Is This Rugged Android Phone With A 22,000mah Legit? My Verdict After A Week Of Stress Tests

2 months ago

ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

The Doogee S200 Max is connected waste now for $750.
It's a ace chunky handset that won't fresh successful your pockets, but it's incredibly durable, passing IP68/IP69K and MIL-STD-810H standards.
It's not precisely cheap, and you person to beryllium a definite personification to transportation a telephone this durable.

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I retrieve erstwhile companies specified arsenic Doogee started making ruggedized Android smartphones that were much astatine location connected a building site. They were big, bulky, and, well, not each that awesome successful nan capacity department.

That's each changed, arsenic I'm now seeing ruggedized Android handsets that cram a batch of capacity into that reliable outer. The Doogee S200 Max is 1 specified handset.

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Aptly named, everything astir nan S200 Max has been turned up to nan max. This Android 15, 5G-enabled smartphone features a large 6.72-inch 2,400 x 1,080 pixel (2.4K) show that tin deed 120Hz refresh rate.

But this isn't nan only surface -- connected nan backmost is simply a 1.3-inch IPS always-on secondary surface that allows you to peek astatine things for illustration notifications, nan clip and date, and artillery position without having to beryllium distracted by nan large display.

Running nan show is simply a 6-nanometer octa-core MediaTek Dimensity 7050 processor, moving astatine up to 2.6GHz and a whopping 16GB of RAM, which tin beryllium further augmented by 20GB of virtual RAM (my accustomed proposal is to group nan virtual RAM to nan max for nan champion performance, but successful this lawsuit it's been done for me), and 512GB of storage. And if that gets a spot tight, you tin bump this up pinch a microSD card.

Performance-wise, nan S200 Max felt buttery-smooth nary matter what I threw astatine it. I usually person to hold a spot for a smartphone to complete its housekeeping tasks aft first turning it connected and mounting it up, but this handset was consecutive to business, and effortlessly handled moving a myriad of apps and browsers pinch dozens of tabs open.

The secondary show connected nan backmost of nan S200 Max is handy.

Powering this immense handset is simply a 22,000mAh ultra-large artillery that offers a monolithic 1,200 hours of standby powerfulness (that's 50 days of standby) aliases 30 hours of web browsing.

Try that pinch your iPhone 17 Pro Max!

The immense artillery makes nan S200 Max much a powerfulness slope pinch a telephone attached, and Doogee is good aware, which is why nan handset supports 18W reverse charging, truthful you tin get your friends retired of a artillery pickle pinch their smartphone, camera, drone aliases whatever. The artillery tin beryllium charged astatine up to 66W, and that this powerfulness you tin spell from level to afloat successful 2 hours.

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This is 1 of nan very fewer smartphones wherever I seldom person to deliberation astir artillery life. In fact, I'm really amazed erstwhile it needs charging!

And earlier you ask, yes, location are cameras galore connected nan S200 Max. On nan backmost there's three: a 108-megapixel main camera (this is simply a quad-Bayer sensor that uses 4 pixels alternatively of 1 to execute amended nether low-light conditions), a 20-megapixel nighttime imagination camera, and a 2-megapixel macro camera. And connected nan beforehand is 32-megapixel camera to grip selfies and video conferencing.

The nighttime imagination camera pinch progressive infrared floodlight is very effective.

As is ever nan lawsuit pinch non-flagship handsets, nan cameras are much than capable for what users want -- mostly capturing photos and video for societal media. You don't get nan cinematic punch that you get pinch an iPhone aliases latest Samsung Galaxy, but moreover that's wasted connected societal media because images and videos are compressed and downscaled to conserve retention abstraction and bandwidth.

Everything is packed into a reliable outer that's rated for IP68/IP69K and MIL-STD-810H, and it tin defy immersion successful six feet of h2o for a day, drops from complete 3-foot, dirt, dust, humidity, and beautiful overmuch thing other Mother Nature tin propulsion astatine it.

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On nan broadside is 1 of my favourite Android features -- a fingerprint scholar to grip each nan biometrics.

Last but decidedly not least, connected nan apical is simply a twin-LED flashlight that is, nary joke, 1 of nan brightest I've seen connected a smartphone. I made nan correction of looking into it successful wide daylight and I was seeing after-images for respective minutes. It's crazy bright, and it was only later that I discovered it was only astatine 60% power.

There's thing subtle astir nan S200 Max!

Just beryllium alert of its bulk. The instrumentality isn't small, measuring 7.1 x 3.2 x 1 inches (yes, this is simply a one-inch-thick smartphone), weighing 1.2 pounds. It's a genuinely behemoth of a smartphone and there's thing subtle astir nan S200 Max. Unless you person a container aliases big, immense cargo pockets aliases a loop to bent this telephone from, you're going to beryllium carrying it because this babe isn't fitting into your pockets.

ZDNET's buying advice

The Doogee S200 Max is 1 of those handsets that isn't for everyone. You request a definite benignant of personification who wants a telephone that is an inch thick, weighs good complete a pound, and doesn't fresh successful normal pockets.

But for those who request durability and capacity and artillery life that goes connected and connected and on, this is simply a handset to consider. At $470, it's not precisely cheap, but for those who request a operation of rugged, awesome artillery life, and bully performance, this is up location arsenic 1 of nan champion handsets you tin buy.