Land Rover mobile phone on standby for toughest off-road assignments

Sonim Technologies already has a reputation for producing near-indestructible mobile phones but now, in partnership with Land Rover, they’ve gone one better. The Land Rover S1 is the world’s first IP-67 rated GSM mobile, a standard which means it has tested as totally impervious to dust and is waterproof to a depth of one meter. The S1 can also withstand dirt, shocks, drops and up to 400kgs of pressure.

The Land Rover S1 boasts many of the other endurance features of the Sonim range. In tests, buttons have been pushed more than 500,000 times. The battery offers up to 1500 hours of standby time and 18 hours of talk time. The unit will survive drops of up to two meters onto hard surfaces, and more than 2,000 vibrations in the 500Hz range. And it can operate in temperatures from –4ºF (-20ºC) to 131ºF (55ºC). The only real question is: where can you subject a phone to these sorts of conditions and still expect to get a signal?

Land Rover claims its phone is perfectly suited to the adventurous outdoor spirit of its customers but, luckily, there are plenty of features for those who never actually get off-road. They include a 2-megapixel waterproof camera, built-in GPS, torch light, FM radio, 2GB memory slot, WAP browser and Bluetooth. There’s also a three-year unconditional guarantee.

Unsurprisingly, the brand name adds cachet to the price. At the moment, the Range Rover S1 is only available in the United Kingdom for GBP299.00 (USD$490).