This is the Sonim XP6. It’s basically a smartphone designed to take a beating. If you head over to their website, it says that this device can withstand a lot of pressure, some extreme temperatures, along with being able to withstand all sorts of drops and scratches. I was sent this device AT&T to basically test its durability for you guys so a big shout out to AT&T for hooking me up with this device.

I’m basically going to test its durability by running it through a variety of different tests. It’s not going to be the most scientifical durability test out there but it’ll be a lot of fun. My goal is to give you guys some insight as to how well this device holds up to all sorts of different harsh environments and it’s just going to be a lot of fun so sit back, relax, enjoy and let’s see how durable the Sonim XP6 is here on PhoneDog.

Alright, if we take an up close look at the Sonim XP6, we’ll see that it does indeed feature a rugged and tough build construction with that rubberized shell you see here. The touchscreen on the front that features Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and a number pad below that. This device actually runs Android 4.4 KitKat so it’s a fully functional Android smartphone it just doesn’t look like the typical smartphone we see today since it’s made for people who work in harsh environments.

The first test I conducted was a couple simple scratch tests. I wanted to start simple and work my way up. So I put the phone in my pocket as well as some metal coins and my keys and then I just shook it around. As awkward as it looks, it’s actually a pretty accurate way to test if this device picks up scratches since most people carry their phone in their pocket along with keys and maybe some loose change. After shaking it around for a good amount of time, I pulled it out and there was nothing. No scratches on the screen itself and no scratches on the rubberized shell. It was pretty much what I expected, to be honest.

I wanted to rev it up though so I went outside and began conducting more tests. I took my keys and pressed it against the back cover and scraped it back and forth as hard as I could. It scuffed the back pretty good as you can see here, there are definitely some marks. But they were able to be buffed out with no problem. And I did the same for the display portion of the device. I scraped my keys against the screen as hard as I could and once again, there were no marks. I wasn’t able to make any permanent marks so it passed that test no problem.

Now before I decided to go crazy with the smash test, I wanted to test its claim against water. It’s IP68 certified, meaning it can be submerged up to 2 meters for 30 minutes. I didn’t have a pool but I literally soaked it in water by spraying it with a hose as you can see here and it still works with no problems whatsoever.

Then I decided to go on a drop test it outside. On the first couple of tests, I just dropped it from pocket height since that was the sweet spot where people would usually drop their phone when pulling it out or putting it in their pocket. So for the first test, I dropped it face up first and it hit the pavement pretty hard. It made some minor scuffs, if that. It really didn’t do that much at all so I decided to drop it face down with the screen facing down, which is the most dangerous position. Once again, it really didn’t show any signs of damage—it still functioned completely fine.

So I decided to step it up a little bit more and shock it for about 30 feet. I went to a local park and decided to shock it from a slide onto some concrete about 30 feet away—I told you it wasn’t going to be very scientific. I did this a couple of times and each time it hit the ground hard and bounced a few times. There were definitely some minor marks around the sides and back of the device as you can see here but the display is completely fine.

As if that wasn’t enough, I decided to throw it down a street. After talking to some people who work in the construction industry, apparently they throw their phones when they get upset so that’s exactly what I did. Now I didn’t get the best camera angle of it bouncing down the pavement but I did get some close up shots after the fact that showed some scuff up around the edges. It was more extreme than the previous throw but still not enough to decommission this device.

Now the Sonim XP6 is resistant to extreme pressure so I decided to ride over it with my car—not once but twice with both the front and back wheels as you can see here. I even ran over it with the display facing upwards. Once again, nothing really happened at all.

So for the last test, I decided to freeze the Sonim XP6. But not by itself since that would be boring. I decided to freeze it in a container of water. It took about 24 hours to freeze but it did freeze solid and I started to chip away. I did take it to the frozen center. I mentioned before that this device is IP68 certified, meaning it is waterproof up to 2 meters for 30 minutes and it can withstand extreme temperatures up to -20 degrees Celsius or -4 degrees Fahrenheit. But it doesn’t mention it being able to withstand being frozen into a block of ice.

As you can see here, it looks like the entire display inside the phone is frozen and I don’t know if some water was able to get inside the device or not. I did notice some bubbles rising from the device when I initially poured the water into the container. But this device is frozen solid—even the buttons are frozen to the point where I can’t even power this device on. Granted, it was on when I first froze it. But the water definitely got in somehow and the device most definitely is not turning on.

So there you have it guys, the Sonim XP6 is really a beast of a phone in terms of what it can withstand, also to different harsh environments, and torture tests. I’m going to try resurrecting this phone as you can see from the last test that I did, it’s pretty much dead and you can kind of see here that it’s full of water and it’s still kind of wet at the back. Hopefully I can dry it out—I have faith that I can dry it out and resurrect this phone. Although the phone was on when I dropped it in water and froze it so hopefully it didn’t short-circuit or anything. But give me about a week or two and I will report back to you as to whether or not this phone is alive.

What I’ll actually for you guys is I’ll leave an annotation right here so if this phone does turn back on, you guys will know through an annotation. I’ll also update the description bar so that you guys can take a look down there and see if it does in fact turn in in about a week or two. Also I will make a full review if this guy does turn on. I’ll compare its display, performance, and just all around design since it’s kind of an unusual phone although it is a modern smartphone running Android 4.4 KitKat.

So definitely make sure you subscribe here so you can see that video when and if it goes live. And if you don’t want to wait, you can just head over to AT&T right now and you can purchase the Sonim XP6 for about $17.50 a month for 30 months on AT&T Next or you can buy it outright for $524.99 off-contract.

Thanks again to AT&T for sending me this device to torture and share with you guys. If you guys like this video, give it a big thumbs up. It’s kind of an unusual video here on PhoneDog. But if you guys like it, possibly I might do more although I cringe every time I put a perfectly good smartphone in harm’s way but it was definitely fun. I hope you guys enjoyed it.