entirely dismantling the hardware, and battery exhaustion is a major component in tablets and phones reaching the end of their useful life.

The display supports glove and wet-touch input, and it's designed to work with the Lenovo Tab Pen XE, which comes with some SKUs.

That is an important detail on a site where latex gloves are mandatory, or inclement weather intervenes. The Corning Gorilla Glass should handle the usual workplace knocks, and the front-mounted NFC will appeal to logistics and access-control use cases.

An OLED panel might have been a good option, but the IPS panel used is reasonably colourful, and using something better might have driven the price up.

Dual USB-C ports allow simultaneous charging and peripheral connection without an adapter or dock. Although the second port is clearly also designed for an add-on keyboard, which Lenovo didn’t provide for this review. This is such a useful feature, and SoCs generally support more than one USB port, that I do wonder why other brands don’t offer multiple USB ports.

An external feature I’m not a fan of is the camera's placement, which is positioned deep in the left corner. The upper corners are the common place to hold a tablet and I found that I activated the camera app and saw nothing, as my hand was obscuring the sensor.

If the camera cluster had been placed in the middle, this could have avoided fingers and also provided more natural framing for image and video capture.

Other than that point, and the nail-breaking nature of the battery cover, the design of this tablet is pretty good.

Design score: 4.5/5

Lenovo ThinkTab X11 Gen 1: hardware

• Snapdragon 7s Gen 3
• Adreno 810 GPU
• 10,200mAh battery

The Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 is the same platform Samsung chose for the Galaxy Tab Active5 Pro. On a 4nm process with an octa-core configuration (four Cortex-A720 performance cores and four Cortex-A520 efficiency cores), it delivers capable everyday performance without generating excessive heat in a sealed chassis.

Spoiling my performance reveal slightly, the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 has a similar performance profile to the MediaTek Dimensity 7400X that I saw recently in the UleFone Amor Pad 5 Ultra.

The Adreno 810 GPU handles the expected range of business and light productivity workloads without difficulty. Video calls, document editing, ERP applications, and camera-intensive tasks are all within its comfort zone. Nobody is buying a MIL-SPEC enterprise tablet for gaming, and the hardware reflects that reality.

Memory options cover 8GB and 12GB LPDDR5, but all the UK SKUs were 8GB. For field workers running one or two dedicated applications, 8GB is sufficient. Environments running multiple concurrent enterprise apps, particularly with persistent background sync, will benefit from the 12GB option. Storage ranges from 128GB to 512GB UFS 3.1, supplemented by a microSD slot.

That combination is practical. Enterprise deployments often include large offline databases, maps, or media libraries. Being able to use a second USB device also allows for an external drive, and it would be easier to replace than the MicroSD card.

The 10,200mAh battery, charged at 45W, should cover a full shift under typical enterprise workloads. Lenovo has not published an official battery life figure. In my testing that I’ll talk about later, it recharges quickly, which makes the overall capacity less of an issue.

As a total capacity of 10,200mAh isn’t huge, and I’ve seen plenty of rugged phones with more, but in this context, it's enough to get at least two full working days out of the device, and with curation, the better part of a third day.

The front-mounted NFC is an unusual placement. Most tablets put NFC on the rear, which suits tap-to-pay and general contactless use. Positioning it on the front (upper right) of the screen makes it more accessible for door access control and identity verification, where the user faces the reader.

The hardware specification of the Lenovo ThinkTab X11 Gen 1 is decent, and the choice of the efficient SoC has enabled the battery to be scaled to a level where the machine becomes awkward to carry or only suitable for vehicle mounting.

• Hardware score: 4/5

Lenovo ThinkTab X11 Gen 1: cameras

• 16MP on the rear
• 8MP on the front
• Two cameras in total

The Lenovo ThinkTab X11 Gen 1 has two cameras:

Rear camera: 13MP Omnivision OV13B10, AF, LED flash
Front camera: 8MP GalaxyCore GC08A8

As seems the norm these days, extracting the correct camera sensors from the Android system provided little hard information about the camera sensors. At one point it the primary sensor could have been from Omnivision, Samsung or Sony.

But thankfully, I dug into the replacement parts list on Lenovo, and that revealed that the main sensor is a 13MP Omnivision OV13B10, and the selfie camera is an 8MP GalaxyCore GC08A8.

Anyone with a decent phone will immediately be thinking how underwhelming these sensors sound, and they’re not exactly cutting-edge. I’m not sure why tablet makers immediately assume that their customers don’t need high-quality images, but it’s a cost-saving that many take.

That said, the pictures taken by the 13MP Omnivision OV13B10 are reasonably sharp, and if you don’t activate HDR mode, the colour makes a stab at being representative.

The problem with a 13MP sensor is that there isn’t much margin for errors. There is no anti-shake compensation, only two levels of digital zoom (1X and 2X), and there are no special modes, like panorama or time-lapse, whatsoever.

However, there are two functions that people will like, the first being that there is a specific camera mode for capturing documents. That’s useful, and the other thing that impressed me is that even with only a 13MP sensor, it will capture both 2K and 4K video. There is no means to change the FPS; it’s 30 FPS by default, but at least you can capture a proper resolution.

I won’t talk about the 8MP fixed focus front-facing camera, to avoid annoying anyone at GalaxyCore. But that it can only capture 1080p video is probably a good thing.

Overall, if you have good lighting conditions, you can make the 13MP Omnivision OV13B10 work for photography and video. Though I wouldn’t expect miracles, and it might have been a better plan if Lenovo had splashed out another dollar or less for a 32MP Samsung sensor.

Lenovo ThinkTab X11 Gen 1 Camera samples

• Camera score: 3.5/5

Lenovo ThinkTab X11 Gen 1: Performance

• Modern and efficient SoC
• Workable battery life

Normally, I’d present the numbers of the review machine against a prior tablet in this instance, but I chose not to here.

That’s because no other tablet I’ve tested could get anywhere near these numbers, including some of the previous Ulefone Pad series. For example, the Ulefone Armor Pad 3 Pro scored only 296 and 1358 on the Geekbench single and multithreaded tests, which is a fraction of what this tablet offers.

Equally, GPU power is a magnitude better with the Pad 3 Pro, managing only 647 points on WildLife, or 18%. I’m sure there are Android tablets available that could go toe-to-toe with the Pad 5 Ultra, but I’ve yet to see them.

Another area this design excels in is battery life, even if I had some issues with getting PCMark to completely exhaust the battery without crashing. That’s not a problem specific to this tablet; it seems to happen with many tablets and phones, where something happens in the background that trips up the PCMark tool.

After running it a number of times, the best result I got was that it ran for 28 hours and 27 minutes, but there was still 39% of the battery capacity left. That result indicates that the total running time of the test using all the battery would be around 46 hours or more, which is substantial.

Using the provided 120W charger, it can recover about 27% of capacity in 30 minutes. That puts the total recovery from empty at between two and three hours. There is no wireless option, and given the battery's size, that’s probably not a bad thing.

Overall, the performance of the UleFone Armor Pad 5 Ultra is top-notch, and dramatically better than most rugged Android tablets.

• Performance score: 4/5

Lenovo ThinkTab X11 Gen 1: Final verdict

I’m going to make one complaint that has nothing to do with the hardware-software combination Lenovo has created. It’s the naming convention.

When I live and breathe platforms on a daily basis, and I can even get confused, then something is badly wrong. Calling something a Lenovo ThinkTab X11 when you already have a Lenovo ThinkPad X11 is a patently dumb idea. And this recent thing of calling them Gen 1 and so on, that’s hyperbolically stupid too.

Here’s a ‘next-gen’ idea: stop now! Lenovo makes far too many SKUs of all its products, and naming them so similarly only causes further customer confusion. Someone wanting an Android tablet doesn’t need a degree in the nuances of Lenovo product naming conventions, if there are any. Rant over, and I should say that this problem isn’t exclusive to Lenovo; it's all over the commercial platform space.

For the purpose of this review, the ThinkTab X11 Gen 1 is a well-considered entry from Lenovo into a market that Samsung has dominated for years. The removable battery alone separates it from most of the competition. In a sector where devices must survive shifts rather than evenings on the sofa, that matters.

The Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 provides enough headroom for the applications that enterprise Android tablets actually run. The IP68 and MIL-STD-810H certifications are genuine rather than decorative. The dual USB-C configuration is practical and is something that competitors typically do not offer.

There are only two areas that the ThinkTab X11 Gen 2 should embrace when it inevitably arrives. One is to repackage the battery so that the cover is part of the battery, and swapping them in and out is easier. And the other area that needs to be addressed is the cameras, which need to be brought up to the level of entry-level phones from today, not ones from five years ago.

With those things addressed, this would be the perfect rugged tablet solution for many people. In the meantime, the ThinkTab X11 Gen 1 is an affordable option that isn’t a bad device, though Lenovo could have made it even better with a bit of adaptive thinking.

Should I buy a Lenovo ThinkTab X11 Gen 1?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also Consider

For more ruggedized devices, we've reviewed the best rugged phones, best rugged laptops and the best rugged hard drives

• AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon are working together to offer standardized satellite connectivity
• It would benefit customers not covered by cell towers, like in national parks
• Operators globally are looking to use satellite for more than emergencies, now

In a rare turn of events, three of the biggest mobile carriers in the US have announced they will be working together to tackle 'dead zones' across the country using satellites.

The joint venture, formed by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, should help to improve connectivity in areas where traditional towers can fail, such as national parks and highways.

Satellites could also provide continuity in disaster-struck regions, where land-based infrastructure damages can cause widespread outages.

Satellite technology to eliminate dead zones

Because the joint venture's plan revolves around direct-to-device satellite tech, it would mean that regular smartphone could access signal in rural areas without consumers needing to buy specific satellite phones. While many phones now offer limited services via satellite, it's hoped that the scheme would make roaming between cellular and satellite networks more seamless.

"Having launched the first nationwide, satellite-powered direct-to-device network for text and data, we’ve seen firsthand how critical reliable connectivity can be when America needs it most," T-Mobile CEO Srini Gopalan commented.

T-Mobile already partners with SpaceX, which has been expanding its footprint across voice and data services on top of earlier emergency texting functionalities. AT&T and Verizon also have partnerships with AST SpaceMobile for their satellite services.

The announcement comes amid a broader global shift, whereby satellite networks are becoming more tightly integrated with regular 5G and 6G cell connections, instead of being a separate emergency-only tool.

As well as improving coverage and performance for customers, the joint venture also anticipates industry benefits, such as industry-wide device compatibility and an easier way for mobile network operators (MNOs) to integrate satellite connectivity for their customers.

The agreement in principle is yet to be confirmed, pending regulatory approval and confirmation of the finer details.

• BT reveals host of new offerings for businesses and consumer users across the UK
• Business users will now get free security tools as part of BT contract
• BT also selected as official telecoms partner of Euro 2028

BT has announced a host of new updates and upgrades for its customers across the UK, as well as revealing it has been chosen as the official telecommunications partner for the upcoming Euro 2028 football tournament.

Launching a new "Behind Brilliant Things" at London's Wembley Stadium, the company unveiled a host of new announcements as it looks to continue its role as a mainstay of UK connectivity.

Along with its Euro 2028 news, the company also revealed the comeback of its BT Mobile brand, new eSIM offerings, and extra security tools for business and customer accounts.

Euro 2028 and more

"As the connector of the country, BT really matters, especially when it comes to events that connect the country, unite the country and showcase the country to the rest of the world," noted Allison Kirkby, Chief Executive, BT Group.

Since the start of the decade, BT has been the single biggest investor of all FTSE companies into UK infrastructure, she added, with the group spending £25 billion to become "digital backbone" of the country in what Kirkby called "a once in a generation investment."

This puts BT on track to reach more than 90% of UK homes and businesses by the end of the decade - a major rise from the current two-thirds.

The company already connects over a million businesses across the UK, along with public sector partners, making it a crucial ally for firms around the country.

"BT really is the only UK operator with the ability, the security expertise, and the operational resilience that can deliver connectivity of this magnitude across the UK," added Jon James, CEO Business.

"BT is trusted every day to deliver the services that help the UK succeed."

In order to help maintain this success, James revealed "a significant upgrade" to the security tools BT offers business customers across the UK, who will now receive Cyber Threat Protect, a new security solution powered by CrowdStrike, free of charge.

"BT is delivering big security for small and medium businesses, at a time when cybercrime has never been more worrying," James added.

Set to be held across 9 cities and broadcast to over 2 billion fans worldwide, Kirkby noted how Euro 2028 offers BT a huge opportunity to show off the state of its network, as well as providing a lasting technology legacy to continue after the tournament.

"Only BT could be behind moments," she said, adding , "you can't always see it, but we're there...trusted to connect homes, businesses and communities, trusted to protect families, organizations and critical public services, and trusted to supercharge the UK - powering progress, so everyone can thrive in this digital age."

• Vodafone is buying out CK Hutchison from VodafoneThree
• It will pay £4.3 billion (€4.9 billion) via a cancellation of shares
• VodafoneThree merger is now a year old, and has already boosted coverage for users across the UK

Vodafone has announced it reached an agreement for the buy out of CK Hutchison from its VodafoneThree UK joint venture.

