If you have been following the Chinese smartphone industry, DOOGEE should be a familiar name to you. Even if you haven’t used their phones, you’ve probably heard of the brand, which is known for making cheap and easy to use smartphones and accessories. And today, we’ll be checking out the DOOGEE S40 Pro, a phone that focuses on ruggedness and durability. So let’s see what it brings to the table.

We’ve got the Mineral Black version of the DOOGEE S40 Pro and it’s obvious from its appearance alone that it is extremely well protected. The back panel, top and bottom bezels and all four corners are wrapped in rubber. The left and right bezels are metal. The screen uses Corning Gorilla glass, which feels very substantial in the hand. All the ports are protected with rubber plugs. This means that it’s not only drop-proof, but also waterproof. The phone is officially IP68 rated waterproof, and can withstand extreme temperatures between -55°C and 70°C. And it is also military 810G certified. So it’s very practical as a phone designed for the people who spend a lot of time outdoors. The practical design is traded for a huge body and 245g weight, which I think is acceptable.

Since it acts as a phone, the configuration is something that must be talked about. It comes standard with the MT6762D A25 SoC, which is MTK’s Helio P22. Although raw CPU power is not its strength, it can guarantee a very long battery life. For those who often work outdoors, guaranteeing the battery life is an obvious priority over performance. The screen is also only of 720p resolution, and with the 4650 mAh battery it can be said that the phone can last easily for up to 2 days.

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There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack, rear-mounted fingerprint recognition, and a card slot for two nano sims or one nano sim and a TF card. It also has an additional custom button apart from the power and volume keys, which can be customized to quickly launch any specified function. The phone’s rear camera is composed of a 13mp main camera and a 2mp portrait camera. The front camera is 5MP and you cannot really expect a rugged military-grade phone to be good at photography. If I had to comment on its quality, “Barely enough” is my assessment of its camera.

Unfortunately, the phone comes with only 10 watts of charging, and to charge its 4650 mAh battery to 100% means you have to wait for a really long time. I hope that future DOOGEE phones can ship with at least 18 watts of charging. After all, most of the mainstream mobile phones and power banks all support 18 watts of charging. The other thing is that the charging port is hopefully replaced with a Type-C. MicroUSB interface devices are becoming less and less common these days. For people working outdoors, it’s especially convenient to have one less cable to carry.

The phone also has some very useful features built-in such as a Magnifier, Protractor, Plumb Bob, and even a height measurement tool that uses the visual difference principle to measure the height of buildings. It probably won’t be very accurate. But it’s a handy feature nonetheless.

At this point, it’s clear as to the target audience of the DOOGEE S40 Pro — outdoor workers who demand a phone that can guarantee the most basic communications in extreme outdoor conditions. So if you are one of the target audience, the S40 Pro can be a good smartphone option.

But if you’re not, don’t buy it. It retails for $109 on the official website. Given its cheap price tag, it also wouldn’t be heartbreaking to lose it in an extreme environment all of a sudden, Overall, I’d still recommend the phone who needs the special features of the DOOGEE S40 Pro. The premise is that you consider carefully whether you really need a military grade rugged smartphone.

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