This phone isn’t a ThinkPad computer, but it has been themed to look similar and work alongside Windows systems.
However, there are a few big reasons why you might want to deploy this Android phone in business, the first being security.
Alongside the usual protections offered by Android 13 (not 12), Motorola put a special security module in this device that isolates encryption keys and other security information from main memory, making them much more difficult to access nefariously.
When you combine that with a centralised management service that allows phones to be wiped, locked, and specific software to be installed remotely, then this is a device that the IT department will hopefully like and not curse.
And, sporting the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC, this is easily one of the most powerful phones we’ve ever tested. In short, it can handle computing tasks that would crush other designs.
We should also mention that it is drop, dust and water resistant (freshwater, not salt), has a fantastic camera that can shoot 8K video, and is dual SIM.
While it has a few minor omissions, the only significant caveat here is the price. But considering the technology that Motorola stuffed inside, the ThinkPhone might well be worth that inflated asking price.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Lenovo ThinkPhone price and availability
How much does it cost? $900/ £899
When is it out? It is available now
Where can you get it? You can get it in most regions direct Lenovo, Motorola or through an online retailer.
Business phones often aren’t expected to be cheap, and the ThinkPhone isn’t. At almost £900 in the UK, and the same number in dollars in the USA, that’s more than a 256GB Apple iPhone 14 and slightly less than the iPhone 14 Plus.
Alongside the phone, Motorola has designed a wireless charging stand, but the pricing for that accessory isn’t currently available.
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Value score: 4/5
Lenovo ThinkPhone design
Thin and lightweight
Rugged without rubber plugs
Narrow screen border
When the term ‘rugged’ is used for a phone. It is normal to expect chunky and heavy designs that look destined for life on a building site or farm. The ThinkPhone isn’t remotely like that, yet it still achieves the same drop standards and waterproofing as those with industrial styling.
Weighing only 188.5g, this is half the mass of a typical rugged Chinese phone and should easily fit inside a jacked or even a trouser pocket.
Yet, it still has a 6.6-inch display, is dust and waterproof according to IP68 without rubber plugs, and it can handle being dropped 1.5m.
However, there are a few caveats about the robust side of this design that Motorola placed in the copious notes on its product page.
These include the fact that liquid damage isn’t covered by the warranty and that the water immersion of 1.5m for up to 30 minutes is only for fresh water and not the ocean. And, that last detail explains why the camera has all manner of photographic modes, but underwater photography isn’t one of them.
The button layout is predictably Android, with the power and volume controls on the right and a user-customisable button on the left. We should complement Motorola on the user-assignable button, as we’ve seen plenty of implementations that weren’t as flexible as the one in the ThinkPhone.
The SIM slot isn’t on the left side but on the bottom next to the USB-C port. The phone accepts Nano-sized SIMs but has no place for a MicroSD card.
Given how new this design is and the cutting-edge technology in it, that it didn’t use eSIMs or have any MicroSD card reader was disappointing.
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The camera cluster is on the top left, and it stands proud of the flat underside of the phone, causing it to rock when placed on a flat surface. The flat base is designed to make charging the ThinkPhone wirelessly easier, but the camera cluster does the complete opposite.
One other design curiosity with the ThinkPhone is that the screen has a very narrow border minimising the chassis of the phone noticeably. As nice as this looks, we had a few occasions when the phone didn’t react to a finger press. We eventually realised that another fingertip had inadvertently made contact with the screen due to the thin border, which interfered with the touch sensor.
For those curious, the fingerprint reader is embedded in the screen, making it equally accessible for right and left-handed owners.
Once we realised this, it was relatively easy to counter, but a new owner might think the phone isn’t working correctly and send it back.
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Design score: 4/5
Lenovo ThinkPhone hardware
Ultra powerhouse
Amazing camera specs
Modest battery size
Specs
The Lenovo ThinkPhone that was sent to us for review came with the following hardware: CPU: Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 GPU: Adreno 730 RAM: 8GB LPDDR5 Storage: 256GB Screen: 6.6-inch pOLED 144Hz HDR10+ Resolution: 1080 x 2400 FHD+ (402ppi) SIM: Dual Nano SIM Weight: 188.5g Dimensions: 158.76 x 74.38 x 8.26 mm Rugged Spec: IP68, IP69K and MIL-STD-810H Rear cameras: 50MP Sensor, 13MP ultrawide Front camera: 32MP Sensor (wide) Networking: WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3 Comms: 2G, 3G, LTE, 4G, 5G OS: Android 13 Battery: 5000 mAh
With Chinese phone makers pressing more powerful SoCs into their rugged designs from MediaTek, the Qualcomm SoC in the ThinkPhone takes phone performance to a whole new level.
The details of how powerful the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is are further documented in the performance section, but this is easily the most powerful phone this reviewer has tested.
What makes it so powerful is the tri-cluster core arrangement, headed by a single Cortex-X2 core that runs at a blistering 3.0GHz. To that headline act are added three fast Cortex-A710 cores at 2.5GHz, and the final cluster has four efficiency Corex-A510 at 1.8GHz.
The supporting GPU is an Adreno 730, a notch up from that used in the Snapdragon 888 and 865. The icing on this architectural cake is that the SoC connects to 3.2GHz LPDDR5 memory, with 8GB in this model.
That power level will eat most phone tasks for breakfast, but it’s also critical in the camera functions that require that performance.
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Another standout choice in this phone is the pOLED display technology that’s rated for HDR10+ presentation. The natural resolution of 1080 x 2400 allows for 1080p video to be fully shown and allows extra pixels for the interface.
The quality of this panel is remarkably high, but it would all be just window dressing if the video encryption technology wasn’t onboard to allow the best streaming quality. Thankfully this phone, unlike so many others, does support Widevine L1, meaning that streaming Netflix, Disney+, or Amazon should result in the best quality images with a good connection.
The ThinkPhone is one of the few phones that is HDR10+, Amazon HDR Playback, and YouTube HDR Playback certified that we’ve seen.
The review phone came with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, but it may be that Motorola will make versions of the ThinkPhone with 128Gb or 512GB depending on demand. Memory can be bumped to 12GB by subverting some of the storage into what appears to be RAM to the system, a feature we’ve seen on Android 12 phones.
Other hardware features include dual Dolby Atmos capable speakers, WiFi 6E networking, and 5G comms.
There are only blemishes on this hardware tour de force, and those are the lack of any support for a MicroSD card and that it doesn’t support eSIMs.
With so many cameras using the Samsung HM2 108MP sensor, it's refreshing to see one that goes for fewer pixels and instead focuses on the delivery of high quality images and video.
The best video resolution we’ve seen from the HM2 is 4K, but the sensor on the ThinkPhone (and we believe it is an Omnivision OV50A) offers 8K at 30fps, 4K at 60fps and slow-motion video of up to 960 fps for 1080p captures. And, its gyro-EIS stabilised to help with getting those smooth shots.
For portrait work, the camera can use Phase detection autofocus (PDAF) to keep the objective in focus while allowing the background to blur. And there is also a continuous shooting mode that’s ideal for getting sporting events or similar.
But even without the special modes, and there are plenty, the results from this camera are excellent, almost irrespective of lighting conditions.
The output is almost certainly the result of a four-way pixel binning algorithm that reduces chromatic aberrations and clarity but still manages images of a good resolution.
And, for those wanting the very best results, it can shoot in RAW mode.
Overall, the camera on the ThinkPhone is excellent, and the photo application has, with a few small exceptions, got all the special modes and manual controls for those that use them.
Camera samples
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Camera score: 4/5
Lenovo ThinkPhone performance
Benchmark breaking performance
Game capable SoC
Benchmarks
This is how the Lenovo ThinkPhone performed in our suite of benchmark tests:
Having an SoC fail to run a test is usually down to a missing feature, but with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, several of our standard benchmarks refused to execute because it was ‘Maxed Out’. When trying to run Slingshot and Wild Life on 3DMark, the benchmark declared that “Your Motorola ThinkPhone is too powerful for this test”. And, the only 3DMark bench we managed to run successfully was Wild Life Extreme.
As a result of these issues, we’ve included a selection of GFXBench results to represent better the performance envelope that the ThinkPhone is capable.
This phone strongly suggests that we need a whole new slew of testing tools for phones because the performance of the new Snapdragon SoCs is on a whole new level.
However, Qualcomm also has the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 with its Adreno 740 GPU that has been seen previously in the Samsung Galaxy S23 and the Xiaomi 13. Tests on those devices show that the Gen 2 and Adreno 740 silicon is marginally faster than Gen 1 and Adreno 730 combination.
Unless you already have a Samsung S23 or an iPhone 14, the speed and power of the ThinkPhone should impress you.
Performance score: 5/5
Lenovo ThinkPhone battery
Decent 5000 mAh capacity
68W Fast charging
15W Wireless charging
As rugged phones go, 5000 mAh is a modest amount of battery capacity, and realistically the most you can expect from this platform is a couple of working days of use.
But because of the modest-for-a-rugged-phone battery capacity and the 68W charging from the included TurboPower charger, charging is rapid, and you are soon ready to go.
Alternatively, for those that like to charge overnight, the Qi-compliant 15W wireless charging will work equally well and saves the USB-C port from wearing out.
The only aspect of the battery and charging of the ThinkPhone that is mildly disconcerting is how warm the phone can become when rapidly charging over USB. It doesn’t get excessively hot, but it is noticeable when you pick it up.
While all batteries do heat up charging, we’d be wary of this one if it suddenly started to get any warmer than normal.
There is a balance here that Motorola is making about keeping the ThinkPhone light and thin and having enough battery to operate for long enough. The ThinkPhone should get you through two working days unless you play games, but it isn’t enough time for an extended adventure holiday or hiking expedition.
Battery score: 4/5
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The hardware in the ThinkPhone is exceptional, and when combined with management tools like Moto OEMConfig and Moto Device Manage, this becomes more than just another Android phone.
There are a few minor issues, like the lack of a MicroSD card slot, but mostly the phone's specification is excellent.
