Sonim XP1 Blog

Work in construction? Tell us your Sonim story!

Do you own both a Sonim phone and a construction firm? Or are you a Sonim phone owner and are also a construction site foreman? If so, we'd really like to talk with you.

We're working on a series of stories that describe how our customers use their phones, and we need to talk to some people who work in the construction industry. It's a painless procedure -- we email you some questions, you email us your replies. If you're interested in participating, please drop us a line by clicking here. Thanks!

XP1 -- The Live Torture Test

The Mobile Gazette, Cnet and Gizmodo all have stories about our latest XP1 torture test happening now over at Test and Destroy.com

Gizmodo says:

The folks at Sonim have done just about everything in their power to convince potential customers that their XP1 is the world's toughest phone. That includes running over it with cars and dunking it in beer baths. Their latest stunt involves hitting in with a hammer 24/7 until it breaks—and you can watch the entire thing go down online.

You can even send it text messages to test whether or not it is working. Visitors can also wager a guess on how many blows it will take before the phone breaks—with the closest guess earning a freebie XP1. Currently, the counter stands at over 33,500 hits—but my guess is that it will take quite a while before it finally gives in. I mean, it's not like that hammer is really wailing on it. Keep in mind that the XP1 is only available in Europe, but interested parties in the states should be able to get their hands on the updated XP3 version in rural areas starting this March.

CNET says:

The Sonim XP1 has been lauded as a "tough and strong" phone. CreativeFeed, a digital marketing agency, has decided to put it to the test.

It's launched a Web site that features "The Destroyer"--a machine-operated hammer that will pummel the phone 24 hours a day live over the Intertubes until it breaks.

Visitors to the Web site have a chance to win the Sonim XP1 handset if they can correctly guess how long it will take for the phone to break/crack/explode, and how many hits it will take before that happens. The site includes a hint line that you can call to get tips on how high you should place your bets.

The Mobile Gazette says:

Sonim are proud of just how tough the XP1 is and sometimes come up with demonstrations to prove it.

This latest test has involves a machine called "The Destroyer", basically a large hammer which repeatedly hits the XP1 to see how long it will take to destroy. Visitors can see the "experiment" live, and can win one of the handsets by guessing how long it will last and how spectacularly it will fail. As we go to press, the XP1 has been hit 33,000 times.

Once the XP1 has met its maker, Sonim are open to suggestions as to what to destroy next. Quite a few people have suggested the iPhone.. we suspect that it will take rather less than 33,000 hits to smash that.

It's a bit of silliness we suppose, but it is worth noting that Sonim also have an upcoming XP3 which promises to be even more impressively macho than the XP1. Presumably they'll need to lob an atom bomb at it or something.

Test And Destroy!

U.K. newspaper The Guardian published an article today on Test and Destroy, a new torture test devised to gauge the level of abuse our rugged XP1 phone is capable of withstanding.

Snipped from the article:

Manufacturing firm JCB is aiming to prove the toughness of its mobile phone with an online campaign that allows skeptics to pummel it with a machine-operated hammer at the click of a mouse.

The campaign, developed by agency CreativeFeed, aims to prove the aptly named JCB Toughphone is practically indestructible.

CreativeFeed has set up a website - testanddestroy.com - that features the phone hooked up to a device designed to smash it to pieces.

Doubters can watch the device, a machine-operated hammer called The Destroyer, pound the phone every eight seconds.

Visitors are encouraged to make bets on how long the phone, which will be battered 10,000 times a day, will take to break. To prove the test is live visitors can also call the phone and see it ringing.

JCB licenses the rights to name the phone, which is known as the Sonim XP1, in the UK market.

Once the phone is broken, visitors can watch other objects being demolished by The Destroyer, which took four weeks to make, and suggest other objects that could be put to the test.

So head on over to Test and Destroy, make a guess about how the XP1 will respond to the incessent hammering, suggest other things we can break, and call in to activate some additional options.