The company will pay out £4.3 billion (€4.9 billion) via a cancellation of shares for full control of VodafoneThree a year on from announcing the merger between two of the country's biggest mobile phone networks.

In that time, Vodafone says "significant progress" has been made in integrating the two teams, leaving it in a strong position to take sole control of the organization.

Vodafone control

In a press release, Vodafone outlined how, since the merger was confirmed in June 2025, the company has moved quickly to boost network coverage and reliability for users across the UK.

The move will lead to an estimated £700m in annual cost and capex synergies by its FY30, with greater synergy across the company's stores and overall strategy.

"A year on from the merger, the team has made remarkable progress, as we maximise the full potential of VodafoneThree and capture the significant synergies," said Margherita Della Valle, Chief Executive of Vodafone Group.

I’m delighted that we will now have full ownership of VodafoneThree as we roll out one of Europe’s most advanced 5G networks, provide the UK’s best customer experience and drive long-term value for our shareholders.”

Vodafone’s decision to take full ownership of VodafoneThree is a clear vote of confidence in our business, and the fast start we’ve made in creating one integrated team and delivering early benefits for our customers," added Max Taylor, CEO of VodafoneThree.

"We remain focused on our plan and multi-brand strategy and committed to our mission to build the UK’s best network, bringing connectivity to every community in every corner of the country.”

• VMO2 launches O2 Business brand following Daisy Group merger
• O2 Business wants to help businesses simplify tech in a world of complexity
• Lower costs, higher productivity and better business scaling are being promised for customers

Following the merger of Virgin Media O2 Business and Daisy Group, O2 Daisy has become O2 Business in an effort to simplify branding across the business.

Despite the rename, the now-O2 Business is still intent on simplifying technology, connectivity and communications for organizations across the UK to help them grow in an increasingly interconnected world.

This simplification comes at an important time, with two in three businesses stating that tech decisions are getting even harder.

O2 Business wants to make your tech stack easier to navigate

At the moment, around half (49%) think their tech setup is overly complex and three in four (76%) leaders even say they face more personal pressure to execute business tech right.

"Most businesses don’t feel short of technology – they feel weighed down by it," O2 Business CEO Jo Bertram said. "Too many systems, too many suppliers and too much time spent trying to make everything work together."

From O2 Business' side, the company sees higher operational costs, slowed growth and pressure on leaders' time as some of the worst impacts from complex tech stacks, noting that simplifying them could help to cut costs, boost productivity and help businesses scale more effectively.

Some of the areas that O2 Business promises to help include simplifying product choices, streamlining onboards and improving consistency.

O2 Business Chairman Matthew Riley acknowledged the role that businesses, including SMBs, play in the UK economy. "Simplifying that landscape isn’t just a technical challenge – it’s a commercial opportunity," he said. Riley was the founder of Daisy Group, which primarily targeted SMBs with connectivity, communications and IT services, before it was acquired by VMO2.

And as for the re-brand, the new name serves to make it clearer for businesses to know where to go when they need help with the above.

Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra: 2-minute review

I’ve reviewed several Ulefone Armor Pads over the years, and they often seem to be repackaged rugged phones with big batteries but poor cameras.

However, the Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra is a rugged tablet that defies an easy categorisation. It is not trying to be a slimline productivity device or a premium consumer slate. It is something far more specific: a field-ready workhorse for professionals who need serious capability in seriously hostile conditions.

Start with the headline feature. The Armor Pad 5 Ultra includes an integrated DLP projector delivering 200 lumens, with smart autofocus and auto distance detection. The projector supports a throw distance of 106 to 213 centimetres and can display content at up to 80 inches. That is a genuinely useful tool for engineers projecting blueprints on site, or field teams running presentations without dragging additional equipment into the field.

The rest of the hardware is equally serious. A 24,200 mAh battery supports 120W fast charging and is rated for up to 1,662 hours of standby time. The Dimensity 7400X drives 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage, expandable to 2TB via a microSD. The camera array includes a 64MP Sony IMX682 primary shooter and a 64MP OmniVision night vision sensor, plus a 32MP front camera. Dual camping lights with 754 LEDs deliver 1,000 lumens, alongside dual red-blue warning lights. The IP68, IP69K, and MIL-STD-810H certifications round out an impressive durability story.

The weight, however, demands an honest conversation. As with any of the best rugged tablets I've tried, it's heavy. The Armor Pad 5 Ultra is 27.8mm thick and weighs 3.5lb / 1.6 kg. That is roughly three times the weight of a standard iPad. Carrying it for extended periods in the field will be fatiguing for most users, and one-handed use is largely out of the question. The built-in handle stand helps somewhat, but it cannot disguise the sheer mass.

The device targets outdoor professionals and field workers who need equipment that can handle extreme conditions and double as a portable workstation. Construction site managers, emergency responders, utility engineers, and night-survey teams will find genuine utility here. For anyone else, the weight alone makes this a hard sell. This is not a general-purpose tablet. It is a specialist tool that happens to run Android.

If this hardware has the features you want, and there aren’t any others that have this exact mix, then you might well consider it to be one of the best tablet choices.

Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra: price and availability

• How much does it cost? $800/£592/€683
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? You can get it directly from Ulefone or via many online retailers such as Amazon.

Often, hardware like this tablet is cheaper from Amazon or other online retailers, but in this case, the best price for it is directly from the makers.

UK readers can get the Armour Pad 5 Ultra direct from Ulefone for £591.22, where the next-day delivery price from Amazon.co.uk is £719.89, or £128.67 more.

What’s slightly curious is that the price on the site isn’t any different for US customers, so you might as well order it from Amazon.com.

For those in the EU, the price is €682.55 from Ulefone, and €799.99 via Amazon.fr, which is probably replicated in Germany and other EU nations.

The Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Pro is the natural comparison point: it shares the same chipset, RAM, storage, battery, and camera system but omits the projector and reduces the lighting complement, coming in at $499.

If the projector is not required, the Pro offers all the core functionality at a lower cost. The Oukitel WP30 Pro and Doogee T30 Ultra sit in adjacent territory for rugged tablets with large batteries, though neither matches the Armor Pad 5 Ultra's projector or lighting specification. Enterprise alternatives from Panasonic or Getac with similar MIL-STD credentials start at significantly higher prices.

At this time, the Ulefone Armour Pad 5 Ultra has created a unique tier to itself, making it an exceptional value for money.

• Value score: 4.5/5

Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra: Specs

Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra: design

• Two-handed game
• Elegant kickstand
• Built to take abuse

Rugged tablets tend to be large and heavy, and the Armor Pad 5 Ultra makes no pretence otherwise. Measuring 269.7 x 179.5 x 27.8mm and weighing a substantial 3.5lb, makes it roughly triple the mass of a standard consumer tablet.

That is the unavoidable consequence of fitting a 24,200mAh battery, a projector module, dual floodlight arrays, a cooling fan, and a reinforced chassis into a single device.

The construction follows Ulefone's established rugged formula: polycarbonate and aluminium combined with rubberised impact zones at the corners and edges. The chassis carries both IP68 and IP69K certification, meaning it can handle submersion to 1.5 metres for 30 minutes and withstand high-pressure water jets.

The MIL-STD-810H rating covers 1.5-metre drop resistance onto hard surfaces. Both the USB-C port and the 3.5mm headphone jack are sealed with waterproof plugs, which must be properly fitted before any exposure to water.

I wish it didn't have a big rubber plug over the USB-C port, but it does cover a 3.5mm audio jack alongside the USB.

The attachable carry handle is a practical addition that sets this apart from most rugged tablets. It folds flat against the rear when not in use and doubles as a kickstand, propping the tablet at a useful angle for video playback or to position the projector correctly when the device is laid flat. The uSmart accessory port is present on the chassis, maintaining compatibility with Ulefone's range of endoscopes and microscopes.

The back side houses the two rear cameras alongside the IR LED array for night vision, the projector lens at the top edge, and the dual LED light panels on each side. The warning lights, which can simulate fire, ambulance, and police car audio alongside their visual output, sit alongside these.

The overall layout is purposeful and dense rather than elegant, which is entirely appropriate for what this device is trying to be.

If anything, there are too many buttons, which isn't something I normally say about rugged devices.

The 11-inch IPS panel runs at FHD+ resolution of 1200 x 1920 pixels with a 90Hz refresh rate. The 10-bit color depth is a specification more commonly associated with premium consumer tablets, and it allows the display to render a significantly wider range of tones than the 8-bit panels found on most budget-tier rugged hardware.

Peak brightness of 600 nits is moderate rather than exceptional by 2026 standards, and outdoor legibility in bright direct sunlight will depend on where that peak is achievable in practice.

The 90Hz refresh rate keeps scrolling and navigation feeling fluid, which matters more than it might seem on a working device used to read documents, navigate maps, or monitor data streams throughout a shift.

Corning Gorilla Glass 3 provides screen protection. As noted in my RugKing 5 Pro review, it is not the latest generation, but it is well-proven against incidental tool and key contact in the field.

Overall, the main vibe of this device is that it would take some serious abuse to put it out of action. The quality of construction seems at odds with the single year of warranty that Ulefone offers on this hardware, which seems implausibly short.

Design score: 3.5/5

Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra: hardware

• MediaTek Dimensity 7400X
• 200 Lumen Projector
• 24,200mAh battery

The MediaTek Dimensity 7400X is a genuine step up from the Unisoc chips found in Ulefone's more affordable devices, and it changes the tablet's character into something much more suitable for local data processing.

Built on a 4nm process and capable of clocking up to 2.6GHz, it is a current-generation mid-range chip that can handle video editing, heavier applications, and more demanding multitasking without the hesitation that defines budget silicon.

The 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM is generous, and Ulefone's dynamic RAM expansion feature can add up to a further 32GB of virtual RAM from the storage pool if needed, though the practical benefit of this is dependent on each use case. The 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage is fast for this class of device, and the microSD slot is dedicated, so there is no compromise between expansion and dual-SIM operation.

The built-in active cooling fan is an unusual inclusion in a tablet. Ulefone's stated rationale is sustained performance under load, which is relevant for a device expected to run demanding field applications continuously over a working day. Whether it meaningfully extends sustained performance or simply provides peace of mind is worth checking under extended load testing.

The DLP projector is the specification that distinguishes the Armor Pad 5 Ultra from the Armor Pad 5 Pro and from virtually every other rugged tablet currently available. It produces 200 lumens of output at a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels.

The throw design uses 100% offset with a 26-degree upward angle, which means the device can sit flat on a surface and project upwards onto a wall or screen without the image being obscured by the tablet itself.

At 200 lumens, this will work well in controlled indoor environments with reduced ambient light and adequately in shaded outdoor settings, but it will struggle against bright daylight. The autofocus and automatic distance detection are welcome practical features that remove the fiddly manual adjustment that made earlier portable projectors frustrating to use quickly in the field. Ulefone states a maximum image size of 80 inches at appropriate throw distances, but I’d strongly suggest that’s only a possibility in complete darkness.

The throw distance range of 1,063mm to 2,134mm gives a workable bracket for most indoor use cases. The 1.2:1 throw ratio is relatively tight, meaning the device does not need to be positioned very far from the surface to produce a useful image size. This makes it practical in confined spaces such as service vans, site offices, and meeting rooms without projection screens.

The one issue with the DLP projector is that it requires proper cooling to operate, and the fan noise can be easily distracting in a quiet location at night. Given the amount of heat that DLP projectors generate and the power they consume, there isn’t any easy fix for that.

The dual LED floodlights are rated at 1,000 lumens per side, with each panel containing 377 LED beads. Both warm and white colour temperatures are available, which is a thoughtful detail for environments where colour rendering matters, such as inspection work or even a photography setup.

At a combined 2,000 lumens when both sides are active, this is a genuinely powerful lighting tool that could replace a dedicated work light in many field situations. However, if you attach the stand, which most people will do, these panels are partly obscured, something that clearly the designer regretted when they realised this mistake.

The 24,200mAh battery could be the largest fitted to any Ulefone product so far and is more than double the capacity of a mainstream consumer tablet. The practical consequence is multi-day use without charging for most workloads, with Ulefone quoting 1662 hours standby (69.25 days), 109 hours take time and the same in video playback.

Big batteries are wonderful, but often they can take an inordinate amount of time to recharge. Therefore, the 120W wired fast charging is the most significant battery specification after capacity. At this rate, topping up even a cell this size becomes a manageable overnight or rest-period task rather than an all-day affair.

The 10W reverse charging allows the tablet to act as a power bank for other devices, but as each transfer costs efficiency, this isn’t as useful as it might seem.

Overall, the hardware in this tablet is great, and while a few things might have been better, like a projector that could handle 1080p video natively, it's mostly well chosen from a technical standpoint.

• Hardware score: 4.5/5

Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra: cameras

• 50MP, 64MP on the rear
• 32MP on the front
• Three cameras in total

The Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra has three cameras:

Rear camera: 50MP Sony IMX682, 64MP Omnivision OV64B1B Sensor (Night Vision)
Front camera: 32MP Samsung ISOCELL GD1

The camera specification on the Armor Pad 5 Ultra is unusually strong for a rugged tablet making it equally ideal for adventure photography or site surveys.