More of an issue is the price because being more expensive than Apple isn’t a notoriety that most phone makers wish to have. With the high quality of the hardware and software platform, we appreciate that Lenovo sees the ThinkPhone as a premium solution. But more aggressive pricing might have been a better choice as it would have attracted more customers not having a business pay for their phone.
In recent months we’ve covered the Ulefone Armour 16 Pro, 17 Pro and here now, the 18T.
It would be easy to conclude that the numerical progression was a ladder of performance specifications, but that would be an oversimplification.
There aren’t many similarities between this and the 16 Pro and the 17 Pro, although the 18T does borrow some features from its predecessor.
For those curious, there is a cut-down Power Armor 18 and also a new Power Armor 19 design, but the 18T is still the flagship of this series, in our opinion.
Where the 16 Pro was a relatively inexpensive design with an underpowered SoC, the 18T is a high-powered solution with a premium phone price tag.
With a retail cost of $570, phone buyers expect plenty for their money, and the 18T has the best specification we’ve seen from Ulefone so far.
Where the 19 uses the less expensive MediaTek G99 SoC, the 18 and 18T use the 5G capable MediaTek Dimensity 900 SoC, delivering more processing power and double the GPU performance of the G99.
The choice to go with the Dimensity 900 is probably more about 5G coms than anything else, but having this power is also helpful for the FLIR thermal imaging sensor.
We’ve seen thermal imaging before on the Cat S63 Pro, and this is the same FLIR 3.5 that is on that phone. Very often, rugged phone makers use the cheaper FLIR 2.5 sensor, which was on the CAT S60, Ulefone Armor 11T 5G and Blackview BV9800 Pro, to mention just a few.
On this phone, the newer FLIR 3.5 sensor offers a better resolution, achieving greater detail and clarity in the images it captures.
The other notable feature of this design is that it has the same accessory port as the 17 Pro, and through that, there are various specialist accessories available, including an endoscope.
When you combine the ability to detect temperature distribution and having an endoscope to look at difficult-to-reach areas, the 18T starts to look like it might be ideal for those in automotive repair or similar businesses.
The downside to having such a powerful SoC and feature set is that this is the most expensive rugged design that Ulefone makes. The 18T is priced as a premium phone, and the customer mostly gets premium parts for their investment.
As this is most likely to be a second phone for most customers, is that just too much to be a practical consideration?.
Where can you get it? You can get it in most regions direct from AliExpress or on Amazon.co.uk
In addition to the phone, Ulefone has a selection of accessories that can be bundled. A case increases the cost by another $25, a Wireless charging base by $25, an Endoscope by $50, and a 1000x Digital Microscope is another $50. The cheapest upgrade is a tempered glass screen protector that costs just $10 when bought with the phone.
Considering that the Power Armor 16 Pro costs just $160, the official $699.99 that Ulefone is asking for the Power Armor 18T does seem a bit shocking.
However, if you don’t get it directly from Ulefone and are willing to wait for delivery from AliExpress, it can be had for around $570.
Not available on Amazon.com currently, but we found it on Amazon.co.uk for UK customers for £619. However, that’s a good £120 more than AliExpress charges for the same phone.
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Value score: 4/5
Ulefone Armor 18T design
Solid construction
By-the-numbers buttons
Accessory Port
As rugged phone designs go, the 18T is rather stylish, avoiding some of the travel case aesthetics emblazoned on other products.
By bevelling the edge all around, the 18T is easy to pick up, and the angled slots on the underside make it easy to hold even when wet.
To achieve waterproofing sufficient for submersion, two rubber plugs protect the USB-C port on the bottom edge and a 3.5mm audio jack on the top.
You can avoid disturbing the USB-C one if you use wireless charging, and the audio jack one can also be avoided if you have Bluetooth headphones.
The button selection and positions are what we’ve come to expect on rugged Chinese designs, with a combined thumbprint reader/power button and volume rocker on the right and a user-customisable button together with the SIM tray on the left.
The SIM tray can take either two NANO SIMs or a single SIM and a MicroSD card, which isn’t ideal.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
The one special external feature that it shares with the 17 Pro is an accessory pogo-pin style connector, designated as the uSmart connector, on the bottom left. Previously we criticised this aspect because attaching an accessory requires the removal of a screw that can be easily misplaced.
This mechanism is implemented exactly the same on the 18T, and it makes the likelihood that once an accessory is attached, like the endoscope or microscope, it will be left connected permanently. This needs a redesign so accessories can be snapped on and off easily and without needing a screwdriver.
Our only other comment about the design is related to the camera cluster, as it is positioned to the very left on the back. For those used to not having the camera in the middle, this is probably fine, but we did have some issues with fingers straying into the shots.
Overall, the accessory port aside, the design of the 18T is good, and it sells the go-anywhere ethos of this device admirably.
At just over 400g, it’s also one of the lighter designs, especially when compared to some of the big battery designs we’ve seen recently.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Design score: 4/5
Ulefone Armor 18T hardware
High spec platform
Decent battery size
Endoscope option
Specs
The UleFone Power Armor 18T that was sent to us for review came with the following hardware:
CPU: MediaTek Dimensity 900 GPU: Arm Mali-G68 MC4 RAM: 12GB LPDDR4X Storage: 256GB Screen: 6.58-inch IPS LCD Resolution: 1080 x 2408 FHD+ SIM: Dual Nano SIM, or single SIM and microSDXC Weight: 409g Dimensions: 175.2 x 83.4 x 18.8 mm Rugged Spec: IP68, IP69K and MIL-STD-810H Rear cameras: 108MP Samsung HM2, 5 MP Samsung S5K5E9 Macro sensor, FLIR Lepton 3.5 Thermal camera, 5MP Auxiliary Imaging Camera Front camera: 32MP Samsung S5KGD1 Sensor (wide) Networking: WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.0 Comms: 2G, 3G, LTE, 4G, 5G OS: Android 12 Battery: 9600 mAh
There is a schism developing in rugged phone designs, where the lower budget phones are using the Helio G series SoCs, and then devices like the 18T are moving to the next level with the Dimensity chips, all made by MediaTek.
The 18T uses the Dimensity 900, an SoC with a great combination of performance and efficiency cores blended with a capable GPU and 5G comms.
While this is great compared to the Helio G99, for example, it doesn’t quite meet the performance levels of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G, but it is substantially better than the 765G.
In short, for most users, the 18T has more than enough power for the majority of applications and provides a smooth user experience. To make moving between apps, the 18T comes with a very healthy 12GB of RAM, and this can be expanded by another 5GB borrowed from storage by enabling ‘memory expansion’ mode in the settings.
The screen is a good quality 6.58-inch IPS panel with a natural resolution of 1080 x 2408, a size that Ulefone decided to market as FHD+, despite that being 2220 x 1080 pixels.
We’ve seen many odd screen resolutions recently aimed at providing extra vertical pixels to accommodate the inclusion of the forward camera or Android interface elements.
It’s enough to show 1080p videos without borders. If the software has been configured to offer that in ‘full screen’ mode, it can also operate at 120Hz.
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With rugged phones, battery life is usually of interest to the customers, and here Ulefone gave the 18T a decent 9600 mAh of capacity. Some phones around have more than twice this amount of battery, but they’re much heavier and less convenient to carry.
Compared with other Ulefone designs, this is more than the 17 Pro offers (5380 mAh) and identical to that in the 16 Pro.
The quoted standby is 524 hours, 39 hours of calling, 22 hours of video and 15 hours of gaming. Those numbers are fractionally down on those of the 16 Pro, but the processing power in the 18T is substantially greater.
This capacity is enough battery for at least four days of use, and with curation, a week is a plausible objective.
But what elevates this design is that Ulefone gave this phone 66W charging, allowing it to recover 52% of its battery capacity in 30 minutes. Wireless charging is four times slower.
Using the OTG technology in the USB-C port, the 18T can supply up to 5W charging to other devices, which is useful for earbuds and other chargeable accessories.
We should also mention that the WiFi 6 support is much better than WiFi 5 if you have a router that supports the newer technology. The dual Band GPS is also very accurate, but the real stand-out technology in the 18T is the cameras that we’ll cover next.
The HM2 is a very popular choice for rugged designs now, as it’s a massive 108MP 1/1,52” sensor that includes Samsung’s ISOCELL Plus and Smart-ISO technology.
It is possible to take massive 108MP images if you are prepared to forego any special modes. But where this sensor really shines is when you drop to 12MP mode. In this reduced resolution, the sensor uses 9-in-1 pixel binning technology to effectively enhance the sensor pixels from 0.7μm to 2.1 μm, providing remarkably clear and colour-accurate results.
In this phone, it can also take 4K video, although all video is restricted to 30fps, sadly.
Alongside that sensor is a 5MP microlens camera that has a 60x super magnification mode. Our only reservation about this feature is that it is rather difficult to use if the item you wish to look at in detail isn’t flat, as it can’t autofocus. Our examples include a couple of macro shots, one of a coin and the other of a banknote, and the coin was much more difficult to achieve.
However, the flagship camera feature on this phone is the FLIR Lepton 3.5 sensor, and it has a separate application to grab thermal imaging data as photos or videos.
It can also take thermal time-lapses if you need to see how the temperature of something changes over time. There is even a feature that allows the FLIR sensor to stream a live video over YouTube, which might be useful for remotely monitoring an experiment.
While not the most important part, the front 32MP camera is decent quality and can capture 1080p video
Overall, the camera side of the 18T has some remarkably strong aspects, and the results are usually excellent.
Camera samples
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Camera score: 4/5
Ulefone Armor 18T performance
Game capable SoC
Lacks Widevine L1 encryption
Power and efficiency
Benchmarks
This is how the Ulefone Armor 18T performed in our suite of benchmark tests:
We’ve seen these numbers on the Doogee V30 that uses the same SoC, and they looked very good then.
It eclipses the Helio G99-powered phones and is remarkably close to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 chips used in the Nokia X30 and Huawei Honor X9a.
Octo-core SoCs are usually strong at multi-thread tests but less impressive at single-task challenges. But in the Dimensity 900, the dual 2.5GHz Cortex-A78 performance cores deliver excellent single-thread performance. And, for power efficiency, it has
six lower-clocked Cortex-A55 cores built to achieve excellent results in multi-threaded scenarios.
