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To call this an off road phone is probably the simplest thing to call it, it is packed with extra features for those who go orienteering, are geocaches and as it has GPS those who go to remote places.
It is 15x7.2x1.2cm without the extra pack that magnetically attached to the back, that pack only increases the last figure the width. The front has a huge 4.8x.7cm speaker near the base that packs a good punch of volume.
The viewable screen is 12x6.5cm, this is 5inches using the diagonal imperial measurement which by recent phone standards is small so around the outside there is a lot of protection, the only part that is ‘naked’ is the screen, however this is made of Gorilla Glass. This unit is IP68 water and dust resistant and is also stated to withstand a drop of up to 1.8metres. The weight is 232grams without the added back pack and 357grams with it.
Going around the outside the right side has the entry point for your SIM, the base has the USB ‘C’ entry point. The left side has on/off button and above that the two volume buttons. The top has pin hole microphone and 3.5mm socket for headphones. The back has camera and LED flash.
The ‘Adventure Pack’ attaches to the back and apart from the GPS module it also adds an extra 3620mAh battery. There is a chamfered hole in the back of this that allows the camera to take images without any problem.
It comes with Android 7.1.1 which is far from the latest version but it does have extras like ‘on body detection’ that stops it being turned off that is not found on most other phones.
The main unit’s battery is 4000mAh so the combined total is 7620mAh I know of no other phone with anywhere this amount of battery power.
The other main facts are the Deca-core 2.6GHz processor, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage.
The rear camera is 16MP and the front facing camera 8MP.
Shutdown is 3 seconds while startup is a very pedestrian 40 seconds; however this phone is surely never intended to be turned off.
Most of my testing was in the metropolitan areas so the GPS was certainly underused. It worked fine for the day to day commuting usage.
It was nice to get the chance to try this offering from Vodafone and if you go off road it certainly provides a huge safety net for those areas – and there are still many – in the UK where there is no normal mobile phone signal.
This is a niche phone unless you live miles from the nearest mobile phone signal and then it becomes a lifesaver. However should you like orienteering or other such things then it certainly is worth the money.
The Land Rover Explore is available from Vodafone for £49 upfront and £49 per month and you also get 50GB of monthly data.
Comment by erikgroberts, 17 Apr 2019 4:29
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