The primary rear sensor is a 64MP Sony IMX682, a proven performer in mid-range smartphones that delivers sharp, well-resolved images in good light. The secondary rear camera is a 64MP OmniVision OV64B configured for infrared night vision, paired with four IR LEDs rather than the two found on the RugKing 5 Pro phone. The front camera is a 32MP Samsung ISOCELL GD1, a stalwart of mobile phone use that is perfectly suitable for selfie images and video.

Video recording reaches 4K at 30fps with gyro-EIS stabilisation, which puts it ahead of the RugKing 5 Pro phone and is a credible option for site documentation, inspection recording, and field reporting at resolutions that can be edited and used professionally.

The infrared night vision camera is most usefully thought of as an inspection tool rather than a photography feature. Four IR LEDs provide greater illumination at a distance, which should reduce the hotspot problem that sometimes affects two-LED implementations.

The example images give an accurate impression of how sharp these sensors can be, and the dependable colour balance they offer.

Also, and I rarely forget to mention this point, this is one of the few tablets I’ve ever seen with Widevine L1 encryption, enabling streaming services to be seen on the screen in at least 1080p, connection allowing. Well done, Ulefone.

Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra Camera samples

• Camera score: 4/5

Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra: Performance

• Modern and efficient SoC
• Great battery life

Normally, I’d present the numbers of the review machine against a prior tablet in this instance, but I chose not to here.

That’s because no other tablet I’ve tested could get anywhere near these numbers, including some of the previous Ulefone Pad series. For example, the Ulefone Armor Pad 3 Pro scored only 296 and 1358 on the Geekbench single and multithreaded tests, which is a fraction of what this tablet offers.

Equally, GPU power is a magnitude better with the Pad 3 Pro, managing only 647 points on WildLife, or 18%. I’m sure there are Android tablets available that could go toe-to-toe with the Pad 5 Ultra, but I’ve yet to see them.

Another area this design excels in is battery life, even if I had some issues with getting PCMark to completely exhaust the battery without crashing. That’s not a problem specific to this tablet; it seems to happen with many tablets and phones, where something happens in the background that trips up the PCMark tool.

After running it a number of times, the best result I got was that it ran for 28 hours and 27 minutes, but there was still 39% of the battery capacity left. That result indicates that the total running time of the test using all the battery would be around 46 hours or more, which is substantial.

Using the provided 120W charger, it can recover about 27% of capacity in 30 minutes. That puts the total recovery from empty at between two and three hours. There is no wireless option, and given the battery's size, that’s probably not a bad thing.

Overall, the performance of the UleFone Armor Pad 5 Ultra is top-notch, and dramatically better than most rugged Android tablets.

• Performance score: 4/5

Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra: Final verdict

The Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra is the kind of product that takes a while to get your head around. On one level, it is a rugged tablet with IP68 and IP69K certification, MIL-STD-810H drop resistance, a 24,200mAh battery, and a chassis that has been built to take punishment in environments where consumer electronics would simply not survive.

Yet there is another side to it, something stranger and more interesting, because it also contains a DLP projector, dual 1000-lumen LED floodlights, dual warning lights with sound simulation, a built-in cooling fan, an infrared night vision camera, and a handle stand.

Throw all that in, minus the kitchen sink, and it is, in short, a field workstation in a single device.

The hardware underneath is more competitive than that of previous Ulefone tablets. The MediaTek Dimensity 7400X is a genuine mid-range 5G chip built on a 4nm process, and paired with 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage. The 11-inch display runs at 90Hz with 10-bit colour depth. The better cameras are from Sony and Samsung rather than the house-brand sensors found on cheaper rugged devices.

While it is not cheap for a rugged tablet, the combination of features has no obvious direct equivalent at anywhere near this price. It’s good to see Ulefone pushing the boundaries of the technologies we are used to seeing in this sector, and I can only hope it encourages other brands to be less reticent about SoC and feature choices.

Should I buy a Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also Consider

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Ulefone RugKing 5 Pro: 30-second review

UleFone has a rugged phone for everyone, or so it seems. The newest addition to the RugKing series is the 5 Pro, a low-cost option available for around $220.

Its calling card is a 20,000mAh battery that Ulefone rates at 110 hours of endurance, which, in practice, translates to several days of real use before you need to hunt a power station or a wall socket. The trade-off is a 629g frame that is genuinely large and heavy. Though anyone who regularly carries tools, kit bags, or works outdoors will probably not find that a dealbreaker.

Beyond the battery, the RugKing 5 Pro earns its moniker through dual IP68 and IP69K certification alongside MIL-STD-810H compliance. It can be submerged, jet-washed, and dropped onto hard surfaces and, allegedly, remain functional.

The addition of a 20MP infrared night-vision camera and a 976-lumen flood flashlight also makes this phone suitable for camping adventures and emergency situations.

Where this design falls short is in processing power and connectivity: the Unisoc T7250 chipset is functional rather than fast, 5G is absent, and the camera maxes out at 1080p video. For the right buyer at the right price, though, those limitations are entirely manageable if they don’t expect too much.

With the cost of memory and storage rapidly increasing, it's likely we’ll see more of these hardware-curated designs, but this isn’t something we’d be inclined to label as one of the best rugged phones around.

Ulefone RugKing 5 Pro: price and availability

• How much does it cost? $270/£205/€235
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? You can get it directly from UleFone or via many online retailers .

As with many rugged phones, the cheapest place to buy this typically isn’t the maker, and the RugKing 5 Pro is no exception.

Direct from UleFone, the price of this phone is $269.99/£201.59/€231,26, depending on where you are based. You can check the site by clicking here.

At the time of writing, it isn’t available via Amazon.com, but I did find this phone for £229.99 on Amazon.co.uk, which seems a significant hike for next-day delivery.

The cheapest option is AliExpress, where the prices are $226.19 (£214.40 / €244.84), making that source the cheapest choice for Americans, but more expensive than the maker pricing for Europeans.

Almost wherever you source this, it isn’t an expensive phone, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t cheaper alternatives.

For less than this phone, the Blackview BL7000 is a great choice, as it features a 50 megapixel main camera with a Samsung JN1 sensor that performs surprisingly well, runs on a Dimensity 6300 chip, and offers 5G connectivity. And, it can be found for $200.

The downside of the BL7000 is that it only offers 7500 mAh of battery, and most of the competitor devices around this cost have 10,000 mAh or less.

But, if battery capacity isn’t a priority, I’d look at the Blackview BL7000, Blackview Fort 1, Ulefone Armor X16 Pro 5G, DOOGEE Blade 10 Ultra or OUKITEL G3. Some of these have 5G, others have better cameras.

And, if you want the same battery with a better SoC, the Blackview Oscal Tank 1 is a good choice.

• Value score: 4/5

Ulefone RugKing 5 Pro: Specs

Ulefone RugKing 5 Pro: Design

• Not pocket-friendly
• Odd button arrangement
• No wireless charging

The RugKing 5 Pro does not pretend to be subtle. Measuring 179 x 85 x 26.5mm and weighing 629g, it falls into a category that goes well beyond oversized and approaches a handheld piece of equipment.

Ulefone has clad the chassis in a polycarbonate and aluminium combination, using rubberised corner guards to absorb impact energy, a formula the company has refined across many generations of its rugged line.

The overall aesthetic follows a well-established Ulefone template: metal banding along the sides, pronounced corner protection, and a carbon fibre texture finish on the back panel. The rear camera module is described as visually distinctive, with a clean arrangement housing the main sensor, the infrared night vision camera, and the two IR illuminator LEDs.

A 976-lumen camping flashlight sits separately on the body and is a practical addition for field use, not an afterthought.

Where the RugKing 5 Pro diverges from most rugged designs is in the button layout, which is a curious combination of conventional and unexpected.

The power button, which doubles as a fingerprint reader, and the volume rocker sit on the right side. On the left, there are two user-programmable shortcut buttons and the SIM tray.

The SIM tray itself accepts two Nano-SIM cards plus a microSD card on a dedicated slot, so you are not forced to sacrifice expandable storage to run dual SIMs, which is a sensible decision for a working phone.

What’s odd is the placement of the user-definable buttons, which, if you have two, are often close together. Here, one of them is where you might expect it for using a talk-to-speak function, but the other is low on the left-hand side. This lower button is remarkably easy to accidentally press while holding the phone, and by default, it activates the camping light, annoyingly.

The display bezels are reported to be thick by current standards, which is a cosmetic compromise that is difficult to avoid given the structural requirements of the surround. Corning Gorilla Glass 3 is the chosen screen protection, which is not the latest generation but remains practically resilient against the kind of incidental scratching that comes with field use.

The 6.78-inch IPS panel runs at FHD+ resolution, which works out at 1080 x 2460 pixels and a pixel density of 396ppi. Text and images are sharp at normal viewing distances, and colour reproduction is described in third-party assessments as accurate.

The headline display specification is its peak brightness of 910 nits, which is designed to keep the screen legible under direct sunlight. For a phone explicitly marketed at outdoor workers and adventurers, the brightness of this display is an important feature rather than a marketing exercise.

Ulefone has added both Glove Mode and Water Lock Mode to the software. The former keeps the touchscreen responsive when the user is wearing work gloves, which is a well-understood requirement for tradespeople. Water Lock Mode disables touchscreen input to prevent false touches from rain or spray, while keeping the display visible. This is particularly useful for navigation in wet conditions.

Overall, aside from the odd placement of the second custom button, there isn’t much wrong with the external design of the RugKing 5 Pro.

Design score: 4/5

Ulefone RugKing 5 Pro: Hardware

• Unisoc T7250
• AI subscriptions
• 2000 mAh battery

I’m not a huge fan of the Unisoc SoCs, but it's hard to ignore how many phone makers are gravitating to using them, presumably due to cost.

The Unisoc T7250 is an octa-core design built around two Cortex-A75 performance cores running at 1.8GHz, backed by six Cortex-A55 efficiency cores at 1.6GHz. The GPU is an ARM Mali-G57 MP1 operating at 850MHz. Benchmark figures place the AnTuTu score at approximately 256,822, with Geekbench 6 returning around 441 in single-core and 1,426 in multi-core testing.

Those numbers put this firmly in the budget-to-mid-range territory, well behind current flagship processors. For everyday tasks such as navigation, communication, document viewing, and running field-specific applications, the T7250 is serviceable. Where it will show its limits is in graphics-heavy gaming or any processor-intensive creative work.

The 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage are enough for most purposes, but hardly generous. Thankfully, the microSD expansion slot provides additional headroom without compromising the dual-SIM capability.

Android 16 is the operating system, which is notable and puts this phone ahead of many rivals in terms of software currency. Ulefone has also included a suite of AI productivity features, although I’m reasonably sure that it doesn’t offer inherent AI processing powers.

The AI functionality on offer is cloud-based and requires a subscription; I’d avoid it like the plague.

Of greater use is the 20,000 mAh battery, which is enough to keep this relatively low-power device running for at least four days or more. The only caveat to the large battery capacity is that the maximum recharge wattage is 33W.

Even with the provided 33W PSU, the RugKing 5 Pro took an inordinate amount of time to recharge, especially when it was down to the last 10%. This isn’t a phone you want to find that didn’t charge before you are about to leave on a long journey.

A 6W wired reverse charging function turns the phone into a portable power bank, allowing it to top up other devices such as earbuds, a smartwatch, or a colleague's handset via the USB-C port. Wireless charging is not supported.

Returning to the SoC, one critical limitation of this design is that it doesn’t support 5G comms, only 4G LTE, 3G and 2G. Equally, the Wi-Fi is dual-band, covering 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks. Bluetooth 5.2 handles peripheral connectivity. NFC is present for contactless payments and device pairing, which is practically useful even in industrial contexts. FM radio is included.

The takeaway from this hardware platform is that this isn’t for anyone with special performance requirements, unless those are to run for an impressive length of time on its ample battery capacity.

• Hardware score: 3/5

Ulefone RugKing 5 Pro: Cameras

• 64MP and 20MP on the rear
• 16MP on the front
• Three cameras in total

The UleFone RugKing 5 Pro has three cameras:

Rear camera: 64MP Omnivision OV64B40 Sensor, 20MP Sony IMX350(Night Vision)
Front camera: 16MP Samsung S5K3P8 SP

The RugKing 5 Pro features a dual-rear-camera setup, which, on paper, appears suitable for capturing video and still images while away from home.

The primary shooter is a 64MP sensor from OmniVision, the OV64B, which handles standard photography. The secondary camera, the veritable Sony IMX350, is the more interesting of the two: a 20MP infrared night vision unit paired with two IR LEDs.

The night vision system allows the phone to capture usable imagery in complete darkness by using IR illumination rather than visible light. This has obvious utility for anyone working in poor lighting, conducting inspections, or exploring environments after dark.

The 16MP front camera uses a Samsung CMOS sensor and is aimed at video calling and documentation, which seems adequate for those jobs.