Compared to the MediaTek Helio G99 phones like its Power Amor 17 Pro brother, the 18T is around 30% faster at single-thread tests and up to 25-30% better at multi-threaded.
Probably the biggest difference is created by the Mali-G68 MC4 GPU, as it is at least 40% faster than the Mali-G57 MC2 used in the G99 designs and up to 80% in the 3DMark Wild Life benchmark.
This makes the Dimensity 900 in the 18T much more suitable for gaming and smooth video playback of even 4K files. However, this phone doesn’t support Widevine L1 encryption, and the best resolution you will get from Netflix and Disney+ will be 480p, unfortunately.
Performance score: 4/5
Ulefone Armor 18T battery
Decent 9600 mAh capacity
66W Fast charging
15W Wireless charging
People expect a rugged phone to have a decent battery capacity since the great outdoors doesn’t usually have power sockets on each tree.
The built-in lithium-ion polymer cell offering 9600mAh is enough for a weeklong trek with some restraint and last at least four days of normal use.
That is the same capacity as the 16 Pro, but given this device's performance and 5G capability, it doesn’t quite go as far when used in the 18T. The 524 hours of standby is just four hours less than the 16 Pro manages, but the talk time drops more dramatically from 52 hours to 39 hours, confusingly.
But conversely, the 16 Pro only had 18W charging (10W on the pogo pin base), whereas the 18T has 66W over USB-C and 15W wireless charging.
That makes it much easier to get the 18T fully charged, and overnight it can happily use wireless charging, something the 16 Pro didn’t offer.
For those wanting a massive battery, like the 22000 mAh on the Doogee V Max or Unihertz Tank, the 9600 mAh in the 18T might seem relatively modest. But it's more than enough for most jobs, and including it didn’t make this phone excessively heavy.
Battery score: 4/5
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There is plenty to like in the Ulefone Power Armor 18T, as this is easily the most impressive rugged phone from this brand we’ve seen so far.
It’s well made, able to take the knocks and environment, has enough battery for days away from civilisation and has some remarkably high-quality sensors.
Our only concern is that in adding all the wonderful features that Ulefone included that they’ve elevated the price to a point where it’s beyond the budget of many 2nd phone buyers.
If you can budget this much for a phone specifically for wilderness trips, working on a construction site, or vehicle repair, then the Ulefone Power Armor 18T is worth some proper consideration.
The parallels between the Unihertz Tank and the Doogee V Max that we reviewed recently are stark. Both are large and heavy devices, offering a 22000 mAh battery and a high degree of protection from the environment.
But where Doogee went for the higher ground with the Dimensity 1080 SoC and 5G comms, the Unihertz Tank went for a more price-sensitive Helio G99 and got 4G functionality.
For those that don’t play games or have access to 5G services, the difference between them is much less, and the Tank is $90 less for a long operating life away from a power socket.
The Tank comes with a 66W charger that can fill that enormous battery with power in relatively short order.
As feature sets go, the Tank has an excellent one. Along with the Helio G99 SoC, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, this phone also sports a 108MP primary phone sensor, a 20MP night vision camera, 32MP selfie front camera and an incredibly bright Camping Lamp.
That last feature is a unique extra that can output 1200 lumens of light to illuminate a whole room or forest clearing, depending on what you are trying to achieve. We could see this being remarkably useful in the event of a vehicle accident at night, where other traffic needs to be aware of a stopped vehicle that might have lost power.
The Camping Lamp is just one of the unique features available in the Unihertz Toolbox app. These include a compass, basic flashlight, magnifier, bubble level, plumb bob, protractor, pressure gauge, height measure, speedometer, heart rate monitor, alarm and pedometer, amongst others.
This app talks very much to the customer Unihertz is looking to buy this device, who might be a building contractor or outdoor adventurer, or anyone who doesn’t wish to endanger their premium phone with water, dust or being dropped.
While the features in this phone are generally good, the two issues here are that this is a very large and heavy device that isn’t easy to pocket. And, the asking price is at the high end of what is essentially a 2nd phone that might be reasonably expected to cost.
If you have a particular project in the jungle or desert and do not want to take your Samsung or Apple phone to that party, then the Unihertz Tank is a credible, if slightly pricey, choice.
Where can you get it? Directly from Unihertz and through online retailers
According to Unihertz, the Tank was priced at $399, but it is now $30 cheaper at $369.99 direct from the makers. Those prices do not include local sales tax, it should be noted.
It appears that there are four different models, one each for the US, EU, Canada and Others (Asia, Oceania and UK), but the cost is the same for all.
It only comes in black, so there is no choice of colour scheme.
We found the same phone on Aliexpress and other online retailers, but the price was broadly similar.
For US customers, the Tank is unlocked for all carriers, but for some, like Verizon, the phone isn’t officially certified.
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Value score: 4/5
Unihertz Tank design
Solid construction
Two custom buttons
Dedicated flashlight
Rugged phones can all look rather similar since there is only a limited direction that designers can go when presented with a large screen, cameras and battery to package.
Like the Doogee V Max, the Tank has slopes on the sides underneath to make it easier to pick up, but that won’t actually help if your wrist doesn’t like supporting 560g of dead weight.
For viewing videos, a stand would be a helpful accessory to own.
The button layout on the Tank is a little odd, as it has two programmable buttons on the left side. One, picked out in red, is in the middle, and the other is reset, making it almost invisible, on the top left.
That second position is the standard location for the SIM tray, and to accommodate this difference, the tray has been moved to the top. It takes a Nano SIM on each side, but this phone has no MicroSD card option at all.
But back to the buttons. As much as having custom buttons on the phone can be useful, the lack of thinking that went into these is depressing. A good example is that it is possible to set the flashlight to come on with one of the buttons, either with a quick press, long press or double action. But there is no accompanying action to turn it off, inconveniently.
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This function only turns the ‘flash’ LED on, not the much bigger Camping Light, which is annoyingly inaccessible using the custom buttons.
When you eventually discover how to turn it on, the Camping Light is impressive since it reputedly outputs 1200 lumens of light. That’s enough to provide illumination of a relatively large area, much greater than a typical phone flashlight mode might achieve. It might be perfect for camping, but this light is so bright that if you look into it, even briefly, you’re effectively blind for the next few minutes.
It’s also only accessible through the Toolkit application and not accessible through the Android OS.
The light is an exciting feature and not one we’ve seen on a rugged phone before, but the implementation is less than ideal.
What impressed us more was that access to the USB-C charging port is good, as it uses a large rubber plug to keep water and dust out, and this location also has a 3.5mm audio jack for headphones.
Overall, the Tank offers very solid construction, unsurprisingly, though how features like the Camping Light and custom buttons were approached could have been better.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Design score: 3/5
Unihertz Tank hardware
Powerful platform
Big battery size
No MicroSD
Specs
The Unihertz Tank that was sent to us for review came with the following hardware:
CPU: MediaTek Helio G99 / Octa Core / 2.0-2.2 GHz / 6nm / 4G GPU: ARM Mali-G57 MC2 RAM: 8GB LPDDR4X Storage: 256GB UFS 2.2 Screen: 6.81-inch IPS LCD Resolution: 1080 x 2340 SIM: Dual Nano SIM Weight: 560g Dimensions: 175.6 × 85.30 × 23.9 mm Rugged Spec: IP68, IP69K and MIL-STD-810H Rear cameras: 108MP Main Camera + 20MP Night Vision Camera Front camera: SONY 32MP Front Camera Networking: WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.3 OS: Android 12 Battery: 22000 mAh
We will talk more about the Helio G99 used in this phone in the performance section, but as SoC packages go, it is one of the better and more capable options available.
When combined with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of UFS 2.2 storage, it makes for a highly responsive experience, even if you load lots of apps onto Android 12.
The considerable 6.81-inch IPS LCD screen is bright and crisp, even if it’s a slightly odd 1080 x 2340 resolution. The only issue we noticed with this was that when using YouTube and playing 1080p content, the frame is scaled when there is sufficient resolution to present it fully.
This phone, like most Chinese phones, doesn’t support Widevine L1, so the maximum supported resolution on most of the big streaming services is limited to 480p, sadly.
Leaving the 108MP main camera sensor to later, the two headline features of this phone are the massive 22000 mAh battery and the unique Camping Lamp on the rear.
We saw a battery this big previously in the Doogee V Max, and in that phone, it is the dominant feature of that design. It makes the Tank ideal for long camping adventures where mains power is unlikely to be available, as the phone can operate for more than a week without conserving power.
The downside of this battery is the weight that it adds, bringing the Tank to a stout 560g, another 17g more than the V Max.
With this much battery and reverse changing functionality, it is possible to use the Tank as a power bank for other devices.
Where massive batteries are available elsewhere, the camping lamp is something we’ve not previously seen. This LED panel on the underside of the phone can output up to 1200 lumens of illumination in a space that is approximately 15 square centimetres.
That much light coming from a 55-inch TV is bright. But compressed into a small trapezium-shaped panel, it is way too much for the human retina to handle comfortably close up.
When you are not blinding yourself, the light will illuminate to a decent range in complete darkness, and when combined with the battery, the light can remain on for a long time.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
One feature missing from this phone that is typically included is a MicroSD card position in the SIM tray. Therefore, the 256GB of storage that comes with this phone is as much as it will ever have, as no MicroSD expansion is possible.
The Tank is the third phone we’ve seen sporting the 108MP Samsung S5KHM2 main sensor in the past month. And given some of the results we’ve seen, it is understandable why phone makers are flocking to this option.
Taking up to 12000 x 8992 resolution pictures is impressive, although this resolution must be traded down to 12MP if you want PRO controls or special modes.
Of the phones with this sensor, some offer 4K video, and others do not, and unfortunately, this one limits video capture to 1440p.
It also gets stuck with the same limitations of frame rate we’ve seen elsewhere. Irrespective of video capture resolution, the frame rate is locked at 30fps.
Overall, image quality is good from the full 108MP mode, 12MP feature and video.