Delete Before You Donate

So you've purchased a new XP1 and are considering doing a good thing and donating your old mobile phone to charity or sending it off to be recycled. Great idea, just please make sure you remove all your personal data before you hand the phone over to anyone.

The Consumerist recently ran a story about a woman who failed to delete data from her phone before donating it, and later discovered her phone had been sold on eBay -- complete with all her contacts info -- rather than being wiped and donated to charity as she'd expected. The whole incident seems like a comedy of errors on everyone's part, but if you check the comments on the Consumerist post it's obvious this isn't a fluke experience. So before you sell, trade, give away or otherwise dispense with your old phone, check ReCellular's guide to wiping out its stored data.

(It's also obvious that phones don't last nearly as long as they should -- there are several comments from people who claim to have a drawer full of phones that have outlived their usefulness after a year and a half of use. Happily the rugged XP1will provide you with years of faithful service, we guarantee it!)

When Elephants Attack Your Mobile Phone

This is a better clip than the one I had posted earlier this week of our our "XP1 Elephant Torture Test" video, which was shot during the German launch of the XP1 this past weekend.

Over the past few months we’ve subjected the XP1 to dozens of creative torture tests. And while you may not need a phone that can withstand being stepped on by an elephant, submerged in a tub of beer, used as a hockey puck, or shot into the sky strapped to a rocket …while you may not even need a phone that can survive a 40-story drop onto concrete, we firmly believe that you do need a phone that will work in any situation.

Be Careful Out There

The Mobile Shop's Mobile News Blog ran a story from U.K. newspaper The Guardian on an interesting new phenomena: apparently vast numbers of Brits are falling prey to “Walking & Texting” injuries --  colliding with solid objects, other people, sliding under buses and cars, etc (check out the video above for further details) -- due to being distracted by sending or receiving messages while walking.

The Guardian's story cheerily noted that: "In case anyone reading this is one of the 68,000 individuals who apparently interfaced thus with street furniture in London last year (mostly resulting in cuts and bruises, but with a fair proportion of broken noses, cheekbones and one fractured skull in the mix too) and therefore is self-evidently stupid enough to need the problem further delineated, these are injuries caused by people who do not understand the importance of peripheral vision. Until, that is, they compromise it by texting as they walk along the street and into lampposts, signs, bollards and other pedestrians."

The story goes on to note that "Researchers (admittedly the self-interested variety) from a text information company have found that 44% of people are in favour of padding street furniture, while 27% favour "mobile motorways" - coloured lines running down the pavement that texters can follow without fear of meeting immoveable objects."

The Guardian suggested that in addition sherpas should be posted on every corner, to usher the texter safely through the crowded streets.

Toughest Phone In The News

Snipped from a review in The Warsaw Business Journal:

Take Sonim Technologies' Xtreme Performance I (XP1), for example. If this apparently sturdy little gadget were a person, it would probably be a cross between John Wayne and Johnny Knoxville - an emotionally distant, chaps-wearing adrenaline junkie. Of course it's not - it's just a phone - but it still seems like the kind of phone that would wear chaps.

Sonim hosts a number of inspirational videos on its XP1 website, www.toughestphone.com, which demonstrate ways to test the phone's alleged mightiness. In these videos the XP1 survives being run over with cars, showering and sauna'ing with a dodgy-looking guy, as well as being put in a freezer and submerged in milk and beer (not at the same time, though). It can also be used as an impromptu soccer ball or junior-league hockey puck, struck with a baseball bat or a golf club, used to hammer a nail though a board or put through a cement mixer - it endures all of these things with the good cheer of a well-medicated New York socialite.

The XP1 is not totally indestructible, however. As some gumptious Scandinavians went to great lengths to prove, shooting the XP1 with an airgun, a Rugar 10/22 semi-automatic rifle, a 9mm Glock 17 and, finally, a Remington 700 rifle, is guaranteed to end in telecom tragedy.