What’s harder to comprehend is why the Omnivision OV64B40, a 64MP sensor, only captures 1080p video, the same resolution as the 16MP front-facing Samsung sensor.

There is no 4K, or even 2K, capability, which may be a straightforward limitation of the SoC and sensor combination. For a phone at this price point and with this emphasis, that might be seen as an acceptable trade-off, though it is worth noting if the buyer has media production requirements or just expects something better from a 64MP sensor.

For basic image capture, the cameras on this phone are acceptable, but if you want to document a location or journey, I’d pick something that can at least record video at 1080p or higher.

Ulefone RugKing 5 Pro Camera samples

• Camera score: 3.5/5

Ulefone RugKing 5 Pro: Performance

• Battery-efficient SoC
• Dire CPU and GPU results

For this comparison, I went with another rugged design that offered a 20000 mAh battery that’s close in price to the RugKing 5 Pro; the Blackview Oscal Tank 1.

What’s slightly shocking about these results is how much more powerful the MediaTek Dimensity 7050 is when compared to the Unisoc T7250. Often, it's double the performance, especially when the benchmark requires any GPU support. What makes this deficit even more worrying is that the Dimensity 7050 is a rebranding of an older MediaTek SoC, the Dimensity 1080, a 6nm chip first launched in 2022.

A modern 4nm SoC, such as the Dimensity 7300, would have a GeekBench single-core score of over 1,000 and a multi-core score between 2,500 and 3,000. And, a Wildlife score of nearly 3,200.

To say that the Unisoc T7250 is underwhelming is an understatement. However, being a slug has one virtue, and it's that it makes the 20000 mAh battery last a long time.

In fact, when testing, the benchmark had an issue for some reason and stopped with 35% of the battery capacity still available, so it would have achieved more than 40 hours had that not happened.

The flipside of that coin, and this goes for both phones, is how slowly it recharges. Filling the 20000 mAh capacity from zero could easily take six hours or more, so don’t forget to plug it in before bed.

In short, those looking for CPU or GPU performance need to look elsewhere, but battery life is exceptional because it runs at these levels.

• Performance score: 3/5

Ulefone RugKing 5 Pro: Final verdict

There are some good things about this phone, especially its battery life, but they are overshadowed to some extent by the subpar SoC, video capture resolution, and a slow-charging battery.

All that said, given the price of this device, are those things an issue? That depends on exactly what the buyer is anticipating using the RugKing 5 Pro for.

If it’s a basic phone that takes over from the daily driver when the owner goes onto a building site, into the jungle or into a wet or dusty environment, then there is a place for it.

My concern is that it won’t take long to find the limitations of this device, and perhaps spending another $50 or more might have avoided those issues from the outset.

But, if all you want is a modern Android platform on hardware that’s abuse-resistant, then the RugKing 5 Pro is an option. But I’d check other phones in its price range for something that’s lighter and uses a more impressive platform.

Should I buy a Ulefone RugKing 5 Pro?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also Consider

For more ruggedized devices, we've reviewed the best rugged tablets, the best rugged laptops, and the best rugged hard drives

As this product isn't available and the hardware I was provided was an engineering prototype, consider this a hands-on, as between now and its release, some of the issues I'll talk about might well be fixed.

Punkt. is a Swiss company that manufactures in Germany, and the MC03, as the name suggests, is the third iteration of its secure, minimalist phone design.

If you like minimalist things, perhaps in black and white, and your Android phone not spaffing your personal data around carelessly, then perhaps the MC03 could be for you.

Compared to the MC02 model, the new MC03 trades up the Dimensity 900 for the newer Dimensity 7300 SoC, adds more RAM and storage, but largely keeps the same camera.

However, the thing that makes this offering stand out is AphyOS, a fork of AOSP 15, a GrapheneOS-related development, according to Punkt., is inherently more secure and able to keep the user's data from being easily harvested.

However, the AphyOS-specific apps are unique to Punkt. platforms require a monthly or yearly subscription after the first year, on top of the $699 base price of the device.

In terms of the phone's specifications, it's decent, but hardly premium. The SoC is mid-range, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage are hardly pushing the boat out, and a 64MP camera sensor is hardly cutting-edge. And, Punkt. phones have a reputation for bugs that linger over successive patches.

If you, or your business, are invested in the Proton suite the MC03 offers, including Mail, Calendar, Drive, VPN and Pass, alongside Threema for encrypted messaging, then perhaps the high cost and ongoing subscription might be worth it. But for regular Android users, the high cost of mid-range hardware and additional costs to ownership could be deal breakers.

Since this device hasn’t officially launched yet, it's way too early to say whether it is one of the best rugged phones yet.

Punkt. MC03: Price and availability

• How much does it cost? $699/£660/€699
• When is it out? On Pre-order
• Where can you get it? You can order it directly from Punkt.

Based on the most recent information, in Europe, the MC03 is on pre-order from the official site here, with the intention to ship at the end of April 2026. North American customers should be able to see this device in early Summer 2026, hopefully.

The pre-release pricing is $699/£660/€699. When exchange rates are taken into consideration, the most expensive place to buy is the UK, followed by Europe, where it's made, and the least expensive is the USA, which has tariffs on European goods. This makes zero sense, other than perhaps the market for secure phones in the USA is greater than in Europe.

As an alternative, Google's Pixel phones can run GrapheneOS, and a Pixel 10 is around $650 with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. And that phone has an optical zoom on its camera.

Punkt. MC03: Specs

Punkt. MC03: Design

• Minimalist
• By-the-numbers layout
• Internal access and battery replacement

Punkt has always been a design company that happens to make phones rather than the other way around. The MC03 carries that forward. The aesthetic is stripped back and deliberate, favouring clean lines over the glossy excesses that dominate this market.

This device is assembled at Gigaset's facility in Bocholt, Germany, which Punkt uses as a selling point and rightly so, given that German assembly brings with it a baseline assumption of quality control that assembly lines elsewhere do not always guarantee.

The dimensions are 163 x 76 x 11mm with a mass of just 240 grams. That is a meaningful presence in the hand and not a light phone by any measure, but it’s also significantly closer to a normal phone than those typically marketed as rugged. The IP68 rating for dust and water resistance is where it should be at this price point and covers immersion up to a metre for 30 minutes, which is the standard you would expect.

The frame is aluminium, and I suspect the display is Gorilla Glass protected, though Punkt's own materials are somewhat vague on those specifics.

The button layout is as derivative as it gets, with the volume rocker and power button on the right, and a custom button on the left.

However, due to unresolved beta issues with AphyOS, the fingerprint reading doesn’t currently work, and there is no way to define what the custom key does. By accident, I discovered it takes a shot while using the camera, but there is no tool to adjust what it does at this time. I’m assuming that the fingerprint will be read via the power button, because I don’t see the rear sensor that the phone mentioned when I tried to use this feature.

The bottom edge of the phone has the SIM tray and USB port, which doesn’t require a rubber plug, thankfully. It’s slightly odd that there is an external SIM tray, since the entire back of the MC03 comes off, revealing the replaceable battery and the TF card slot. Since there is only one Nano SIM supported by the external slot, why this wasn’t placed inside is a mystery. You can have a second SIM by eSIM, so you can have two phone numbers and a TF card in place simultaneously.

Having a battery you can replace is certainly a great feature, especially in an IP68-rated phone, although the capacity of only 5200 mAh isn’t huge. On top of the battery is a wireless charging coil that enables the phone to charge at 15W without a cable being inserted if you have a Qi-compatible charger.

Probably the other standout feature of the MC03 is the screen, a 6.67-inch OLED with a 120Hz refresh rate, a dramatic improvement over the IPS panel the MC02 got. However, I do find a strong sense of irony in putting OLED on a phone that uses monochrome icons as part of its minimalist ethos.

Although not in the Punkt. specs, the peak brightness is around 550 nits, which is workable but not especially impressive for outdoor use in strong sunlight. OLED's inherent contrast advantage helps considerably, and the 120Hz refresh makes the interface feel responsive rather than sluggish in a way the old panel never could. Punkt describes the display as supporting HDR, which should benefit anything streamed from Proton or accessed via the Wild Web environment.

The MC03 certainly has a love-or-hate aesthetic based on how you feel about minimalism as a design concept. While I’m not a massive fan of excessive embellishments, there isn’t much to get excited about here from a style perspective either. Because I have the view that a lack of style isn’t an actual style, in the same way that black isn’t truly a color.

But, you might think differently, and the replaceable battery is something few alternatives can match.

Punkt. MC03: Features

• MediaTek Dimensity 7300
• 5200 mAh battery

The Dimensity 7300 is such a common SoC that I must have written a sixteen-part white paper’s worth of words about this octa-core chip that uses 2x Cortex-A78 @ 2.5GHz + 6x Cortex-A55 @ 2.0GHz.

Technically, it can address up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, but on this device, you get half of that amount in each case. The issue here isn’t that the Dimensity 7300 is a poor SoC, because it's far from that, but frankly, it’s a mid-range SoC, not something built for a premium design.

That said, I’m wondering if the sort of customer Punkt. is aiming the MC03 at will care, because it’s unlikely they’ll be running the sort of tasks that demand more performance than the Dimensity 7300 has to offer. But it should be clear that if this phone were made in China, and not Germany, the justification for its asking price would be even more contradictory than it already is.

The one advantage of using a 4nm SoC design is that it can make the battery go a long way, and with only 5200 mAh of capacity under the hood, then maybe it was the right choice.

While it is possible to change this battery, this isn’t one of those situations where you would want to buy an extra battery to carry along to swap when you need more power. Replacing the battery requires partially dismantling the phone, and the connectors aren’t designed for repeated detachment and reattachment cycles. Swapping the battery is something you might do when it doesn’t hold a charge reliably, maybe three years from now, not because you forgot to charge it up.

With a battery of this size and 33W charging, it can be recharged from empty reasonably quickly, I estimate in under two hours.

And using wireless charging, it should take about twice that timeframe. That there doesn’t appear to be a provision for reverse charging is no huge surprise on a battery of this capacity.

Punkt. MC03: Software

AphyOS, developed by the Swiss firm Apostrophy, is the entire reason the MC03 exists and the source of its most interesting commercial divergence. The operating system is built on AOSP 15, meaning the Android foundation is familiar and functional, but Apostrophy has replaced the tracking and monetisation infrastructure that normally sits on top of that foundation with its own privacy-first layer.

The most visible expression of that approach is the dual environment. The Vault is the primary home screen and contains only applications that have been vetted and approved by Punkt and AphyOS.

In practice, that means the full Proton suite, including Mail, Calendar, Drive, VPN and Pass, alongside Threema for encrypted messaging and Punkt's own curated app selection. The interface in this environment is intentionally monochrome and minimal, which sounds austere, but the logic here is that it actively discourages the aimless scrolling that characterises most smartphone use.

The Wild Web is the second environment, accessible via a swipe, and it is where the MC03 reveals its pragmatism. Google Play is not installed by default, but users can enable it during the setup process if they wish. Third-party applications installed here operate within sandboxed environments with visible, adjustable permissions. The MC03 does not pretend the wider Android ecosystem does not exist; it simply insists that applications within it be contained and transparent about their data appetites.

Additional AphyOS features include Digital Nomad, a built-in VPN that encrypts traffic, and the Ledger, which gives per-app privacy controls ranging from full access to complete lockdown. The Ledger also includes a Carbon Reduction view showing background energy consumption by application, which is either a genuinely useful tool for the environmentally conscious or a conversation starter, depending on how you look at it.

The snag? The first twelve months of AphyOS are included with the device. After that, continued access to the full feature set costs $9.99 per month, or around $120 per year. Multi-year bundles reduce this significantly: three years of future subscription is priced at $129 (a saving of 45 per cent), and five years at $199 (a saving of 60 per cent).

Without a subscription, the phone reverts to a basic AOSP device, which means losing the Vault environment, the Proton integration, the VPN, and the managed app ecosystem.

Given the device's relatively high cost, is this additional subscription justified?

The honest answer is that value depends entirely on your existing outgoings and your threat model. If you already pay for Proton Mail and a separate VPN service, the MC03 subscription bundles several things you are already paying for into a device-level solution.

Many Proton users pay $9.99 per month for Proton Unlimited on its own, and that does not include device-level hardening or a Threema subscription. From that angle, the MC03 subscription is competitive with the status quo rather than additional to it.

For journalists, legal professionals, medical practitioners, activists in high-risk environments, or anyone handling commercially sensitive communications, the total cost-of-ownership argument is reasonably straightforward. For a general-purpose user who mostly wants social media and a decent camera, the case is harder to make.

Punkt. MC03: Cameras

• 64MP, 8MP and 2MP on the rear
• 32MP on the front
• Four cameras in total

Rear camera: 64MP Omnivision OV64b40 Primary Sensor, 8MP GalaxyCore GC08A3 Wide Angle, GalaxyCore GC02M1 Macro
Front camera: 32MP GalaxyCore GC32E1

Let’s cut to the chase, some of these sensors are decent, others less so, the thing they all have in common is that they are inexpensive. Evidently, Punkt. doesn’t consider its core audience to be interested in photography, which is why we see Omnivision and GalaxyCore sensors across the board.