The only exception to this is the low-light capability, as alongside the main sensor, Unihertz included a 20MP Sony night vision sensor that uses infrared illumination to create artificial daylight in complete darkness.
Alternatively, the Camping Lamp can be turned on, which works like a portable ‘Sun Gun’ device used by broadcast news cameramen.
That does assume that you are using these features to take photos and not just wander around a forest at night without injury, where you might find the Camping Lamp more useful.
The story of the Unihertz Tank and its cameras is a familiar one, where some excellent sensors were used but then not fully exploited by the software compiled for the phone.
Not to say that it can’t take excellent photographs, but with some attention to detail, it could have taken even better ones with fewer limitations on modes and frame rates.
Camera samples
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Camera score: 4/5
Unihertz Tank performance
An effective SoC
GPU overtook by Dimensity
Fluid experience
Benchmarks
This is how the Unihertz Tank performed in our suite of benchmark tests:
If this phone had appeared earlier, perhaps we’d be celebrating its performance more than we are now. The Helio G99 is a great SoC that combines some high performance with excellent power efficiency, and it crushes all the other chips in the MediaTek G series.
However, MediaTek also makes the Dimensity series, and the 900 and now 1080 derivatives run rings around the G series devices.
Other than some subtle clock speed changes, mostly on the two Cortex-A76 cores, the big difference between the G99 and the Dimensity 900 is the GPU, where the Ulefone Armor 18T can call on the Mali-G68 MC4, whereas the G99 only has the ARM Mali-G57 MP2.
Using 3DMark benchmarks to gauge the differences, the Wild Life test scores 1350 on the G99-powered Unihertz Tank and 2198 on the Dimensity 900 imbued Doogee Armor 18T.
The performance divergence on single thread problems is less, but the G99 is an inferior design to the Dimensity 900 and 1080.
But, compared with the other G and P series SoCs from MediaTek, the performance is very good, and this phone is markedly cheaper than the Dimensity using designs like the Doogee V30, Ulefone Armor 18T and Doogee V Max.
Unless you play intensive 3D titles, you are unlikely to notice the difference because this phone has enough power, memory and storage to deliver a good user experience.
Performance score: 4/5
Doogee V Max battery
22000 mAh
66W Fast charging
No Qi charging
One mistake that we noticed on the Doogee V Max is thankfully not repeated here, as this phone can take 66W charging, allowing the 22000 mAh battery to get a full charge rapidly.
That’s twice the inflow of the V Max, and this design can go from empty to full in around 2.5 hours and 90% in less than two.
With the battery full, the phone should easily last a week's regular use, and for those that don’t check their phones every few minutes, potentially double that timescale.
If you intend to power splurge, the battery can keep the 1200-lumen Camping Lamp lit for 6 hours, and you can make a call that lasts for six days.
As the USB-C is bidirectional, the Tank can be used to recharge other phones and even laptops.
The only disappointing aspect of the battery on this phone is that Unihertz didn’t bother to provide it with wireless charging.
There is some logic to the lack of wireless charging since the best Qi charging tops out at about 20W, meaning it would take a very long time to charge this battery using wireless transfer.
Battery score: 4/5
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
The whole premise of this design is ‘2nd phone’, since there is little about this design that would make anyone carry it on a daily basis. For worksite appearances and jungle adventures, it’s a credible proposition, but $370 for a secondary device isn’t an impulse buy.
The battery life and camera on this phone are both good, but are they wonderful enough to holster such a cumbersome piece of gear? We have our doubts.
Doogee believes that ‘more is always better’, and proof of that is the V Max.
This is a rugged phone with everything set to 11 on the dial. Big screen, powerful SoC, lots of RAM and storage, an impressive camera selection, 5G, and the biggest battery we’ve seen in a phone so far.
This is our first phone review covering a design that uses the new MediaTek Dimensity 1080 SoC. An option increases the clock speeds and RAM capacity seen on the Dimensity 900 series and includes 5G comms.
But by far, the one headline feature of this phone is its 22000 mAh battery, a capacity that
dwarfs that in other phones, including many rugged designs.
When you put a battery in a phone that dwarfs that in some laptops, there are significant physical changes that make the V Max either the phone you must have or make it entirely impractical.
The obvious advantage of a battery this large is that it can operate for a week or more without a recharge. With management, this could be extended to a considerable time without mains power. That could be critical for a camping break or adventure holiday where the nearest power socket might be a long walk away.
The flip side of having all that battery time is that this is a very heavy and bulky phone that doesn’t easily fit in a typical pocket. The weight is 543g or nearly 1.2 lbs for those that like those measurement systems.
Wielded as a blunt instrument, the V Max has sufficient mass to seriously injure someone unlucky enough to be stuck with one.
If the brick-like nature of the V Max doesn’t put you off, what you get is a very capable design with an excellent camera cluster, 5G comms, 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
The processor and GPU combination makes the V Max suitable for gaming, and it supports dual Nano SIMs for a convenient combination of work and play potential.
In short, if it wasn’t for its gargantuan size, everything else about this phone would be pretty useful, especially at the current asking price.
Just don’t buy one for a person who has anger management issues and likes to throw things.
When is it out? It is on pre-order after an initial release
Where can you get it? It can only be bought from Doogee directly
Normally we’d provide a range of regional pricing for a phone like the V Max. But currently, this phone is on a restocking pre-order from Doogee, and the price is in dollars irrespective of where you order it from.
According to Doogee, the V Max has already been reduced from $749, although it makes little sense that you would cut the price of a design that is currently out of stock.
The asking price is $559, although Doogee is offering a code for an extra $100 off at this time, presumably to prime the sales channel ahead of its return to stock.
When this design becomes more widely available, we suspect the discounted cost is likely to become the asking price, predictably.
There are three colour choices; Classic Black, Moonshine Silver and Sunshine Gold.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Value score: 4/5
Doogee V Max design
Built to last
By-the-numbers buttons
No audio jack
One can’t help but sympathise with the designer of the V Max, saddled with the challenge of getting the contents of this phone inside a case.
However approached, this solution was never going to be elegant or stylish, and the V Max is neither of those things.
The best description of this phone is techno-brutalism, a monolithic block that has some chamfered corners and bevelled edges added to make it seem less like a brick.
That said, the metallic sides are pleasing to touch, and the overall shape fits neatly in hand, assuming you’ve got shovel-sized appendages like your reviewer.
The thickness of this design allows for speakers to be mounted at both top and bottom, allowing for a mild stereo effect when playing games in landscape mode.
While the camera cluster is slightly raised, the back is mostly flat, suggesting that this phone might wirelessly charge, but according to the specifications, it doesn’t.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
The button layout is the now de facto model that all rugged phone makers have gravitated to, where they place a thumb-print reader/power and volume rocker on the right and a custom button with the SIM card slot on the left.
On the bottom edge is a carabiner slot for connecting the phone to a belt strap and the USB-C port. That’s the only way this phone can be charged, and to protect it from water and dust ingress, Doogee covered it with a rubber plug.
The plug is relatively easy to dislodge with a fingernail, but each removal and reinsertion does reduce the likelihood that the port will be fully protected. The designers did make the cover small to minimise exposure, but this negated the possibility of a 3.5mm audio jack on this model. No adapter to provide this functionality through USB was included.
Overall, those who designed this did their best but avoided anything remarkable or groundbreaking in the context of such a large phone.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Design score: 3/5
Doogee V Max hardware
Dimensity 1080
5G Comms
Massive battery
Specs
The Doogee V Max that was sent to us for review came with the following hardware:
CPU: Dimensity 1080 / Octa Core / 2.6GHz / 6nm / 5G GPU: ARM Mali-G68 MC4 RAM: 12GB LPDDR4X Storage: 256GB Screen: 6.58-inch IPS LCD Resolution: 1080 x 2408 SIM: Dual Nano SIM (+microSDXC up to 2TB) Weight: 543g Dimensions: 178.5 x 83.1 x 27.3 mm Rugged Spec: IP68, IP69K and MIL-STD-810H Rear cameras: AI Triple camera (108MP+20MP+16MP) Front camera: SONY 32MP Front Camera Networking: WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 OS: Android 12 Battery: 22000 mAh
The specification of this phone elevates it above almost all the rugged Chinese designs we’ve seen so far.
MediaTek’s new Dimensity 1080 SoC provides an excellent computing platform as its previous 900 series, but with marginally higher clock speeds and a generally better instruction set.
While it uses the same Mali-G68 MC4 GPU as its predecessor, the extra processing power in the two Cortex-A78 cores pushes the GPU harder, and it achieves a little more.
For those that live in a region with coverage, the 5G support in this design boosts mobile data performance significantly. And, with WiFi 6, it’s also swift when you have a suitably specified router at home or in the office.
One curiosity of this design is the amount of RAM, as most phones tend to be capped at 8GB, whereas this has 12GB. It’s also one of the new designs with the potential to take some storage and make it work as RAM, adding up to 8GB if the user sets that option.
Therefore, unless you spend your days endlessly loading new apps, it seems unlikely that you’ll quickly run out of space to store them or RAM for them to run.
The camera cluster is also impressive, but the stand-out feature of this hardware is the 22000 mAh battery. This battery scale provides not only extreme longevity but using the OTG capability of the USB-C port the power can also be utilised to power other devices.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
The only feature weakness we noted was that the dual Nano SIM card tray only takes one SIM if you use a MicroSD card. A better solution might have been to offer e-SIMs on this phone, allowing the MicroSD card not to limit the phone to a single SIM.
But conversely, this phone has a feature we’ve not seen before in that it uses a dual-frequency GPS, allowing for even greater positional accuracy even in urban environments.
We’ve seen the 108MP Samsung S5KHM2 sensor before, and while it has limitations in that the full resolution comes without all the clever features, it is still an excellent picture-capture device.
If you want special beauty modes, then pictures are limited to 12MP, although these modes operate with shake compensation and other enhancements.
Alongside the headline 108MP Samsung sensor are a 16MP OmniVision OV16B10 Ultra-Wide lens and a 20.2MP Sony IMX350 Night Vision sensor, extending the camera repertoire further.
