Customer Reviews

Sonim Rugged Unlocked GSM Phone with Built in gps navigation and 2 Mega Pixel Camera (Black)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This phone is a great phone.... If your looking for other features.... Don't bother. Can't do picture mail, can't do video msging, can't do a lot of things. Well why the five star review? Because what it does, it does extremely well. I've had it on and used it daily for a week now and I'm only down to half battery.... Thats incredible. I took this phone to the beach .... And went swimming with it! No problem. Drunken fumbling.. No problem. This phone is great for day to day if all you need (or want) is a phone that just works.
I called the company only once and they were very helpful, they are sending me ( for free) a piece I lost. Just can't beat that kind of service.

Best feature
It can record phone calls! Very useful

Pros:
Battery life is better than almost anything
Rugged and waterproof
Their warranty is the best in the business and they stand behind it

Cons
Software is just bad... Some things you would think would be easy are either missing completely or just not usable
Screen is not scratch proof.. Don't key it

No...really, it did. We had a richochet at the range, .40 jhp, had the phone sitting on the bench...suddenly it was flying. We picked up the phone, it was still on. Tore it up, obviously, but it WAS STILL ON!! We now know what the guts of one of these phones look like. Sent it in and got a new one in about a week. They did call out of curiousity wanting to know what happened, the response was "Oh, ok, new one's on the way." What?! Has this happened before?!
I want another, and another, and another...
And those of you who are just looking for a tough phone with a bunch of apps 'cause you dropped yours in the toilet go buy a Casio G'zOne, this isn't a smart phone, it doesn't have Android or whatever on it, it's a phone, for people who actually work hard for a living, not for some whiney, coffee drinking hipster sitting in an internet cafe' with delusions of grandeur. This company is the only one who designed a phone for a lone worker in REMOTE locations with a "man down" feature, that means the phone calls for help if you get incapacitated, it dials on it's own. Do you really think they care about your facebook account? It's a phone for actually communicating with someone, deal with it.

The Sonim XP3 Quest is a solid phone. It will probably stand up to some abuse. I haven't tried to destroy mine like the people in the ads do, but it feels like a well built phone. The sound on the calls isn't very good. On my end there is buzzing and static. I have T-Mobile service and have never had that before. People on the other end are always asking me to repeat myself now and that is new. They tell me they are having a hard time hearing me.
This phone was fairly difficult to program to go to the internet. It shouldn't be that hard. I contacted customer support 4 times by e-mail. I received a response to one e-mail. The first was a question about using it as an unlocked phone and if it would work with T-Mobile in Colorado. No response. My second was about getting on the internet, as was my third. Again, no responses. My fourth e-mail (I don't give up easily) was a question about why the calender said it was full when I had only put in 20 appointments. They did respond saying that was all the calender could schedule. I was not amused. I did eventually get the internet up and running, but it is difficult to navigate. You also have to keep switching between numeric characters and alpha. The phone doesn't do it for you. The calender is not user friendly either. To look at appointments (ones you did get to schedule) you have to open that date in order to be able to see what the appointment is. The week starts with Monday and runs through Sunday instead of the Sunday through Saturday format, so you have to really look at the small print on the days to make sure you enter or look at the right date. I have a hard time seeing the small characters on this phone too. I wasn't at all impressed with their customer service department.
I have tried to program assigned ringtones/images on this phone and still have been unable to do it. I've always been able to do it on other phones no problem, and yeah, I even read all the directions on all the stuff I've tried with this phone. It says it will do it, but I'm still trying to figure this one out.
The phone comes with Amaze loaded on it for GPS navigation. It works well. It has Opera Mini for the internet browsing and I don't like it. I haven't tried playing any games on it yet. I'm not real big into gaming on a phone anyhow. I don't like the text messaging set up. You have to open the messages in order to read all of it, and some have to be sent as two separate messages to go through if they are a medium length message.
I have tried using the earbuds and mike that came with the phone. The people on the other end said they couldn't hear me. I have a system in my truck that allows me to play the phone over the car speakers. It doesn't work with this phone either. The Mobile Phone PC Tools program that comes with the phone isn't much of a program either. It took several tries before I could get the phone to even connect. The program doesn't do much once you do get in. I've seen a lot better ones. Finding your Sandisk card in the My Files is an adventure too. Once you finally locate it, it is easier to just drag and drop stuff you want loaded on it than it is to go through the PC Tools program. You will need to format the card before you can use it. You can set the date format in the phone for whatever you are used to. Only problem is that it doesn't set it that way for all the features on the phone.
The camera on the phone is pretty good. It has a flash on the phone too. The flash works as a pretty decent flashlight too. The screen is pretty hard and should be scratch resistant. The colors, etc on the images displayed are fine. Battery life is good. It ran down after two days use without a charge, with the GPS on the whole time.
If you don't mind a phone that isn't user friendly, don't plan to contact customer service, don't mind poor call audio, but want a pretty solid phone that will (probably) stand up to some abuse, then this might be the phone for you. I work hard and play hard, so I need a phone like this. It is the best ruggedized phone I have ever seen. I'll give up some of the quality on other programs if the phone is indestructible. The sound quality is tolerable on my end most of the time. Hopefully future versions will work out some of the problems. All in all, I do like the phone.

I've had various "tough" phones from nextel and the lastest from Samsun (A657) all meet a timely dimise eventually. Thats why i got this, the warranty. And used it just the 2nd day I had it to more or less test the abuse and warranty. Warranty is awesome, about a week turn around from destruction to replacement.

The call quality is pretty good (AT&T) the speaker gets a bit muffled if you dunk it then make a call but otherwise the ringer is LOUD!!! Vibrate is worthless. Battery life is about 6 or 7 days for me (texting all day and constant flashlight useage). I don't have the net so can't comment on it but for use as a phone and camera it works great.

The software that comes with it is worthless, just plug it in and use it as a USB storage device to transfer your photos. It also has no built in photo editing options.

Hands down the most durable phone I have ever had and when the 3 years is up, i will trash it to get a new one, then when it dies out of warranty i will buy another!!!! I'll never buy a regular phone again.

Did I mention it's water proof?? Ever get a call while you are in the shower? Just take it with you now. It's the easiest way to clean grit and grease off too i use my hand/nail brush to scrub it clean once a week while i'm in there.

I'll keep this short and sweet. It's a tough nut to crack, quite literally, as i can't find any faults other than a scuff on the bottom corner after accidentally driving over it.
Only problem with the thing is the quiet speaker and hollow-sounding pickup. forget about talking when the moisture seal is on: the feedback is unbearable. my advice? $30 BT headset is a fine solution.

Phone was shipped fast but when it arrived it had a constant humming sound when making calls. Tried several Sim Cards and no matter what it still made the same background noise when making a Call. Both the person making the call and the phone that was called could hear the baground noise . I sent this phone back.

I am deeply disappointed. It is a really sturdy phone but with a jurassic software, "echoes" sounds and if you succeed in synhcronizing this phone with your laptop maybe you win a prize. No way to adjust the alarm volume: moreover it is the only one. It is a perfect phone if you are hammering in a remote workshop but not too much in a "normal" city life.
It is a brick eagerly waiting for a completely refurbishment. In a word: an expensive paperweight.

I got this phone from amazon which is and international shipping website and SONIM have a triband phone on there which only works in the USA and i found that out after i called the SONIM hotline in which it has a 3 year unconditional warranty and they would not replace it with the international version for me nor change the chipset to a quadband.