No. 1 X6800 IP68 Rugged Smartphone Review

Today we have lots of phones that look nice and they sport premium materials but  usually if you drop them, they suffer from severe damage. No.1 – a Chinese manufacturer – has made quite a few rugged phones and we are looking at one of them today. Meet the X6800.

No. 1 X6800 Review: VIDEO

No. 1 X6800 Review: UNBOXING

The No. 1 X6800 comes in a box, which is full of accessories that include USB brick, two micro USB cables, which have a longer than usual plug meaning that regular USB cables will not work with this phone. This is a huge disadvantage in my opinion. Also, we have a screen protector, some documentation and lastly there is a multifunctional some kind of survival kit…

No. 1 X6800 Review: DESIGN and DISPLAY

First of all, the phone is very huge, thick and heavy due to its ruggedised IP68 rating properties and 5.5" display. Speaking of which, it is far from the best panels we've seen. It is not bright enough and the sunlight visibility is just terrible. Also, the colours are not very accurate and the sharpness could be better.

On the top we have an interpolated 5MP camera, earpiece and the notification LED. On the bottom there are 3 non-backlit capacitive buttons.

The back (the same as the whole device) is made of rubberised plastic. O the top we have an interpolated 13MP shooter with the LED flash and on the bottom there is a loudspeaker.

In order to remove the backplate, you have to unscrew 6 screws, which can take at least a few minutes. A funny thing is that the company did not include the screw driver and the included multifunctional tool is not comfortable to use for this purpose.

Under the hood there is a removable 6000mAh battery and two SIM card slots. I found it very complicated to remove the SIM card with my fingers. Also, the phone has a built-in 800Mah battery as a backup in case the main one dies.

On the left we have a power key and on the right there is a volume rocker, which are very hard to press and inconvenient to use. This is probably the worst buttons implementation I've seen in a while.

On the top we have a headset jack and on the bottom we have a charging port and they are both covered by the flaps as the phone is water and dust resistant. However, the charging port's flap is really hard to open up and I always end up using a screw driver.

Overall, the phone is very huge and it literally feels like a brick. It is very inconvenient to carry in the pocket and hard to open flaps don't make life easier either. Also, if you often swap your SIM cards, this phone may not be for you as it is really annoying to unscrew 6 screws each time.

No. 1 X6800 Review: UI

The No. 1 X6800 runs on outdated Android 4.4 Kitkat version. It is a pretty much stock Android experience. It is running smoothly but I encountered with occasional stutter and lag especially after pressing a home button.

The only gesture control is a double tap to wake, which is really essential given a large footprint of the phone and the fact that the power button is the hardest to press I've seen.

However, double tap to wake feature doesn't work all the time and if it works, it is very slow.

Overall, the UI implementation is not the best but not the worst either.

No. 1 X6800 Review: BENCHMARKS

No. 1 X6800 Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE

The phone has a Snapdragon 410 chip, 1GB of RAM and only 8GB of expandable storage.

The 3D games work okay but nothing to be impressed about. There are skipped frames, a bit of stutter and the graphics don't look good.

No. 1 X6800 Review: MULTIMEDIA

Multimedia experience is below average due to mediocre screen quality and a silent, and poorly sounding loudspeaker.

No. 1 X6800 Review: CAMERA

The 13MP interpolated camera does not impress. While it can take some usable images for social media, most of the shots lack in details, sharpness, the sensor sometimes struggles focusing and so on.

Video quality does not impress either.

No. 1 X6800 Review: CONNECTIVITY

The connectivity options like GPS, Bluetooth and Wifi seem to be working fine. However, the call quality is disappointing as the earpiece could be louder and the quality of sound it produces does not impress at all.

No. 1 X6800 Review: BATTERY LIFE

The No.1 declares that the phone has a built-in 800mAh and a removable 6000mAh battery. However, everything is not as good as it sounds on paper. Firstly, I suspect that the battery capacity may not be real as all the test apps show that it has only 2000mAh capacity. While it may be the software recognition issue due to the unusual dual battery nature of this phone but the Geekbench 3 battery test shows only 6 hours of screen-on time.

The real life tests are even worse. It was hard to get over 4 hours of screen-on time but the main issue is that the battery overheated quite a few times and it caused the auto shutdown of the phone. It happened twice randomly and 3 times in the middle of Antutu benchmark.

Not sure if I am dealing with a faulty unit here but these are the test notes from the review unit I have.

No. 1 X6800 Review: CONCLUSIONS

No. 1 X6800 is a super rugged phone with the IP68 rating with waterproof, dustproof and shockproof properties. It is clearly a niche product and it is not for everyone.

The phone is very big and thick and it is a burden to carry it in the pocket.

The idea behind the No. 1 X6800 is that it can be used in extreme situations and it may be great for some users. However, the implementation is quite poor.

Firstly, buttons are very hard to press and literally, your fingers will feel hurt after one day of using it. The double tap to wake feature is here to help but it is not working properly. Also, the charging port's flap is almost impossible to open with you fingers.

The display quality is far from the best and the direct sunlight visibility is poor and I believe this is really terrible considering that this phone is meant to be used mainly outdoors like in the construction site.

My biggest disappointment was a serious battery issue, which not only under delivers in real life but also overheats, which causes auto shut down of the phone.

All in all, the No.1 made a rugged phone that it has quite a lot of disadvantages and I cannot recommend this phone to anyone, doesn't matter if you are a construction worker or a regular guy who likes dropping phones.

Buy No. 1 X6800

source: ChinaReview.mobi