Like the Doogee V30, which uses the same Samsung S5KHM2 sensor, the V Max can capture video up to 4K in resolution. And like the V30 and the Ulefone Armor 17 Pro, it isn’t possible to have any control over the frame rate.
Not being able to trade resolution for frame rate is possibly one of the few things keeping the likes of GoPro in business, as many of the phone makers don’t exploit the sensor hardware fully.
As for the results, with a sensor this big, they’re generally very good, and it only made a mess either because of focusing issues to do with sunlight refraction or exposure compensation for highlights. The camera has a full PRO manual mode where ISO, EV, WB, manual focus and shutter speed can all be directly controlled.
In short, like the V30 that came before it, the V Max has a high-quality camera that could have been incredible with a better camera application.
We should also mention that while you can capture 4K video and play it back scaled down on the 1080 x 2408 resolution screen, you won’t be watching streaming content in 4K or even 1080p. Like it appears all rugged Chinese phones are, the V Max doesn’t support Widevine L1 security, reducing the service offered by Netflix and Disney+ to 480p resolution.
Camera samples
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Camera score: 4/5
Doogee V Max performance
Excellent performer
Strong GPU
Power and efficiency
Benchmarks
This is how the Doogee V Max performed in our suite of benchmark tests:
For the short story, this is the most potent rugged phone we’ve tested so far, and it is easily head and shoulders over those that use Helio-based SoCs.
Looking at it from a Qualcomm Snapdragon perspective, it falls fractionally short of the performance of the 778G, but the difference is less than a single percentage point in many tests.
The only caveat is that many games have been specifically coded to use the Snapdragon instruction set for enhanced performance, which might make them run better on Qualcomm SoCs.
But back to the numbers, there are many highlights here, so let’s look at a few especially impressive results.
In the Geekbench single thread task, a score of 734 is a first, with the previous best being the Dimensity 900-powered Doogee V30 achieved 694. And, the Geekbench multithreaded and OpenCL scores are equally beyond what we’ve seen on Dimensity 900 and Helio G99-powered devices.
To give an impression of how much better gaming is on the V Max over an Helio G99 SoC phone like the Ulefone Armor 17 Pro is relatively easy. The 3DMark Slingshot scores are 5315 on the V Max against just 3675 on the 17 Pro. That’s nearly 45% faster.
Compared with an Helio G85 phone, the V Max is almost twice as fast across the board.
Performance on this phone is not an issue, regardless of what you want to use it for.
Performance score: 5/5
Doogee V Max battery
22000 mAh
33W Fast charging
No Qi charging
The battery on this phone is both a blessing and a curse. Having 22000 mAh converts, according to Doogee, into 2300 hours of standby (96 days), 240 hours of ‘normal use’, 19 hours of calling, 40 hours of video, 90 hours of music and 25 hours of gaming.
That’s plenty of capacity, although the battery is a major contribution to making this design so large and heavy.
Where things are less wonderful is in respect of recharging. With a battery so large, getting it charged becomes an issue. Doogee did include a 33W charger, and using that does speed up things somewhat.
But typically, we’d estimate that charging 5000 mAh using 33W charging takes around 90 minutes, and scaling that up, the V Max could easily take more than six hours to reach its full potential. And, if you don’t use the 33W charger, it could take considerably longer.
The Doogee V30, as a good example, offered 66W charging and also 15W wireless charging, and both these options would have been appreciated on the V Max, but neither was used.
It may be that using 66W charging on such a large battery for a least three hours has implications for the generating of heat within the phone, but whatever the reason, charging is a limitation of this phone.
Battery score: 4/5
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
With so many great features and excellent performance in this phone, it seems churlish to talk about some of the obvious failings, but these need to be aired.
The scale and weight of the V Max do push it into a place where practicality becomes an issue, and for many people, this device is just too big and heavy.
Those that don’t mind lugging such a large phone around are rewarded with a feature-rich design that ticks many boxes, including 5G comms, a 108MP camera, top-tier SoC performance and a massive battery capacity. All this for a very reasonable price.
Just make sure that you have huge pockets to put it in.
For those watching the market for rugged phones closely, there is a crunch about to happen where the specifications of cheap phones seem destined to collide with those from the premium end ranges.
At this ground zero point are makers like Blackview, aiming to sell rugged designs for a minimum of $250, but also trying to take market share from those in the $300-350 bracket.
A case in point is the Blackview BV9200, a phone that, based purely on specifications, should cost more than the asking price.
However, to achieve this attractive price point, some compromises have been made, and it’s the purchasers’ choice if those are significant enough to warrant not buying one.
The boxes unreservedly ticker in the BV9200 are that it has a good Helio G96 processor, providing plenty of power, alongside a reasonable GPU, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of UFS 2.1-based storage.
The scale of this device allows for a large 6.58-inch IPS LCD panel with a 120Hz refresh rate and a natural resolution of 1080 x 2408 pixels, sufficient for unscaled 1080p playback.
This is also the first Blackview phone to have dual smart-PA BOX speakers designed by Harman AudioEFX for an enhanced auditor experience.
The first signs of cost saving appear in the cameras, as the best sensor is a Samsung ISOCELL JN1 50MP, and this is supported by an 8MP Macro lens with a 120-degree field of view and a 0.3MP sensor for depth of field control.
The cameras are far from useless, but this phone isn’t packing the 108MP sensors we’ve seen from Doogee and Ulefone.
Another limitation is the battery capacity, as 5000 mAh is on the low side for a rugged design. But conversely, this has the positive impact that at 310g this is one of the lightest waterproof designs we’ve seen so far.
More of an issue potentially is the installed OS, which is Android 12 but with the Doke-OS 3.1 interface sat over the vanilla Android core.
This version of Android seems stable, but Doke-OS preloads all manner of games and other junk that most users won’t want or care about. It is possible to remove this junk, but it’s disappointing that it was pre-installed in the first place. By not using the vanilla interface options, new Android releases are likely likely to be delayed by its integration, and Blackview doesn’t have the best history of passing all of these on to users.
The final point about this phone is that it is 4G, not 5G, and how important that is will be dependent on the region you live in and the mobile service you use.
Where can you get it? You can get it in most regions direct from AliExpress
Coming in black, green and orange, the BV9200 is best sourced from AliExpress, as it doesn’t seem to be generally available through Amazon or other big online retailers.
The pricing is relatively consistent based on exchange rates, with the three colours all costing around $250. AliExpress does offer two bundle options; phone with “Airbuds 6” and “Smartwatch R1”. These add about $25 if you want either of those extras.
The downside of AliExpress is that the phone will only ship within 30 days and could take another 30 to reach you. Hopefully, Blackview will make this design more readily available through Amazon and other faster channels.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Value score: 4/5
Blackview BV9200 design
Slim
Offset camera cluster
A charging monster
We’ve seen a new class of rugged phones emerge in the past year that delivers a robust package but in a distinctly thinner aspect.
While not as light as the svelte 290g Ulefone Armor 17 Pro, the 310g BV9200 is still much lighter than the majority of rugged designs and 150g less than Blackview’s own BV7100.
The reduced weight and thinner form make this an easier phone to handle and secure in a pocket, although, with a 6-58-inch screen, it is still a substantial device.
It’s a nice tactile experience, the sides and buttons are mostly metal, and the visible bolt heads on these are neatly recessed.
The layout used is a cookie-cutter form with the volume rocker and power/fingerprint reader on the right and the SIM tray and custom button on the left. As with most rugged phones that use it, this layout is biased towards right-handed users and not those who are left-handed.
The camera cluster is oddly set to the top left when viewed from behind, placing the main 50MP sensor centre approximately 24mm from the centreline of the phone body.
This position might need some adjustment for those taking pictures, but due to a gentle curve of the underside, the sensor cluster projection doesn’t stop the phone from lying flat.
That it can lay flat is essential, as it supports wireless charging using the Qi standard, but not the usual 15W, but the higher 33W level.
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For those wanting to charge even faster, the USB-C port is the weapon of choice, as this allows 66W mode using the PSU that Blackview includes with its phone.
This port is covered with a rubber plug that needs to be removed every time it is charged this way, and therefore the wireless charging option might be preferable.
We’d also like to comment that the rubber plug on the BV9200 is small, and the space it offers for USB charging cables is narrow. When we first took this phone from its box, we tried to attach it to a typical USB-C cable, and it wouldn’t fit. The assumption is that the connector approach is this narrow to avoid water or dust getting in, but being forced to find the narrower USB-C cable that came with it isn’t ideal.
To summarise the design of the BV9200, there isn’t any remarkable about it, but equally, no horrible mistakes. It might have been a little better, but it could also have been much worse.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Design score: 4/5
Blackview BV9200 features
High spec platform
Modest battery
No audio jack
Specs
The Blackview BV9200 that was sent to us for review came with the following hardware:
CPU: MediaTek Helio G96 Cores: Octa-core, Dual-core 2.05 GHz Cortex-A76, Hexa-core 2 GHz Cortex-A55 GPU: Mali-G57 MC2 RAM: 8GB LPDDR4X Storage: 256GB +MicroSD Screen: 6.58-inch IPS LCD 120Hz Resolution: 1080 x 2408 SIM: Dual Nano SIM (+microSDXC) Weight: 310g Dimensions: 174 x 82 x 13.6 mm Rugged Spec: IP68, IP69K and MIL-STD-810H Rear cameras: 50MP + 8MP + 0.3 MP Front camera: 16MP Networking: WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.2 Mobile Network: 2G/3G/4G OS: Android 12 (Doke-OS 3.1) Battery: 5000 mAh Colour Options: Black, Green, Orange
Chinese phone makers love MediaTek SoCs for commercial reasons, and Blackview uses them exclusively in its latest designs.
What is slightly odd is where many phone makers are going with the Helio G99 or even the Dimensity 900, but the BV9200 has the scaled-back Helio G96. This silicon has seen some use in the Doogee S99, POCO M4 Pro and Xiaomi Redmi Note 11S, to mention just a few.
Like the Helio G99, this is an eight-core design that has two Cortex-A76 performance cores alongside six Cortex-A55 efficiency cores and the same Mali-G57 MC2 GPU.