While the 64MP Omnivision OV64b40 isn’t a bad primary sensor, it's not something I’d expect to see on a premium device, but rather on a low- to mid-tier device.

It can take some sharp photos in good light conditions, and it has ML-PDAF focusing, but it only has digital zooming, not optical, and its native 0.7μm pixels are smaller than many competitors.

But as I’ve seen more of the results of this sensor, I’ve also noticed that the dynamic range isn’t wide, and it tends to wash out bright areas too easily. Some of its deficiencies can be addressed by post-capture software processing, but I see little evidence of this on the MC03, resulting in missing detail in shadows, for example.

The redeeming aspect of this camera cluster is that it will take 4K video, even if the storage capacity of this phone isn’t ideal for doing that.

One disappointment is that Punkt. wouldn’t pay for the Widevine L1 license, only L3, so if you use the MC03 to watch streams from the likes of Disney or Netflix then the resolution will only be 480p, even if you have an HDR-rated display capable of better than 1080p.

In short, not a photographer's phone, although it can take the odd decent image.

Punkt. MC03 Camera samples

Punkt. MC03: Performance

Originally, I was going to compare this phone to the AGM G3 Pro, since it uses the same SoC, but instead, I went with the Motorola ThinkPhone 25, which also uses that platform. I could have used the Doogee V Max LR, Ulefone Armor 34 Pro or Ulefone Armor 30 Pro, as these all use it too.

As you can see from these numbers, the performance of the Dimensity 7300 is reasonably consistent irrespective of the brand of phone, and it delivers reasonable if unexciting results.

However, what I found genuinely interesting was that with less battery, 20% less, the Motorola managed to run for a little longer. That hints that when you reorganise the OS to be more secure, there might be an impact on power efficiency. And, the Motorola also charges more rapidly, because it can charge at 68W, not 33W.

But the most damning aspect of this comparison isn’t in these benchmark scores. It’s that the ThinkPhone costs only £275 in the UK (not available in the USA), and it comes with a far superior camera platform that includes an optical zoom.

Therefore, if you strip away the AphyOS part of the MC03 offering, it appears to be more than double the price that the hardware can reasonably justify.

Punkt. MC03: Early verdict

I can rationalise that some people find minimalist tech attractive, probably because of companies like Microsoft and others that overstuff their products with features their customers never asked for.

However, my experience with the MC03 engineering sample didn’t make me want to embrace the ringfenced mindset behind this design for numerous reasons.

As a reviewer of this device, along with the device I was provided by the makers with a long list of critical, major and minor known problems with the MC03. Having had the phone for a month, none of these has been addressed so far, and I’ve found additional problems along the way. Considering that this phone is meant to be ready for customers at the end of April, it’s concerning that I haven't seen a rapid succession of updates.

It may be that the retail version of this phone has changes, and the engineering sample I had wouldn't run the latest version of the OS. Or none of the subsequent releases are considered 'stable' and instead are alpha or beta releases.

If I do see a bug-squashing firmware release before it is available to purchase, I’ll add a note to that effect below.

But those flaws aside, my first complaint is that this device assumes, probably because the customer bought it, that they’ve entirely bought into the Punkt. ecosystem even before they’ve used the phone.

When you run through the typical question-and-answer system of a phone initialisation, you are told to create an Aphy account, which gives you one year of free use, and then it’s a paid subscription. You don’t get to skip this and come back to it later, which I personally hated.

Then it asks you which Aphy apps you want to install, even if you have no idea which ones you want, and it won’t accept the answer ‘none of them’. Again, the same approach to the customer is blatantly to do as you are told.

I randomly picked Proton VPN, and then I discovered that while you need an Aphy account to access the app, you also have to pay extra to use it.

It’s like at every turn, this device holds its hand up and declares that where you are heading is out of bounds. A personal favourite, and not one of the documented bugs, was that I couldn’t take screenshots of my benchmark results.

It told me that either the app or my organisation had not given permission for that! Yes, that overburdening corporation I work for decided I couldn’t take screenshots, even though I’m self-employed.

I could go on, but it’s all rather tedious to recount, and it made me just want vanilla Android more than ever.

Yes, I’m sure that what Punkt. has been built is technically more secure, and reducing the app model to this form has undeniable benefits. But, as has been the complaint with previous Punkt. phones, they’re expensive and can have significant bugs that the company seems slow to fix.

Others have commented that the security credentials of AphyOS come from companies that Punkt. does business with, where alternatives like Graphene have had independent third-party appraisals. I don’t have the inside knowledge to confirm or refute that view, but it would be interesting to see what the Mythos AI, created by Anthropic, made of this platform from a vulnerability perspective.

The security angle aside, the biggest issue here is asking this much for a phone with mid-tier components and additional subscriptions for the secure apps seems to shrink the number of potential customers for the MC03. But since this company has sold enough MC01 and MC02 devices to remain in business, it must be doing enough right to have brought us the MC03.

For more options, check out our selection of the best business smartphones we've tested.

• Lidl signs deal with 1Global for new MVNO
• Looks to offer low-cost, short-term mobile plans
• Lidl boasts over 100 million customers worldwide

Lidl has signed a deak to create a new MVNO offering mobile phone plans to its customers.

The as-yet-unnamed new MNVO will look to offer "simple, digital, and affordable mobile plans" for users across the world.

The supermarket giant has stores in 30 countries across the world, and boasts 100 million customers, making for a huge possible customer base.

Lidl expansion

Lidl says its deal with telecoms firm 1Global will look to address "a key need" for customers - getting access to reliable, flexible and affordable connectivity without being locked into long-term contracts.

“We are democratizing mobile communications," noted Julian Beer, Executive Vice President of Purchasing at Lidl International. "In doing so, we are setting new standards and making affordable mobile communications easier than ever for our customers. By integrating state-of-the-art technology, we can meet the needs of millions of customers for uncomplicated connectivity for their devices."

Lidl does already provide mobile deals in several countries via its existing MVNO Lidl Connect. The company operates in Germany using Vodafone’s network, in Switzerland with Salt Mobile, and in Austria on Drei’s infrastructure - but will now look to expand this into new markets across the world.

The deal will see Lidl take a 9.9% stake in 1Global, which already has partnerships with operators in 12 countries.

“Lidl is the partner that shares our vision: We want to make mobile communications as intuitive, flexible, and digital as possible for millions of people," noted Hakan Koç, founder and CEO of 1Global.

"Our technology focuses on digital offerings tailored to the needs of users and their various devices. We want to successfully drive the technological transformation of the global telecommunications market in the best interests of people.”

We're delighted to officially open the entries for the Mobile Industry Awards 2026!

The Mobile Industry Awards are the gold standard of excellence - from the boardroom to the grassroots, the entrants represent the best and brightest the UK mobile industry has to offer.

We are delighted to say that the Mobile Industry Awards 2026 will take place on 17 September 2026 at the stunning Royal Lancaster London.

It's the perfect setting for a night of fine dining, networking and industry celebration, and you can be in with a chance of joining our elite band of winners as entries for the Mobile Industry Awards 2026 are now open.

Here are this year's MIA 2026 categories in full

INDIVIDUAL CATEGORIES

Person of the Year 2026 (Power 50 winner)

Future Stars 2026

COMPANY CATEGORIES

Best Customer Service (Business)

Best Customer Service (Consumer)

Best Place to Work (Over 1,000 employees)

Best Place to Work (Under 1,000 employees)

Marketing Campaign of the Year

CSR Initiative of the Year

Sustainability Initiative of the Year

Team of the Year

Sales team of the Year - NEW FOR 2026

CHANNEL & SERVICE

Best Mobile Service & Solution Provider

Best Wholesale Service & Solution Provider

Best Mobile/Gadget Insurance Service

Distributor of the Year

RETAIL CATEGORIES

Retailer of the Year (High Street and Online)

Best Repair Service

Best Recycling and Refurbishing Service

Best Reseller and/or Distributor

Distributor of the Year

NETWORK CATEGORIES

Best eSIM Provider

Best MVNO

Best Network for Business

Best Network for Consumers

Best SIM-Only Network

Innovation of the Year Product or Service

PHONES & ACCESSORIES CATEGORIES

Accessory Manufacturer of the Year

Smartphone Manufacturer Of The Year

MIA 2026 entry process

Entering the Mobile Industry Awards 2026 is the easiest decision you make this year - our entry portal is user-friendly and our team are here to help you every step of the way, and what’s more it’s free to enter.

START YOUR ENTRY HERE!

All entries must be submitted by no later than 6pm on 9th June 2026.

Tables will be available on a first come first served basis, so we invite you to go online and select your table packages - we can either take card payment or organise an invoice to send to you.

8849 Tank X: 2-minute review

For those unfamiliar with 8849, this is a sub-brand of Unihertz, and it takes its name from the height of Mount Everest in metres. Well, other than plate tectonics is pushing the mountain up, and rocks and ice fall off, so at the time of writing, it is 8,848.86 metres to be correct.

Oddly, the Tank series on 8849 has styling and functionality similar to the Unihertz Tank series, so perhaps the Unihertz brand will go away at some point.

The target demographic of the Tank X is those who need a go-anywhere design that packs plenty of battery capacity, are probably travelling to remote locations where they will want a camping light and to capture high-quality images and video.

A flagship product from 8849, the Tank X was launched in February 2026 at an early bird price of $549.99, against an RRP of $1,049.99. At that higher price, it will face serious scrutiny, but even at launch pricing, it is one of the more expensive rugged smartphones available.

The justification for that cost is a combination of headline features that most competitors simply cannot match. These include a built-in 1080p DLP projector rated at 220 lumens with laser autofocus, a 64MP night vision camera with four dedicated infrared LEDs, and a 17,600mAh dual-cell battery paired with 120W fast charging.

The MediaTek Dimensity 8200, built on a 4nm process, is a genuine step up from the mid-range chips used in most rugged phones at this price. Combined with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, the Tank X has the hardware to handle demanding tasks.

The downside to the kitchen-sink approach to feature selection seen here is that at 750g, this is one of the heaviest rugged phones around, and not something that anyone travelling on foot would choose to include in their backpacks.

That bulk is a deliberate engineering choice, since a smaller device wouldn’t be able to mount the dedicated FPC connections for the projector, flashlight, camping lamp, sensors, and antenna array. The absence of wireless charging is also intentional, with 8849 prioritising a field lantern over Qi coils.

Durability credentials include IP68 and IP69K waterproofing, along with MIL-STD-810H certification, which covers immersion, high-pressure water jets, shock, vibration, and temperature extremes. The device runs Android 15, which is current but not cutting-edge, and 8849 hasn’t mentioned if it will see an Android 16 upgrade.

The inclusion of features like a projector always takes this device into niche areas, since this isn’t a capability that everyone needs on their Smartphone. And because of that, I won’t be including it in our list of the best rugged phones. But that’s not to say it isn’t perfect for somebody.

8849 Tank X: price and availability

• How much does it cost? $550/£460 (early-bird)
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? You can get it directly from 8849 or via many online retailers such as Amazon.

Many phone makers like to make the launch of a new phone something special, probably because in the first month or so, it's likely they will see the largest number of sales.

The aggressive pitch of the 8849 Tank X is an early bird price from the makers of $549.99 (£460.46), which is almost half the $1,049.99 RRP. Call me cynical, but I feel it is unlikely the makers will sell any at the RRP, but the early bird price is attractive considering the specification of the Tank X.

The Amazon.com price is $629.99 with a coupon if you want next-day delivery.

To put that in perspective, the last phone I reviewed with a projector was the Ulefone Armor 34 Pro, a phone that cost $550/£519 when launched. It offered a bigger 25500 battery, a 150-lumen projector, and the current official price is $699.

However, Unihertz has the competitively priced Tank 2 Pro that can be bought for $479.99 direct from the maker, but only $412.59 on Amazon.com. And what makes that doubly interesting is that Unihertz is behind the 8849 sub-brand, so it's competing with itself with these products.

The Tank 2 Pro has more battery capacity, only 12GB of RAM, an older Helio G99 SoC, and is only 4G. But if it’s the projector that you want, this is the cheaper way to get that functionality.

There aren’t many phones with projectors, and the one in this design is higher quality than most, so the asking price seems realistic.

• Value score: 4/5

8849 Tank X: Specs

8849 Tank X: Design

• A blunt instrument
• Odd button arrangement
• No wireless charging

The Tank X is a substantial piece of hardware. At 31.9mm thick, it is approaching the depth of a small portable battery pack, and at 750 grams, it is heavier than many 13-inch laptops. Carrying it in a trouser pocket is impractical; a jacket chest pocket or belt holster is the more realistic option for field use. Personally, I think it's best mounted on a vehicle.

The chassis uses a half-board, double-sided internal layout to house its unusual combination of components. The projector occupies the upper rear section of the body, with a dedicated lens housing visible on the back panel. The 1,200-lumen camping light and emergency warning lights are also rear-mounted, along with the triple camera array.