In more techy terms, the XP1 is an IP-54 certified GSM phone with Bluetooth. Its battery allows for five-hours of talking time in temperatures ranging from -20C to +60C. Feel free to test that for yourself, by the way, and if you survive please send some pictures our way.

And from IntoMobile:

Just a quick post on a handset that isn't especially new (i.e. it's been visible on the interweb for a little while), but has suddenly popped on to the radar of a number of UK phone-vending websites!

This beast amongst phones is the JCB Toughphone, which is actually the Sonim XP1 ruggedised phone under another guise. The 'kewl' part is that JCB is part of many peoples' memories from when they were smaller - if you lived near any building sites like I did, you will be VERY familiar with the logo, and banana-yellow colouring!

On a marginally more serious note, the specs of the handset are impressive ... operating from -20°C to 60°C, and obviously being able to withstand serious 'drop/throw/kick/stamp/bang' abuse

AT&T, SIM Cards and The XP1

Back in November, Verizon announced it was opening up its network to all compatible devices, news that was widely reported and applauded by the media and many bloggers. At the time AT&T also piped up and that its network was already the most wide open network in the US, but hardly anyone paid attention.

While it’s been true for a long time that anyone can use any unlocked wireless phone on AT&T’s network, you had to have an AT&T SIM card in your phone to make this work. And virtually any phone that had an AT&T SIM card was a phone that someone purchased from AT&T, with a service contract.

But now AT&T is actually offering 3G SIM cards a la carte, so anyone that has a 3G unlocked phone can buy the card, pop it into their 3G phone, and use it on AT&T’s network.

The AT&T 3G SIM card is priced at $10 on AT&T's website (currently there is a $5 discount if you purchase online). The cards are 3G-ready, with 64 K of onboard memory. You can pay as you go or choose a monthly fee plan.

So, for all of the folks who have been emailing and calling and asking about getting our XP1 phone for use in the US – it may happen sooner than we expected. Stay tuned, and sign up for our mailing list to ensure you get updates as they happen.

 

 

Keep On Truckin'

I'd like to thank the Sonim Truck Tour team for doing such an outstanding job introducing our XP1 phone in Sweden. You all went over and above the call of duty, figuring out interesting new ways to torture test the XP1. You flung the phone in cement mixers (and turned the mixers on), you strapped a phone to a firework rocket and shot it into the sky, played soccer with it, submerged it in a wide variety of liquids, ran over it with every vehicle you could lay your hands on, threw it from tall buildings and tossed it against hard surfaces.

 You cheerfully encouraged customers to engage in their own XP1 torture tests, answered all of their questions about the phone, and it was obvious to everyone you met that you were having a great time and were really proud of the product. Thanks!

Don't Try This At Home

Wired News' Gadget Blog gave the XP1 a nice write up, with the headline: 'World's Toughest Phone Announced, Endures Car and Beer Tests."

The market for ultra-tough gadgets received a nice bump in the news yesterday, with the announcement of the shock-proof, water-proof, and generally wack-proof Sonim XP1 GSM phone...

Sonim Technologies is launching the XP1 with a European PR campaign called the "World’s Toughest Phone Tour," where people and fellow tech junkies can "torture test" the phone, and which you can follow at their Swedish website right here.  The XP1is IP-54 certified, with bluetooth tech, and is enabled with Push-To-Talk, which most of the best tough phones include and is generally useful in practice.

The Sonim XP1 can handle heavy water, wind, and dust exposure as well as extreme temperatures, and as seen in the video after the jump, a classic beer dive dumping. The video of the car running over it is also impressive, but we would have liked to have seen a faster, real world test in the middle of the highway or something.    

We've no doubt the XP1 would survive a stint on a busy highway, but we're pretty certain a reviewer would not -- sorry, Wired, the logistics of conducting "a faster, real world test in the middle of the highway or something" really aren't something we'd encourage anyone to undertake.