The only major computing platform difference is that the performance G99 can clock its Cortex-A76 parts up to 2.2GHz, whereas the G96 is capped at 2.05 GHz. The Cortex-A55 cores run at 2 GHZ on both chips.
While not the very fastest SoC that MediaTek makes, the G96 is powerful enough for most purposes.
Another strong point in the specification is the screen. This IPS panel offers strong colours, a good resolution and up to a 120Hz refresh along with 90Hz and 60Hz, and it is well protected from accidental damage with a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 5.
Where the BV9200 is less impressive is in the networking, cameras and battery specifications.
For example, the wireless networking on this phone is only WiFi 5, although it is Bluetooth 5.2, thankfully.
The camera selection is curious, as we’ve not seen another phone with this exact combination. While the primary 50MP camera and optics look decent, typically, we see them alongside 16MB supporting sensors. But here, the wide-angle option is just 8MP, and the depth of field sensor is 0.3MP, making it remarkably low res.
As we’ll cover in more detail below, these curious choices don’t impact the quality of the results, but they do seem to fly in the face of what other phone makers are doing.
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A rugged phone only having 5000 mAh of battery capacity does seem on the low side, especially for those wanting to take this device on a long hike away from mains power.
That said, it is possible to carry charging packs or solar collectors to extend its operation, and when you do encounter power, the BV9200 can charge up remarkably quickly.
One final feature note is that this phone has no 3.5mm audio jack, and Blackview didn’t include an adapter to use the USB for headphones. These are cheaply bought, but it is worth noting that an adapter will be required.
Despite a somewhat odd combination of sensors, the camera on the BV9200 performs admirably. The main sensor might be 50MP, but the maximum image size that is captured is 13MP in a 4:3 ratio, making the files significantly smaller. Having more sensor pixels than those on the output results is some crisp and colour-accurate results.
Our only complaint is that getting the best images requires good lighting, as the focus is poor in less-than-ideal lighting conditions. This issue is especially true of the night vision mode, something we’d avoid using.
But for daylight photography, it is possible to get some excellent captures that are generally free of optical aberrations and colour shifts. For those wanting the best results, we recommend Beauty mode and the HDR options since these make the best use of the ArcSoft True-Chroma software working behind the scenes to extract the best image fidelity.
The ultra-macro mode gets to within about 10mm of the subject, and the beauty mode has a depth control with ten levels of impact.
Probably one of the best features of the camera is that it will shoot video at a resolution above 1080p. It can record 2K or, more accurately, 1440p, aka 2560 x 1440 video.
The only downside of that functionality and video capture is that no controls are provided for frame rate. It’s 30fps at all resolutions, with no other choices.
The phone camera application does have H264 or HEVC encoding, balancing the options for the greatest compatibility with the most efficient encoding. And, image stabilisation is always available irrespective of capture resolution.
Overall, the camera on the BV9200 is better than anticipated, and unless you need night vision or some other special sensor modes, it does a reasonable job.
Camera samples
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Camera score: 3/5
Blackview BV9200 performance
All-round performer
Strong GPU
Power and efficiency
Benchmarks
This is how the Blackview BV9200 performed in our suite of benchmark tests:
Overall, the performance of this phone is excellent, and the 120MHz mode of the display makes the interface seem even smoother than normal.
If we compare the G96 used in the BV9200 with a G99-powered phone, the difference is about 10% lower across most benchmarks, but in some tests, it is much, much closer.
The PCMark 3.0 test, as an example, scores 8727 on the BV9200 and 9176 on the Ulefone Armor 17 Pro, a difference of just 5%.
To get significantly better performance than this requires the Dimensity 900 powered phone, and those cost more than double the asking price of the BV9200.
The graphics performance of this SoC will work for most mobile games, even if it’s only about 60% of the power that the Mali-G68 MC4 used in the Dimensity 900 SoC can output.
Understanding the wide range of capabilities, game creators tend to create predefined quality settings for specific SoCs and screen resolutions, and the BV9200 has enough visual performance that this shouldn’t be an issue.
The only issues you might encounter are those related to the lack of Widevine L1 encryption, a standard that many of the branded streaming services use to deliver their content to TVs and mobile devices.
Blackview only offers an L3 security level on the BV9200, reducing the streamed quality of most services to 480p (640 x 480), irrespective of the screen size.
But in some services, such as watching some, but not all, streamed movies through Google TV, possibly due to a mistake when the OS was compiled, movies appear with a large black border around them, and no icon appears to rescale them to the full display.
The lack of Widevine L1 and inconsistent scaling issues make the BV9200 unsuitable for watching TV shows and movies on this phone, despite the screen being suitable for this purpose.
Performance score: 5/5
Blackview BV9200 battery
66W Fast charging
33W Qi charging
The SoC in the BV9200 is highly efficient and can make the most of the battery capacity, even if it is only 5,000 mAh. For a typical smartphone, that would be plenty of battery, but for a rugged design, it's on the light side of what is often provided.
That said, you should be able to get more than six hours of movie streaming on a single charge, and on standby, it should last 500 hours on standby and 37.5 hours calling.
But where the BV9200 has the advantage is when it charges. Because it has two charging options, and both of them get the phone ready to travel quickly.
For conventional USB-C charging, when empty, it can utilise the 66W charger Blackview include with the phone. That enables it to grab 20% of the power capacity in 5 minutes and be fully recharged in around 53 minutes.
Conversely, the 33W wireless charging option takes approximately twice as long, but it is still much faster than most wireless charging phones, as they usually only support 15W mode.
To be concise, the battery on this phone could be bigger, but making it this size makes the phone light and also enables it to charge quickly.
Battery score: 4/5
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Like the Ulefone 17 Pro, the Blackview 9200 provides an excellent alternative to the brick-like rugged phones that are heavy and somewhat impractical.
The SoC is a good choice, with plenty of RAM and storage. The camera seems somewhat quirky but delivers good results, and given the hardware in this phone, it is competitively priced.
What is less wonderful is the Doke-OS version of Android and all the apps you never asked for, and that it is 4G in a world that is increasingly 5G.
For those wanting to go into the wilderness and not take an iPhone, the Blackview BV9200 is an affordable choice. With the exception of the battery capacity, it is built for that job.
Each time Doogee comes out with a new flagship design, it moves the bar for numerous companies in the rugged phone sector.
The new V30 takes features exclusive to premium branded phones only months ago and delivers them in an affordable package for those that work outdoors or yearn to adventure.
Ticking the rugged phone boxes, this is an IP68, IP69K and MIL-STD-810H compliant design that can handle dust and water, including full submersion for limited periods and shallow depths.
But the parts of this phone that will interest the discerning customer are all inside. Specifically, the Dimensity 900 SoC, 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage and 108MP camera.
These make the V30 a potent and capable phone that can connect using 5G when available and capture the world around it in astounding detail.
On the rear are a 108MP Samsung S5KHM2SP03 main camera (F1.79, 90-degree FOV, PDAF) a 20MP Sony IMX350 night vision camera (F1.8, 70-degree FOV) and a 16MP wide-angle & macro camera (F2.2, 130-degree FOV).
For selfie-takers, the front has a 32MP IMX616-AAJH5-C front camera (F2.0, 90-degree FOV).
Like we’ve seen before with this sensor, the taking of 108MP images negates some of the special features like HDR and Bokeh, but you can get those things in a 12MP mode.
However, other phones don’t offer 4K video capture, and the V30 does, along with lower resolutions.
Viewing those pictures or streamed content is easy on its 6.58-inch IPS 120Hz display with a natural resolution of 2408 x 1080, similar to one of that we’ve seen before on the Ulefone Power Armor 17 Pro.
With a battery capacity of 10800mAh, the V30 should operate for more than three days of normal use without needing a recharge. And, using the included 66W charger, it can recover 50% of its battery capacity from empty in around 30 minutes.
These features and its 5G functionality make the V30 an exceptionally good choice for anything travelling abroad, capturing images and video and then securing them over cellular or WiFi connections.
It might not be the cheapest rugged phone design, but the amount of technology that Doogee shoehorned into it makes it easily worth the asking price.
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Doogee V30 price and availability
How much does it cost? $449.99 / £407.99/ $AU 779
When is it out? It is available now
Where can you get it? You can get it in most regions direct from AliExpress or on Amazon.com
The Doogee V30 costs $449.99 directly from Doogee or $529.99 on Amazon.com for next-day delivery. European costs from online retailers are slightly better, with the Amazon.co.uk cost being just £407.99.
Whereas direct from an Australian online retailer, the V30 costs AU$ 779.
But if you want a real bargain Doogee has this phone at its own outlet on AliExpress, and it costs only £329.16 or $395.24, although delivery might take 30 days or more.
Considering the features of this phone, the price is very competitive.
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Value score: 5/5
Doogee V30 design
Built to last
By-the-numbers buttons
No audio jack
From the outside, there isn’t much radical about the V30, as it falls into the familiar tropes where most large rugged phones fall.
One unique aspect is that the phone's body has a boat-like profile, making it slightly easier to handle than some thicker phone models. Having its sides elevated also helps when picking up, which might otherwise be a challenge.
The construction uses a combination of a milled metal frame covered largely in impact-resistant plastic and dense TPU. This has been texturized for better grip and to match a section of ‘leather’ on the flat underside.
One curiosity is the side panels that have a wood grain finish, although it's hard to determine what they’re actually made from. It all looks nice, and with the ‘Leather’ underside, it gives the phone the feel of a luxury car interior.
Every phone maker seems to be glued to this layout with the thumb-activated power button, and Doogee engineers didn’t buck that trend. It works well for right-handed users and less elegantly for left-handed.
Typically, rugged Chinese-made phones come with a SIM tray that can accept two Nano SIMs and a MicroSD card, but the V30 only supports one Nano alongside the MicroSD or, alternatively, two Nano and no MicroSD.
However, as we’ll cover elsewhere, this phone supports eSIMs, so it can have up to five different numbers and services if required.
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The charging and data port is the USB-C variety placed on the centre of the bottom edge and covered in a rubber plug. We’ve seen designs by Ulefone recently that dispensed with the rubber plug but still offering to waterproof, something Doogee needs to consider offering in its designs.