Where the Tank X goes slightly off the well-worn path, it’s the button layout, which is odd for those who have used many Android phones. The right side has only the power button that doubles as a fingerprint reader, a choice that’s not ideal for left-handed people.

On the left are two tiny volume buttons, and why they’re so small, I’ve no idea, and then two customisable push-to-talk buttons. The SIM tray isn’t on either side; instead, it gets relegated to the top edge alongside the projector and an infrared emitter.

Why this phone ended up with such a non-standard button layout seems inexplicable, given how big it is and the large amounts of unused space on the sides.

Build quality is reinforced throughout with corner protection and a textured rear panel. IP68 and IP69K ratings mean the device tolerates water immersion to the 1,8M depth for up to 30 minutes and high-pressure wash conditions. MIL-STD-810H certification covers a broad set of environmental tests, making the Tank X suitable for deployment in demanding field environments ranging from construction sites to remote expeditions.

Although, and this is something I’ve not seen before, owners are not recommended to operate the buttons underwater. And, you are warned that “In daily use, exposure to seawater, swimming pool water, soapy water, hot water, or other liquids may reduce protective performance”.

The absence of wireless charging is worth noting for buyers accustomed to Qi pads. It is an intentional trade-off: 8849 replaced the Qi coil with the field lantern hardware, reasoning that users in the environments this device targets are more likely to have a USB-C cable than a charging mat.

The USB port is 2.0 spec, which means that getting files off the Tank X is substantially quicker over Wi-Fi than with a cable.

One aspect of the design I admired more was that the 6.78-inch LCD Punch-Hole Display is both bright, at up to 750 nits, and the colours are well saturated. This panel also has a small border to the physical front edge of the phone, which makes it seem even bigger than it is.

As a design, the priority for those making the Tank X was to stuff all the technology inside and protect it from the environment, which they achieved. However, there is almost nothing about this phone that is elegant or refined; it's more like a brick that’s had its sharpest edges filed down.

Design score: 3.5/5

8849 Tank X: Hardware

• MediaTek Dimensity 8200
• 17,600 mAh battery
• 1080p 220 Lumen Projector

The last phone I reviewed that used the MediaTek MT6896 (Dimensity 8200) was the Oukitel WP210 (read it here), and then I remarked that this SoC is a solid choice for those seeking a capable and efficient SoC in the mid-range smartphone market.

Built around an octa-core CPU, combining high-performance Cortex-A78 cores with energy-efficient Cortex-A55 cores, and a Mali-G610 MP6 GPU for enhanced graphics capabilities.

What’s great about this SoC is that it's extremely well-balanced in terms of processing power and graphics capabilities, and it supports high-end camera sensors and 5G comms.

There are more powerful chips available, like some of the Samsung options, and the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon designs, but you don’t typically see them in rugged phones.

In this context, the Dimensity 8200 has 16GB of LPDDR5 memory to work with, and 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage, along with up to 2TB on an optional TF card. That’s plenty of RAM and space for most use cases.

Before we get to the headline feature, it’s worth talking about the battery in this phone, and how it seems slightly smaller than I’d have expected. While 17600 mAh isn’t a small battery, a phone that weighs 750g or more, like the Ulefone Armour 33 Pro, for example, would normally have 20000 mAh or more battery capacity.

In fact, the Ulefone Armor 33 Pro has 25500 mAh, or 7,900 mAh more than the Tank X. And that phone isn’t special, the Blackview Oscal Tank 1 has 20000 mAh of capacity, but is only 640g.

But as we’ll discover in the performance section, thanks to the power efficiency of the Dimensity 8200, the Tank X can make its reduced capacity go as far as, or farther than, phones with larger batteries.

Clearly, the culprit in making this phone 750g and reducing the space for extra battery capacity is the built-in projector.

The DLP projector is the defining feature of the Tank X and the one most likely to determine whether this device is relevant to any individual buyer. It can output at 1920 x 1080 with a claimed brightness of 220 lumens and uses laser autofocus for rapid alignment.

The throw range is approximately 0.5 to 3 metres (1.6 to 10 feet), allowing image sizes from small desk-surface projections to something approaching a practical portable screen.

I’ve seen other phone makers put projectors in their devices and claim all sorts of things, but this is the first one I’ve seen that could practically deliver most of what was claimed.

I should say that a home or office use projector might be rated at three times as bright, but then that’s physically much larger and requires mains power. But it should not be compared to a standalone projector with an equivalent lumen rating; the lens size and thermal constraints of a phone-integrated DLP mean the effective perceived brightness will be lower than that of a dedicated unit.

For a phone, however, it is the most capable projection system currently available in a handheld device, beating the 720p, 100-lumen units found in earlier 8849 and competing products. The 220 lumens offered here is genuinely usable in a darkened tent or unlit room, something I found quite shocking.

The one-touch projection feature allows rapid deployment without navigating menus, which is important for professional presentations and field briefings. 8849 claims the projector operates without excessive battery drain, but that’s something I’ll talk about in the performance section.

• Hardware score: 4/5

8849 Tank X: Cameras

• 50MP, 64MP and 8MP on the rear
• 50MP on the front
• Four cameras in total

The 8849 Tank X has four cameras:

Rear camera: 50 MP Sony IMX766, 64MP Omnivision OV64B1B Sensor (Night Vision), 8 MP HiSilicon HI847 Telephoto with 3x optical zoom and AF
Front camera: 50MP Hi5022Q Fixed Focus

The camera layout of the Tank X is unusual, and probably a little bit ground-breaking.

Although it doesn’t have a Samsung 108MP sensor, this is easily one of the most capable camera setups I’ve found on any rugged phone tested to date. The primary rear sensor is a 50MP Sony IMX766, the same component used in several mainstream flagship handsets from the past two years. It is a strong choice for a device targeting serious outdoor photography and documentation work.

But ironically, it isn’t the sensor with the most elements. That’s the 64MP Omnivision OV64B1B, a night vision camera that is supported by four infrared LEDs and, crucially, retains autofocus capability in IR mode.

Fixed-focus night vision cameras, which are common on competing rugged phones, struggle with anything but stationary subjects at predictable distances. The Tank X's AF capability in infrared mode is a meaningful operational advantage for field surveillance, wildlife observation, and low-light navigation.

And rounding out what is already an impressive rear camera cluster is an 8MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom and autofocus. The dual-LED flash system uses two colour-temperature LEDs at 1.5A maximum output, supplementing the IR LEDs for mixed-lighting situations. The front camera is a 50MP sensor, which is exceptionally high resolution for video calls and documentation selfies.

When I first ran the camera app, I was disappointed that it presented me with 1X and 3.4X options, but you can easily slide all the way from 1X to 20X, although it gets rather grainy over 10X. Being able to frame images without having to move is great, and the results, especially from the Sony IMX766 and Omnivision OV64B1B, are generally excellent.

If there is a weakness here, it's how bare the screen is for special modes.

It offers you Timelapse, QR-code, Mono, Super resolution and an editing mode. There is a PRO control set, but what happened to sports mode, or Panoramic?

Thankfully, there is no dumb AI mode where it puts hats or animal features on people, but a more fleshed-out photo application would be ideal.

One of the best things about this phone is the restraint of the Android 15 installation, as it leaves the AI to Gemini, and avoids all the cash-grab chatbots that other brands (Blackview, looking at you) have smeared onto their devices.

Overall, it could have more features in the photo app, but the camera offering here is exceptionally strong for a rugged phone.

8849 Tank X Camera samples

• Camera score: 4/5

8849 Tank X: Performance

• Modern and efficient SoC
• GPU issues with OpenGL 3.1 and Vulkan 1.3
• Great battery life

If it wasn’t for the projector, this phone would probably weigh around 650g, and have at least 20000 mAh of battery, so I thought it best to compare it with one that has almost exactly that spec. I should also mention that the typical price of the Blackview Oscal Tank 1 is only $285, although it doesn’t have a projector and has less memory and storage.

What these numbers are a good representation of is how much better the newer MediaTek 4nm SoCs are over their older 6nm models.

This gives the Tank X more processing power, more GPU performance, and it's singularly more power efficient. In fact, the CPU-GPU combination is so potent that it maxed out most 3DMark tests, except for Wildlife and Steel Nomad Lite.

One note about the battery consumption is that while it didn’t last as long by roughly an hour, the Tank X has roughly 88% of the capacity, and the test stopped with 20% of the battery capacity left. Had it used that final fifth of the battery, it would have exceeded Tank 1 by at least three to four hours, I estimate.

If given the choice between these two phones, it comes down to how much eight is too much and whether your budget goes far enough to have the superior features of the Tank X.

I almost forgot to mention the projector, which has both good and bad aspects. The bad first is that the fan needed to keep it cool is loud, and you will need to turn up the volume to be able to hear whatever content you are watching. I estimated that it was in the 55-60 dB range, which isn’t something easily ignored.

To see the impact on battery performance, I ran a YouTube video for 30 minutes and recorded the battery consumption before and after. Projecting 30 minutes of video used up 11% of the available battery, suggesting you might get through the first Lord of the Rings movie, The Fellowship of the Ring, but I suspect not the extended edition.

Therefore, you can watch a whole movie with a fully charged battery, as long as you choose the right one.

• Performance score: 4/5

8849 Tank X: Final verdict

Putting all the good things that 8849 put into the Tank X to one side for a moment, the elephant in this room is disguised as a phone or the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, depending on taste.

This isn’t a phone anyone would carry casually, unless they’re related to the late Andre the Giant.

That said, if you can put up with something as big and heavy that it could be mistaken for a useful part of house construction, then there is plenty to like here.

The screen on the Tank X is bright and large, with an excellent colour gamut. The camera cluster goes way beyond what most rugged phones offer, and you can take exceptional photos and video with it. This device also has the first truly practical 1080p projector I’ve seen on a phone, and that’s an exclusive feature.

As for price, the early-bird pricing is good, but I couldn’t see many of these being sold at a price greater than $1000 RRP.

It’s time to create a feature matrix and see how many boxes it ticks, because the Tank X might not be for everyone, but it could be for you.

Should I buy a 8849 Tank X?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also Consider

For more ruggedized devices, we've reviewed the best rugged tablets, the best rugged laptops, and the best rugged hard drives

Oscal Pilot 5: 30-second review

The Pilot 5 sits in the lower-mid tier of the Oscal rugged lineup, slotting beneath the Pilot 6 and the more premium Marine 3. Its headline features are a 15,000mAh battery with 33W fast charging, a 6.67-inch 120Hz IPS display, and the UNISOC T8100 chipset built on a 6nm process. Importantly, it ships with Android 16 via Oscal's DokeOS 5.0 skin, which is ahead of most of the competition at this low price point.

At 570g and 25.3mm thick, this is unquestionably a chunky handset. It is heavier than many flagship consumer phones and will not easily fit into pockets. The trade-off is a device that carries IP68 and IP69K waterproofing alongside MIL-STD-810H durability. It can survive immersion to a depth of two metres and withstand high-pressure water jets, which should cover most outdoor working environments. It certainly feels built to withstand significant abuse.

Performance from the UNISOC T8100 is modest by flagship standards, being roughly in line with what you would expect from a mid-range chip at this price bracket. Day-to-day tasks, navigation, and messaging are handled without fuss, though the processor is not intended for demanding 3D gaming. The 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM is extendable to 24GB via virtual memory, though by current standards, the memory type and capacity aren’t the best.

Even greater cost-cutting was evident in the camera choices, with a 16MP rear sensor and a 13MP front camera, making this less than ideal for photography.

The genuine strength of this device is its battery and power efficiency. At 15,000 mAh with 33W fast charging, endurance over several days of moderate use is realistic.

Connectivity is broad, covering 5G across a solid band selection that includes the key UK and European frequencies. Wi-Fi reaches 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) but stops short of Wi-Fi 6, which may disappoint those who want the fastest possible local network speeds. Bluetooth 5.0 and NFC are both present.

The built-in 5W speaker is rated at 140dB if you want to damage your hearing, and the 410-lumen camping torch is a practical inclusion for outdoor users. Oscal's Doke AI 2.0 platform integrates DeepSeek-R1, ChatGPT-4o mini, and Gemini 2.0, giving the device a broad AI toolkit that goes well beyond what most competitors at this price offer.

Overall, the Oscal Pilot 5 is a mixed bag with a few good points and undeniable weaknesses. It’s affordable, but it won’t be included in our best rugged smartphone collection.

Oscal Pilot 5: price and availability

• How much does it cost? $390/£232/€277
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? You can get it directly from Blackview or via many online retailers.

The phone is available directly from the makers, Blackview, where the price is £232 in the UK and €266.95 across Europe. Oddly, and this might be tariff-related issues, the US price is $389.99 direct from Blackview, but it can be found on AliExpress for only $269.98, a much better deal.

However, I can’t confirm if there might be extra duty to pay using that source. For Europeans, the best place to buy this phone is directly from the brand, since prices are better than on popular Chinese importers like AliExpress.

