By: Ben Robinson, IntoMobile Friday, February 8th, 2008 at 6:48 PM
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, if only in the ruggedisation sense – operating from -20°C to 60°C, and obviously being able to withstand serious ‘drop/throw/kick/stamp/bang’ abuse
If you want to check out more on this badboy, you can look at the Sonim website for the XP1 here, or one of the many UK online phone shops selling the Toughphone, by typing “Sonim JCB” in to our favourite search engine, Google.
Ben is a 10+ year veteran of the Mobile industry – starting his career
when SMS was a still a relatively new concept for most people (!), he has
now consulted on everything from bleeding-edge Mobile content, to the
next-gen accessories you might view it on. As a result he has a broad and deep knowledge in numerous areas of Mobile – from network operators to device vendors, to infrastructure and middleware vendors (not to mention content delivery) – and has worked for companies in all of these areas!
He is based in the UK, a hotbed of activity for mobile, and recently
became a father for the second time – as oppose to in his younger years
when he was happy spend time tweaking all manner of mobile devices to
'nth' degree, he now looks for services and hardware that provide the most efficient, compact, and reliable improvements to his already manic life! It’s his opinion that Mobile solutions should be there to help to make
your life better – if a particular solution (be it service or device)
isn’t doing this, he believes you need to ask the very important question
of why you continue to use it...
His focus at IntoMobile is mainly on Mobile content, services, and
infrastructure, particularly as regards the UK market – and with the
occasional look at devices. Additionally, using his extensive experience
in the industry, he will provide commentary on the industry at large, with
regular (and hopefully thought-provoking) articles.
MJ
I’ve recently had one of these, and it was, umm, ok couldn’t see the point in the ‘digger’ ringtone (surely people on sites wouldn’t use that tone, considering there would be plenty of actual jcb diggers about, plus contrary to the marketing blurb, ringtones are very very quiet.
Menu system is basic, as expected, though isn’t very intuitive, and due to the screen resolution everything looks very pixelated (my old Nokia 6100 looks better).
Large handset too, but have to say it is still a bloody rugged phone, I rinsed it under the tap, threw it downstairs and it still worked perfectly.
I’m looking forward to seeing what Sonim does next, whether they release an improved model.