However, the phone will wirelessly charge at 15W with a suitable Qi wireless charger if repeatedly removing the plug annoys you.
What is missing is any 3.5mm audio jack. Doogee assumes music fans will be using Bluetooth or buy their own USB-C-to-audio adapter, as one isn’t included in the box.
What you get with the phone is a plastic tool to avoid breaking a nail opening the SIM tray, a Euro pinned wall-socket PSU rated to 66W, USB-C to USB-C OTG cable, some screen protecting accessories and a User Manual.
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Design score: 4/5
Doogee V30 hardware
Powerful
High specification
eSIM flexibility
Specs
The Doogee V30 that was sent to us for review came with the following hardware:
CPU: MediaTek Dimensity 900 GPU: Mali-G68 MC4 RAM: 8 GB (15 GB with Memory Fusion) Storage: 256GB (expandable to 1TB with MicroSD) Screen: 6.58" FHD+ 120 Hz IPS waterdrop display Resolution: 2408 x 1080 SIM: Dual Nano SIM (or 1 and MicroSDXC) and eSIM (4) Weight: 376g Dimensions: 177 x 80 x 18 mm Rugged Spec: IP68, IP69K and MIL-STD-810H Rear cameras: 108MP main, 20MP night vision, 16MP ultrawide Front camera: 32MP Networking: WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.0 OS: Android 12 Battery: 10800mAh
The MediaTek Dimensity 900 is the SoC of choice for flagship designs for those companies unwilling to pay Qualcomm for the latest Snapdragon silicon. We’ve seen it used in the V30 and the Ulefone Power Armor 18T, and it impressed us in both devices.
This is a third-generation MediaTek APU that combines dual ARM Cortex-A78 performance cores with six ARM Cortex-A55 cores for efficiency. Its integrated GPU is Mali-G68 MC4 can handle 4K video encoding/decoding and supports OpenGL3.1 and Vulkan for 3D rendering.
As an SoC and not just a CPU/GPU, this 6nm chip can connect to LPDDR4X or LPDDR5X, and supports UFS 2.1 and 3.1 storage.
In this phone, the memory type is LPDDR4X, and this is one of those designs where the amount of RAM can be expanded by sacrificing some of the storage. This memory fusion mode enables up to 15GB of RAM to be allocated, nearly doubling the amount available for apps.
But it isn’t just the SoC and memory model that is premium on this design. The networking technology is also state of the art, with WiFi 6 (2x2 MIMO), Bluetooth 5.2, and mobile comms for 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G cellular services.
Using the dual SIM mode can choose from physical SIMs and eSIMs, and if the service provider supports the mode, it can communicate over dual 5G links at up to 2.7Gbps download speeds.
Where the eSIM model used in the V30 is truly revolutionary is that the whole process of getting a service can be achieved from the phone. If you imagine wanting to go to a distant country and needing a local number and service, this would normally involve sourcing a physical SIM and paying for that service when you arrive.
Using the pre-installed eSIM store, you can simply select the country and the required data plan, sanction the payment and magically, you’ve now got access to the local service and a mobile number. And, if you are involved in some shuttle diplomacy or the like, it is possible to have four eSIM numbers active at any time.
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The only disappointment in the hardware is that the V30 doesn’t support the Widevine L1 video decryption standard, only L3. With only L3 decryption streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ reduce the best resolution available to just 480p. 1080p playback on YouTube and with capture videos is possible, but not over the mainstream services.
This limitation appears to be the norm among Chinese phones, regrettably.
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Hardware score: 4/5
Doogee V30 cameras
108MP sensor on the rear
Wide-angle, macro and night vision
Four cameras in total
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The Doogee V30 has four cameras:
Rear cameras: 108MP Samsung S5KHM2, 16 MP OmniVision OV16B10 (Ultra-Wide), 20MP Sony IMX350 (Night Vision) Front camera: 32MP SONY IMX616 Sensor (Wide)
We’ve seen the 108MP Samsung S5KHM2 main sensor before on the Ulefone 17 Pro, and it can deliver some amazing resolution images if you need the highest levels of detail.
The trade-off for getting 12000 x 8992 resolution pictures is that it will only do this in a basic snapshot mode, with all the clever Pro and specialist capture being limited to 12MP.
With such a large sensor and all the light it can capture, the 12MP results are excellent, but it would be nice to extract more resolution without losing all the shooting modes.
Where this camera design differs from that in the Ulefone 17 Pro is it uses 8MP supporting wide-angle sensors, while the ones in the V30 are 16MP and 32MP. This results in better close-up and macro results, along with better selfies.
But it isn’t only the supporting sensors that are generally better, but also the way that the main 108MP is exploited is superior in the V30.
We’ve seen designs that use this sensor and then offer only 2K video resolution, but the V30 does offer 3840 x 2160, aka 4K UHD. The screen might not have the resolution to display these capture without scaling, but it can grab video at 4K.
There is still work to be done here, Because irrespective of what video resolution you pick, the only framerate available is 30fps. Not only is this not helpful for those that like 25fps, but it also ignores all the possibilities for slow motion.
That point aside, the results from this camera are outstanding, with exceptionally crisp images and natural colours, and they’re relatively artefact-free.
While I’m sure that the latest Apple or Samsung premium design might be able to do better, there isn’t much that is substandard about the images the V30 can capture.
Camera samples
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Camera score: 4/5
Doogee V30 performance
All-round performer
Strong GPU
Power and efficiency
Benchmarks
This is how the Doogee V30 performed in our suite of benchmark tests:
The performance of this phone is terrific, as across the benchmarks. These results display its superiority to MediaTek Helio series SoCs and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 5G in every test. The Dimensity 900 is equivalent to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 in a few respects, though it is marginally better in many areas.
Where often Octo-core SoCs are good at multi-thread tests but less wondering at single-task challenges, the 2.5GHz Cortex-A78 performance cores deliver excellent single-thread performance. But when two of these are combined with the six Cortex-A55 cores, it can also achieve excellent results in multi-threaded scenarios.
Compared to the MediaTek Helio G99 phones, the V30 is around 30% faster at single-thread tests and up to 25-30% better at multi-threaded. And it entirely crushes lower G and P series SoCs.
The Mali-G68 MC4 is also a dramatic improvement over the Mali-G57 MC2 used in the G99 designs, delivering an improvement of around 40% in most of the 3DMark benches and closer to 80% in Wild Life.
Overall, the performance of this phone is fantastic, as the configuration of the SoC allows for high performance and power efficiency when priorities change.
There is nothing low-budget about the performance of the V30.
Performance score: 5/5
Doogee V30 battery
Good battery size
66W Fast charging
15W Qi charging
When phones get more than 10,000 mAh, they’ve got enough battery for extended use without a recharge, and this one has 10800 mAh of battery inside.
According to Doogee, the V30 should operate for more than three days of typical use without needing a recharge, and it might make it to a fourth.
The included 66W charger can recover 50% of its battery capacity from empty in around 30 minutes, although if you use the 15W wireless charging, it will take four hours to reach the same level.
There are rugged designs that offer more battery, but they trade weight for that advantage, and the physical mass of the V30 isn’t so great that it becomes impractical.
The available capacity is enough for a camping holiday, and the power efficiency of the platform makes the most of it.
Battery score: 4/5
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The V30 is easily the best Doogee phone we’ve tested so far, with many positive aspects and relatively few caveats.
It has a powerful platform, an impressive camera, decent battery life and 5G communications. But the stand-out feature is the inclusion of eSIM technology, which makes international use significantly less of a hassle.
We’d like to see more camera options at 108MP, framerate control on the video, and L1 Widevine decryption, but those things could all be added with firmware and software enhancements.
Doogee has set a new high watermark for rugged phones, and we can’t wait to see how its competitors react.
When the PS5 launched, there were some incredibly high expectations to meet, especially after the success of the PS4. Thankfully, Sony's current-gen console has exceeded its predecessor in every possible way.
The DualSense controller for the PS5 is nothing short of a revelation with haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, so it's an impressively clever bit of tech which the newly released DualSense Edge builds on. With the combination of a fresh UI, rapid SSD-fueled load times, immersive 3D audio, and incredibly powerful hardware, the PS5 takes some generational strides over the PS4. For these reasons and more, once you've started playing the PS5, it's hard to stop.
But there's no avoiding that the console itself is an eyesore, largely due to its wing-like faceplates and bulky size. The plus side to this is that the PS5's gargantuan size ensures that it's quiet and runs suitably cool. You can still place the console vertically or horizontally, though we really wish it didn't need a stand when on its side. More importantly, we haven't experienced any major hardware issues since launch, like hard crashes or storage corruption.
One area where the PS5 has been slow on the uptake is support for the best 120Hz TVs with HDMI 2.1. However, the games that support 120fps is steadily growing, including first and third-party hits like Horizon Forbidden West, Fortnite and Ghostwire Tokyo.
Equally fantastic is the addition of VRR support to PS5. VRR (or variable refresh rate) keeps the action running smooth on compatible TVs. With PS5 VRR enabled, the console is able to maintain high framerates, without screen tearing, and with little to no hits to overall performance. It's an awesome feature we're very happy to see on PS5.
However, you won't need a top-shelf TV to feel the benefits of the PS5’s substantial horsepower. You can still enjoy unbelievably fast load times, significantly better performance, and a greater level of visual fidelity in new and older games alike.
From a simpler setup to a well-thought-out user interface, Sony has also re-imagined the key parts of the user experience with some pleasing extras to boot: PS Plus Essential members can enjoy a curated selection of games straight away, while Plus Extra and Premium can access an additional Game Catalog and Classics Catalog. Backward compatibility also ensures that your old collection of the best PS4 games works on day one.
The end result is a console that we're impressed with, which is ultimately strengthened by the PlayStation 5's compelling line-up of exclusive games that continues to grow.
We'd love to have seen more first-party games at launch (there were only four if you include pack-in game Astro's Playroom). It would also have been wonderful to see further support for previous generations of PlayStation titles, like PS2 and PS3. Still, the PlayStation 5 feels like a solid investment and with a growing library of the best PS5 games, we're confident this experience will only improve with age.