There are only two SKUs of the Oscal Pilot 5, and those are the two colours on offer: Yellow and Black. All have 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

What’s slightly curious is that one of the strongest competitors, the Pilot 5, also comes from the same stable, the Blackview Rock 2 Pro. It offers the same 15,000mAh battery with a dual 400-lumen camping light, 32GB RAM (8GB physical plus 24GB virtual), 256GB storage and a similar camera arrangement. And at $363.99, it is cheaper than the Pilot 5.

A better choice than either of those is the Oukitel WP56, since it has a 108MP camera sensor, 16000mAh battery and 45W charging, all for around $260.

If I wanted a cheap, rugged phone, I’d also look at the Doogee S200 and Ulefone Armour 29 Ultra, both of which have better specs and lower prices.

Overall, the Pilot 5 is an inexpensive phone, but that doesn’t make it a great value for money.

• Value score: 3.5/5

Oscal Pilot 5: Specs

Oscal Pilot 5: design

• Not excessively heavy
• 720p display
• No wireless charging
• Doke 5.0

The physical form of the Pilot 5 will be familiar to anyone who has handled a Blackview design in the past five or so years. It sports the solid feeling metal-sided that gives way to reinforced plastic corners, and a bevelled edge makes it easier to hold.

At 570g, this isn’t the heaviest rugged phone by any degree, but it's not lightweight either, and fitting it in a pocket might prove a challenge.

The Pilot 5 is available in Black and Yellow, with the latter being a popular choice in outdoor and worksite environments where high visibility matters. The yellow model that I received for review has a highlight line on the front, and that’s almost all the yellow on it.

That border also serves to highlight how much smaller the display is than the front of the phone. According to Blackview, this phone measures 188.6 x 89.7 x 25.3mm, but I measured the display width at around 70mm and the length at 155mm, resulting in substantial borders on all sides.

The panel is an odd 720 x 1604 resolution, which doesn’t achieve the level of FHD, never mind FHD+.

The buttons are less of a diversion, with the classic placement of power and volume on the right, with a custom button and SIM tray to the left. The USB-C port is on the bottom edge, and there is no 3.5mm audio jack for those who prefer that headphone option.

On the back, the camera cluster is forced onto the left to make room for a 5W speaker, and below that is a curious isometric camping LED that the makers helpfully obscured a portion of with the critical manufacturing label. Not sure why phone makers do this rubbish with the label, but it's certainly annoying. The placement and angle of the camping LED guarantee that there is no room for wireless charging coils, sadly.

The Pilot 5 ships with DokeOS 5.0 built on Android 16, making it one of the first rugged phones at this price point to launch with the latest Android release. Oscal's skin adds a range of customisation options, including wallpaper hubs, colour schemes, and theme styles, alongside a deep-cleaning memory management tool.

Doke AI 2.0 is the platform's AI layer, integrating three third-party models: DeepSeek-R1, ChatGPT-4o mini, and Gemini 2.0. The Hi Doki assistant handles document parsing, online search, and creative generation. The AI Global Smart Control feature is described as allowing voice or text commands to operate across the entire phone, including switching between apps.

None of these things is free, and a subscription is required for those who wish to chat on their phone on a regular basis. Since nobody has made a compelling argument for paying for AI right now, I suspect these tools will have quietly disappeared by the time the 2027 models come along.

Doke 5.0 is heavily encrusted with bloatware, so be prepared for that.

Design score: 3.5/5

Oscal Pilot 5: hardware

• UNISOC T8100 (UMS9620)
• 15000 mAh battery

This is the third phone I’ve covered that uses the MediaTek Dimensity 7025, and I haven’t changed my opinion of it.

The UNISOC T8100 is a 6nm octa-core chip comprising four Cortex-A76 cores running at 2.2GHz and four Cortex-A55 cores at 2.0GHz. This is a step up from the older T7300 found in many budget rugged phones. However, even mid-priced phones are using 4nm SoC these days, although at least the accompanying GPU is an ARM Mali-G57.

A wide selection of benchmarks places the Pilot 5 in the mid-range bracket, comfortably ahead of budget MediaTek Helio G-series chips but well below the Dimensity 8300 used in Blackview's more expensive Xplore 2. For the intended workload of rugged mobile users, this is generally adequate.

The 8GB of physical LPDDR4X RAM can be supplemented by up to 16GB of virtual memory drawn from the UFS2.2 storage, bringing the addressable total to 24GB. This virtual expansion is useful for keeping more apps resident in memory, but does not replicate the sustained throughput of physical RAM.

The 15,000mAh battery is the Pilot 5's most prominent specification. Oscal claims the device can cope with heavy use across multiple days, and with the phone in standby, the capacity should sustain the handset for weeks. For users whose daily routine involves long periods in the field with limited access to charging infrastructure, this is a meaningful advantage over a standard consumer smartphone.

My only reservation is that the 33W ‘fast charge’ that is highlighted in the phones promotional material isn’t all that special these days. Some phones charge at 45W and others at 66W, so 33W isn’t the fastest to refill the 15000mAh capacity.

While it can recover 20% from exhaustion in 30 minutes, the slower rate at which batteries charge as they reach full capacity would suggest that a complete recharge takes over three hours, and maybe closer to four.

I’m unsure if the 5W OTG support is useful, but it means the Pilot 5 can also act as a power bank to charge other devices. However, it's worth noting that each power transfer costs capacity to achieve.

With the exception of the battery capacity, there isn’t much to write home about under the hood of the Pilot 5.

• Hardware score: 3/5

Oscal Pilot 5: cameras

• 16MP, 2MP on the rear
• 13MP on the front
• Three cameras in total

The Oscal Pilot 5 has three cameras:

Rear camera: 16MP + 2MP Macro
Front camera: 13MP

Normally, it’s not hard to work out what the camera sensors on phones are, mostly because the makers document that in the specifications.

In the Oscal Pilot 5 specifications, the selfie camera is listed first as a SC820CS by SmarSens Technology. I don’t believe this for good reasons, one of which is that the SC820CS sensor is only 8MP. It’s more likely that it’s a SC1320CS, but that’s a wild guess.

Another issue is the primary sensor, which is listed as an Omnivision OV13B10, a 13MP sensor, but it doesn’t meet the 16MP spec. Let’s assume that’s also wrong.

And, the 2MP macro sensor isn’t mentioned by Oscal, though a hardware analysis of the phone sees it. It could be an Omnivision or a GalaxyCore sensor, but I’m not sure which one.

Part of the issue here is that, normally, you can make educated guesses about the sensors used because those binaries were added to the platform when the OS was compiled. But in this case, no less than 82 camera sensors were compiled with Doke 5.0, including ones for 108MP Samsung sensors. Depending on how generous you feel, that’s either overkill, untidy or intended to obscure what is actually used.

But irrespective of the specific details of these sensors, the primary rear sensor is a 16MP unit with autofocus and a rear LED flash. The front-facing selfie camera is 13MP. There is no telephoto or ultra-wide lens and no dedicated night-vision sensor, which sets the Pilot 5 apart from the alternative Pilot 3 and Pilot 6 designs.

I’m not sure when the last time was I covered a phone that had a 16MP sensor as the best it could offer, but this one barely captures still images that are higher resolution than 4K video.

They are a suitable resolution for social media posts, but you wouldn’t want to try to print them.

Unsurprisingly, the top video resolution is 1080p, but you also get the same video resolution on the front. I could go into painful detail about how these sensors disappoint, but it would be easier if we just accepted that this isn’t the phone for photographers and moved swiftly on.

Oscal Pilot 5 Camera samples

• Camera score: 2/5

Oscal Pilot 5: performance

• Older 6nm SoC
• Great battery life

Since both the Oscal Pilot 5 and Oscal Tank 1 both come from the same source, it just seemed right to see what each offered.

The first obvious thing to say is that the Dimensity 7025 in the Tank 1, which is a rebranded SoC from the 1000 series, has more punch than the UNISOC T8100 in the Pilot 5. And, the Mali G68 MC4 is an improvement, if modest, over the ARM Mali-G57.

So, where does the Pilot 5 win? Well, offering less performance, it manages to last almost as long with 75% of the battery capacity in the Tank 1. And, it also recharges more rapidly.

It should also be noted that when the Pilot 5 shut down, the PCMark battery test still had 24% capacity left, suggesting that 40 hours isn’t unrealistic.

I’m glad the Pilot 5 has this one thing that’s good about it, because almost everything else isn’t remarkable or special.

• Performance score: 3,5/5

Oscal Pilot 5: Final verdict

My experience with the Pilot 5 wasn’t the best; it started badly because, for some inexplicable reason, Blackview sent me a phone intended for the Russian market.

I eventually worked out how to get English as the language, but the phone ignored that change and salted the Doke 5.0 with Russian applications. Presumably, everything about my testing was relayed to Comrade Putin before breakfast the next day.

To start on a positive note, this phone has a decent amount of battery capacity, and because the SoC isn’t a massive power drain, it can run for at least four working days, or even longer with some curation.

However, this is far from a gaming platform, and its curious resolution screen isn’t ideal for watching streamed content. But where it truly falls down is the cameras, which reminds me that the first smartphone with a 16MP sensor was the Nokia Lumia 1020 in 2013, if I’m not mistaken. That said, Apple only introduced better than 12MP in 2022, so it's possible to take good pictures with relatively few pixels. But in this case, the pictures aren’t wonderful.

That aspect, coupled with a 5W speaker that the maker claims can output 140dB, enough to permanently damage hearing if true, makes the Pilot 5 something of an acquired taste.

What I think undermines this design somewhat is that it’s not especially cheap, and it’s relatively easy to find a 2024 phone design with more of everything for less money.

Should I buy a Oscal Pilot 5?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also Consider

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• Drone swarms could act as temporary cell towers during network failures
• AURA-GreeN balances delay, energy use, and signal reliability simultaneously
• Data freshness improves significantly through reduced age of information

Mobile networks are built around fixed towers, but this model often struggles when demand spikes or infrastructure fails unexpectedly.

A research effort from Stevens Institute of Technology explores a different approach, where coordinated drones act as temporary cell towers that extend or stabilize coverage when ground systems fall short.

The idea does not discard existing infrastructure but instead works alongside it, forming a flexible layer that can respond to changing conditions in real time.

A network that adapts in the air

The system, known as AURA-GreeN, relies on multiple drones which function as moving radio units rather than fixed transmission points.

These aerial nodes communicate with each other and with users, adjusting their positions and roles based on current network conditions, allowing the system to behave like a network that appears when needed rather than one that is permanently installed.

“That will be felt particularly hard in big cities with large populations and fewer spaces to add more cell phone towers,” says Ying Wang, an associate professor at the Stevens Department of Systems Engineering.

“In busy cities — especially during things like traffic management, disasters, or search-and-rescue — we need fast, reliable wireless communication,” she adds.

The system continuously evaluates signal quality, interference, and traffic load, then decides how to route data and distribute available spectrum.

This dynamic coordination attempts to keep connections stable even when conventional networks are congested or partially unavailable.

AURA-GreeN also extends its role beyond simply maintaining coverage by focusing on how efficiently information moves across the network.

Rather than only ensuring connectivity, the system evaluates how current and relevant transmitted data remains, a concept the researchers describe as the “age of information.”

This adds another layer to how performance is assessed, especially in situations where timing is critical.

“It keeps the ‘age of information’ low, meaning the data you see is always very fresh and closely reflects what is happening right now,” says Ishan Aryendu, a PhD candidate.

“We saw that there was a 460% improvement in the age of information.”

At the same time, the system manages multiple demands, including reducing delays, allocating spectrum efficiently, maintaining stable connections, and operating within energy limits.

However, balancing these priorities is not without challenges, as improvements in one area can place pressure on others.

While testing results appear promising, real-world deployment may introduce constraints not fully reflected in controlled environments.

Beyond emergencies, the system could support large gatherings where smartphone networks may face sudden demand.

The researchers note that beginner drones used for filming can also provide coverage, adding that “we are piggybacking on drones that already provide the coverage of the event.”

TP-Link Omada EAP787: 30-second review

Ceiling-mounted access points have been extremely popular since makers like TP-Link began designing them with PoE in mind.

Positioning the TP-Link Omada EAP787 in a range of these devices, it's either at the top or just below it, since the makers do have the EAP783, which is BE20000 rated.

Depending on the region this equipment is deployed, the EAP787 is either a BE12000 or BE15000 capable device with up to channels covering 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 6GHz frequencies. In the USA(BE15000), these bands offer 5765 Mbps on 6 GHz, 8648 Mbps on 5 GHz and 688 Mbps on 2.4 GHz, totalling 15101 Mbps.

In the EU and UK (BE12000), those numbers are 5765 Mbps on 6 GHz, 5765 Mbps on 5 GHz and 688 Mbps on 2.4 GHz, totalling 12218 Mbps. The hardware is identical; it’s just that in the USA, the FCC permits 320 MHz-wide channels on the 5 GHz band, whereas under European regulators (ETSI/Ofcom), the limit is 5 GHz to just 160 MHz wide.

The caveat to having this much bandwidth available is that the EAP787 must use a 10GbE backhaul to connect to the larger network, and potentially the Internet. And that requires a special switch that supports PoE++ 10GbE.

As with most TP-Links Omada hardware, the EAP787 is packed with Enterprise-class technologies that allow it to be remotely configured and controlled, and this AP also has a frequency monitoring technology that detects interference in real-time and enables the hardware to reconfigure automatically.

Given its capabilities, the EAP787 seems implausibly cheap, but it's worth noting that buying these might require larger investments in network infrastructure to make the most of what they can do.

If you have a 10GbE PoE++ switch, then this is probably one of the best access points available. And certainly one of the most affordable.

TP-Link Omada EAP787: price and availability

• How much does it cost? $250/£230/€280
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? Available from Amazon and other online retailers.

As with most TP-Link hardware, the EAP787 is available from major online resellers, including Amazon. In the USA, it costs $249.99, and in the UK it's £ 250.

However, I wouldn’t recommend buying it on Amazon unless you only need a single unit. Many resellers who specialise in network equipment offer excellent deals on bulk purchases and bundles that include a 12V power supply or a PoE injector.

The competition comes primarily from another TP-Link design, the EAP783, as well as the Ubiquiti Unifi U7 Pro XGS and U7 Pro Max.

The EAP783 is effectively two EAP787s glued together, offering a massive BE22000 spec, but it lacks the dedicated TF scanning or Bluetooth. It also requires dual 10GbE LAN ports to provide sufficient uplink. The cost of this item is $499.99 on Amazon, which seems appropriate for the bandwidth on offer.

The Ubiquiti U7 Pro XGS costs $299.99 from Amazon, and that’s a BE15000 specification AP (in the USA), and also uses a single 10GbE PoE++ port for power and data.

The Ubiquiti U7-Pro-Max is very similar from a Wi-Fi perspective, having the same BE15000 capability, but bizarrely, the makers have given this model only a single 2.5GbE PoE+ Uplink. It’s only a little cheaper than the Ubiquiti U7 Pro XGS, so I’d avoid that option.

Based on the specifications and cost, the EAP787 seems something of a bargain, but it’s worth considering the extra infrastructure needed to make the best use of this hardware before making an impulse purchase.

• Value score: 4/5

TP-Link Omada EAP787: Specs

TP-Link Omada EAP787: design

• Large dish design
• Ceiling and wall mounting
• 10GbE PoE++ implications

The EAP787 follows TP-Link's standard Omada ceiling-mount aesthetic of a large circular disc designed for flush ceiling or suspended tile installation. The push-and-rotate mount mechanism makes installation straightforward for IT teams.

Using it with 51.7W PoE++, that’s a significant power draw, and the unit is notably large, which may create challenges in space-constrained or aesthetics-sensitive environments.

It comes with a circular mounting plate with holes for four possible connection options. These include a basic ceiling/wall mount, a 3.5-inch US round junction box, a US gang outlet, and an EU gang outlet.

In a recess on the underside of the EAP787 is the 10GbE PoE++ port, and a 12V input if you wish to power it directly rather than use PoE. A plastic cover is provided for this area, but I’d only use it if you have Ethernet cables terminated with a 90-degree connector, since with it attached, there is no straight path to the port.

Four internal antennas handle the eight Wi-Fi streams, while a separate pair of internal antennas is used for the dedicated RF scanning radio. BLE 5.2 is also built in, enabling future IoT integration and remote out-of-band management possibilities via the Omada app.

There is a single 10G/2.5G combo Ethernet port, with the operating speed determined solely by the PoE class provided by the upstream switch. As an alternative, there is a 12V power input, but the PSU for this isn’t included in the box. And TP-Link also makes PoE++ injectors if you want to avoid a PoE++ switch but already have 10GbE networking.

Being generous, this is an elegant design that lets buyers enter at PoE+ and upgrade later. But it’s also worth noting that to get the most from this design requires a 10GbE PoE++ switch, and something like the TP-Link TL-SX3206HPP with four ports of 10GbE PoE++ is likely to cost you £500, substantially more than the EAP787.

For a larger deployment, the 24-port TP-Link SX3832MPP is likely to cost you £1,619.95, though this does have eight 10GbE SFP+ ports to handle the network backbone.

The relatively low price of this Access Point is a lure to get on board the Omada train, as to get all the best features and easiest control requires at least an Omada controller and probably an Omada switch.

Design score: 4/5

TP-Link Omada EAP787: In use

• Omada control
• AFC only on US version

For those unfamiliar with the Omada ecosystem, all TP-Link’s Omada-branded equipment follows the same pattern: it can be used in standalone web-interface mode or via an Omada controller. The controller can be either a hardware controller at additional cost, or a software one configured on a system that remains operationally 24/7.

For an IT professional with lots of TP-Link gear managed by Omada controllers, it makes for an easy life, as the system can be managed globally, including over different sites through a single web-based interface.

Luckily for this review, I already have an Omada controller and a number of Omada access points, so adding this one to the gang is merely a matter of plugging it in and then going to the Omada controller app to adopt it. Once joined to the system, the controller will monitor the EAP787, and automatically deploy the pre-defined SSIDs associated with the network.

That saves me some time, but if I were deploying a dozen of these or other Omada hardware across multiple locations, it could save a substantial amount of effort. It’s also incredibly useful for making sweeping changes and collecting data that might justify buying more (or less) equipment to better meet the demands placed on the network.

Some will argue that TP-Link are attempting to lock you into their hardware, and to a degree, that’s an accurate analysis, but most networking hardware makers do much the same thing, and hardware uniformity makes for greater predictability.

Like all the TP-Link Omada equipment I’ve recently tested, the EAP787 was immediately recognised by the Omada controller and began working alongside the others within minutes.

One special feature I’ve not seen previously, but on the EAP787 is dedicated RF scanning. This is an independent monitoring of the usable spectrum for interference without disrupting client traffic. To leverage this continuous adaptation, the Omada controller v6.0 or higher is required, but it is arguably the device's most compelling enterprise capability.

If there is a blot on this wonderfully cultured Omada landscape, it’s AFC on the EAP787.

Or rather, there is no AFC on the BE12000 model. That's a limitation of the European standards for 6GHz, According to TP-Link, "AFC is required only when you use 6GHz outdoor devices, and need to switch between SP (Standard Power) and LP (Lower Power) mode. 6GHz is only allowed to be used for indoor with LPI (Lower Power Indoor) in UK, and does not require AFC support. Ofcom has decided to allow the use of SP and LP mode for 6GHz for outdoor recently, but there is no official approved AFC agency in UK yet."
AFC, or Automated Frequency Coordination, allows the 6GHz radio to transmit at higher power levels, substantially improving range. That’s important because 5765 Mbps of the available bandwidth is allocated to 6GHz.
Checking with Ofcom, I discovered that the intention is to enable an Automated Frequency Coordination (AFC) system in the 5925 – 7125 MHz band (the 6 GHz band) and conditions to enable Standard Power Wi-Fi deployments under the control of that system.
At this time, that's a proposal under consultation, so there is no timeline for it to become an accepted standard.

• In Use: 4/5

TP-Link Omada EAP787: performance

• EU performance reduction on 5GHz

Performance testing on this hardware is slightly coloured at this point, partly because, depending on what region you are in, there is a different bandwidth topology, and also because AFC isn’t available in the UK/EU model.

The EAP787 uses the same Qualcomm chipset family as its EAP783 brother, though its 5GHz radio is specified at an even higher rate of 8648 Mbps vs the EAP783's 5760 Mbps, suggesting the 5GHz radio has been significantly upgraded.

However, no single client can access that much bandwidth, and in Europe, the 5GHz band is limited to 5760 Mbps anyway.

What’s true wherever the EAP787 is deployed is that the 10GbE port can sustain over 9 Gbps, assuming the wirelessly connected clients are pulling or pushing that much data. As this AP can support more than 500 users simultaneously, that should be possible.

While it’s difficult to put hard numbers on its effectiveness, the dedicated RF scanning radio operates independently from the three data radios, meaning real-time interference monitoring does not tax Wi-Fi throughput. This is a notable advantage in high-density or congested RF environments such as convention centres, hospitals, and lecture halls.

In my testing with a suitably Wi-Fi 7-capable laptop, connection speeds of 1.2 Gbps are standard when near the AP, and even at range, 720 Mbps was sustained. The only caveat to that level of performance is that the first ten people will wonder what happened to their amazing connection when more people turn up.

• Performance score: 4/5

TP-Link Omada EAP787: Final verdict

When the wireless network is expanded with devices like the EAP787, then it's likely that other parts will need upgrading to make use of what it delivers. As I mentioned earlier, making the best use of this gear requires infrastructure changes, but new switches and Omada controllers might just be the tip of a considerable iceberg.

Because the majority of Wi-Fi access won’t be for internal systems, but the greater internet, and having a wireless network with access points that can shift up to 15000Mbps, won’t work if you only have 1GbE broadband at the end of that 10GbE infrastructure.

If you choose to embrace the EAP787 or its EAP783 bigger brother, or any of the UniFi U7 Pro equipment, then budget for a wider broadband pipe at the same time.

This hardware is designed for large enterprises and high-density venues, such as convention centres, lecture halls, or hospitals, with 100+ simultaneous clients per AP, where dedicated RF scanning and high client capacity matter.

It fits better with 10GbE infrastructure, since connecting it by 2.5GbE effectively negates the point of this AP, leaving you paying a premium for 2.5G performance available more cheaply elsewhere.

The Omada ecosystems, with their seamless controller integration, no licensing fees, and consistent Omada management, make it a natural upgrade path from earlier EAP models.

I would avoid using the EAP787 in small offices or homes, where a simpler EAP773 or EAP783 suffices. Those environments without 10GbE switching, or where anyone who needs an AP can deploy standalone without a controller and access all features.

This is plenty of AP for a modest price, and those who choose this equipment must accept that it could easily lead to significant additional investment.

Should I buy a TP-Link Omada EAP787?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

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Oukitel WP61 Plus: 30-second review

Unveiled at IFA 2025 in Berlin, the Oukitel WP61 Plus is the brand's flagship all-in-one rugged smartphone, featuring a 20,000 mAh battery, an integrated 2W DMR walkie-talkie, and a high-powered camping flashlight.

But what is likely to confuse people is that the WP60 and WP62 have been available for some time, but Oukitel held the WP61 Plus back.

Built for outdoor professionals, search-and-rescue workers, or those who routinely find themselves in the great outdoors, the WP61 Plus is entering a highly competitive market.

There are four versions of the WP61 that all share the same SoC, memory, and storage model but differ in the special features included. There is a base model, the Plus model reviewed here, that has a 2W DMR walkie-talkie, the WP61 Ultra with thermal imaging, and the WP61 Ti with NTN Skylo Satellite communications.

All of them use the Dimensity 7025 processor, have 12GB of RAM, 512GB of storage and the same 108MP primary camera.

The large 6.8-inch FHD+ display runs at 120Hz, which is a welcome touch for a rugged device, and Android 16 puts it on the cutting edge for that platform

Where the WP61 Plus truly distinguishes itself, however, is in its extended utility features. The built-in DMR (Digital Mobile Radio) walkie-talkie operates at 2W and is designed to maintain group communications in areas where cellular coverage fails.

Oukitel quotes a range of 5.5km (3.4 miles) for DMR communications, but this will work without any cell service.

Combined with the camping light and the ability to act as a power bank for smaller devices, this phone is positioned less as a smartphone and more as a portable field communications and survival tool.

The only significant downside of this design is its physical scale; at over 650g, this isn’t a small or lightweight design, and with the walkie-talkie antenna attached, it becomes even more unwieldy.

The WP61 Plus might not break into our best rugged smartphone selection, but if you are looking for a general-purpose rugged phone for an adventure trek, then it could be an option.

Oukitel WP61 Plus: price and availability

• How much does it cost? $370/£280/€323
• When is it out? Available soon
• Where can you get it? You can get it directly from Oukitel or via online retailers such as Amazon.

Direct from Oukitel, the asking price for the WP61 Plus is $369.99/£279.99/€322.68, which is a good deal if you accept the view that this is a discount from $499.99/£378.37/€436.06, a price at which this product has never been sold.

You read that correctly. At the time of writing, while Oukitel are promoting this product, it remains out of stock. Also, it’s not available via online retailers, but that’s probably right around the corner.

The Plus model is $50 more than the base model, but $60 less than the Ultra option. There is no price yet for the Satellite model.

There are lots of phones that use the same or similar SoCs, like the Blackview Oscal Tank 1, RugOne Xever 7 Pro, Doogee S200 and Oukitel WP300. All these are cheaper, but lack the DMR walkie-talkie technology.

Blackview has the Xplore 1 Walkie Talkie that sells for €383.95 direct from the makers, a good amount more than the WP61 Plus.

The Unihertz Atom XL is a much smaller phone with the same DMR technology, priced at $289.99 at the official Unihertz outlet. However, I’d avoid this phone because there are no US or Global models.

A better choice is the Armour 26 Ultra Walkie-Talkie, but its base price is $649.99, making it substantially more expensive.

For a DMR-capable phone, the WP61 Plus is reasonably priced, though it might seem a little expensive for the platform specification.

• Value score: 4/5

Oukitel WP61 Plus: Specs