The library of compelling titles has certainly grown since the PlayStation 5’s release. Returnal takes full advantage of the console’s feature set, Horizon Forbidden West and Gran Turismo 7 both look stunning on the new-gen hardware, while Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is a visual spectacle that needs to be seen to be believed.
PS5 one year on
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We've updated our PS5 review to reflect our initial impressions after spending two years with the console. Sony has made a few pleasing changes via system updates, and the quality of its exclusive games continues to impress. There are a few outstanding issues, though. The lack of 1440p support continues to frustrate but we'd still fully recommend picking a PS5 if you can find one.
The PS5 caters to people ready to jump into the new generation of video games, alongside PS4 owners who don’t want to leave their collection of games behind. It's a console that seamlessly bridges the gap between the last generation and the new, so you probably won't need to boot up your PS4 ever again.
There's big upgrades like the super-fast NVMe SSD and powerful GPU that enable higher frame rates and ray tracing. But you'll also appreciate the subtle touches like the built-in microphone on the controller that can serve as a quick stand-in for a headset. The PS5 feels like it was built for ease of use as well as pure power.
The PS5 Digital Edition is exactly the same as the standard PS5 but removes the 4K Blu-Ray drive to offer a cheaper price point at $399 / £389.99 / AU$649.95 and a more symmetrical look. We've pitted the two PS5 consoles against each other in this PS5 vs PS5 Digital Edition comparison, so you can determine which one is right for you.
Whichever PS5 model you choose, though, we can wholeheartedly recommend the console as a welcome upgrade over the PS4, and an exciting portal to new-gen gameplay. Read on for our full PS5 review.
Watch our PS5 video review below:
PS5 review: price and release date
PS5 release date: Out now (released on November 12/19, 2020)
PS5 price: $499.99 / £479.99 / AU$799.95
PS5 Digital Edition price: $399.99 / £389.99 / AU$649.95
The PS5 was released in North America, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand on November 12, 2020. It came two days after the release of Microsoft’s new-gen consoles, the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. For the rest of the world, the console became available one week later on November 19.
For the PS5’s price, it originally cost $499.99 / £449.99 / AU$749.95 for the standard version of the console with a 4K Blu-ray disc drive. However, if that’s more than you want to spend, there’s also the PS5 Digital Edition, which is exactly the same apart from the fact it removes the disc drive entirely. At launch, that cost $399.99 / £359.99 / AU$599.95, which is a saving of $100 / £90 / AU$150 over the standard model.
The PS5 is more expensive than the launch price of the PS4, PS4 Slim, and PS4 Pro, which both came in at $399.99, but they arrived seven and four years ago respectively now, and you're getting a generational leap in hardware here for $100 more. The PS5 is still expensive, don't get us wrong, but the jump in price does feel warranted for what you’re getting.
However, much like the Oculus Quest 2, we've seen the PS5 get a price hike with Sony blaming this on soaring inflation globally. The US remains unaffected but that's gone up to £479.99 / €549.99 / AU$799.95 for the standard PS5, and £389.99 / €449.99 / $649.95 for the digital PS5.
Sony isn't the only console maker with new hardware on the block, though – you also have to consider the Xbox Series X/S, which is the closest competitor to Sony’s PlayStation 5. Priced at $499 / £449 / $AU749 and $299 /£249 / $AU499 respectively, this makes PS5 more expensive than Microsoft's latest consoles, and Xbox won't follow PlayStation with price hikes. Not yet, anyway.
We’ve delivered our verdict in their respective reviews linked above, so we won't spend much time talking about them here. But if you’re interested in how these two compare, be sure to check out our PS5 vs Xbox Series X breakdown for more details.
PS5 review: design
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Huge for a modern gaming console
Space-age aesthetic is polarizing
But the size means more space for air ventilation and a bigger fan
If gaming consoles had weight classes, the PS5 would be in the heavyweight division. We measured it to be around 39 x 10.4 x 26cm (H x W x D) – though the curved surfaces make getting an exact measurement difficult. The PS5 isn’t light, either. It weighs in at 4.5kg, giving it a noticeable heft when you pick it up.
With those measurements in mind, it's easy to see how the PlayStation 5 is the largest console Sony has ever made, and it teeters on the brink of being simply too big for a device that's supposed to sit under your TV. Many will have to rethink their current setup to accommodate Sony's new machine, and that's a problem that no one should have to worry about when picking up a new console.
As for the colors and shape of the console, well, they can be kind of polarizing, too. Some of us on the team absolutely love the PS5 design, while some of us hate the PS5 design. There's no denying, however, that its gargantuan size and two-tone color scheme demands attention in any home. Thankfully, since launch Sony has allowed us to buy new PS5 console covers, coming in five different colors.
One element that's a delightful touch, and universally liked by the TechRadar team, is the system's subtle lighting effect, which creates a soothing hue when the console is in operation or rest mode.
The light strip adds to the PS5's space-age look and feel, and represents a nice touch of continuity from the PS4. Much like the PlayStation 4, when the console is in rest mode the light turns orange, and when the PS5 is turned on it changes from blue to white.
(Image credit: Future)
We’re a bit bemused by Sony's choice to put glossy plastic down the center spine of the console, though, particularly as that's where the front USB ports are located. After over a year of use, we can confirm that the plastic can become scratched over time, even though we were extremely careful when plugging in any devices into the front of the console.
We were worried that this might be the case when we first reviewed the PS5, and we’re kind of surprised that Sony didn’t contemplate this happening during development. The glossy finish is also a big dust and fingerprint magnet, which makes the choice all the more bewildering. Thankfully, it's relatively easy to clean your PS5.
Due to its curves and tall stature, it's not just a case of placing the console down and playing once you pull the PS5 out the box. You'll need to wrap your head around the PS5's attachable stand first, which isn’t exactly the most user-friendly experience.
The console can't be placed horizontally without the PS5’s stand, and you risk impeding airflow if you don't use it when the PS5 is standing vertically. It's an extra step that, while necessary, will hopefully be omitted when the inevitable PS5 Slim version arrives in a couple of years as it’s a bit of a faff.
The stand, while functional, feels slightly cheap in the hand too. It has a small compartment to hold one lone screw (don’t lose this, as you'll need it when placing the console vertically) and at first glance, it doesn't look like the setup will actually work when laying the console flat.
To its credit, though, it does the job in a no-thrills fashion – however, we found the stand slipped off the small lip that it clamps onto multiple times when we shifted our unit into position.
In terms of ports, the front of the PlayStation 5 has a USB-A and USB-C port, while the back sports two USB-A ports, a HDMI 2.1 port, an Ethernet port and a power port. There are no proprietary ports on the console, which is always a bonus if you need to replace the odd cable.
PS5 review: performance
(Image credit: Future)
Capable of 4K/120fps gameplay as well as support for 8K/60
Faster loading times thanks to new SSD
System runs cool and quiet nearly all the time
When it comes to specs, the PS5 is a technically impressive piece of hardware. There's the new custom RDNA 2 GPU that can push 4K resolution at 120 frames per second, and the octa-core AMD Zen 2-based CPU with a 3.5GHz clock speed.
Throw in 16GB of GDDR6 memory and a 825GB NVMe SSD, and this is a machine with some seriously impressive specs. The PS5 is also capable of outputting 8K resolution, however, we'll need to wait for a firmware update from Sony before it's able to do so.
PS5 specs
(Image credit: Future)
CPU: AMD Zen 2-based CPU with 8 cores at 3.5GHz (variable frequency) GPU: 10.28 TFLOPs, 36 CUs at 2.23GHz (variable frequency) GPU architecture: Custom RDNA 2 Memory interface: 16GB GDDR6 / 256-bit Memory bandwidth: 448GB/s Internal storage: Custom 825GB SSD Usable storage: 667.2GB IO throughput: 5.5GB/s (raw), typical 8-9GB/s (compressed) Expandable storage: NVMe SSD slot External storage: USB HDD support (PS4 games only) Optical drive: 4K UHD Blu-ray drive
In fact, the only real issue we have with the PlayStation 5's spec sheet is the amount of storage available. It's only using an 825GB SSD instead of, say, a 1TB or 2TB SSD. That decision was clearly made to cut down on the cost of the console, but it means that you can run out of storage quickly if you're not being judicious about which games you keep installed.
The console comes with 667.2GB of usable storage, which we found held around 16 games: two PS5 titles, which were Astro's Playroom and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and various PS4 games like God of War and Detroit: Beyond Human. The available space actually went further than we thought, although your mileage will vary depending on the size of the games you have installed.
It may have taken over eight months after launch, but it's now possible to upgrade the internal storage with an NVMe SSD. You can pop off the PS5's plastic faceplates to reveal the empty SSD bay and secure a compatible M.2 SSD in place using a screwdriver. We've rounded up the best SSD for PS5 and created a detailed guide showing you how to upgrade your PS5 internal SSD storage.
Adding more storage via the SSD bay isn't the most intuitive of methods, and feels like a slight oversight on Sony's part - but hopefully, it's only something you'll need to do once. It’s also handy that you'll at least be adding storage onto the existing 667GB, instead of starting from scratch.
The good news is that you're also able to use external hard drives and SSDs by plugging them into the USB port. You won't experience the same lightning-fast load times that you get from the built-in SSD and optional (not to mention locked) SSD bay. But if you use an external SSD, you'll still see a massive boost to load time performance over a regular mechanical hard drive.
We plugged in an external SSD into one of the PS5's USB ports and the process of getting things set up was effortless. The console detected that an external drive had been connected, and once it was formatted, we were able to store and transfer PS4 games to it. After a PS5 system update in April 2021, you can now also store PS5 games or save data to external storage. However, you’ll need to transfer games back onto the internal drive if you wish to play them.
(Image credit: Sony Interactive Entertainment)
While few of the launch games really gave the new hardware a run for its money, we can already see the potential in Sony's upgraded hardware. Crucially, more titles designed with PS5 specifically in mind are on the way.
Load times are where most new PS5 users will see a stark difference, to begin with. In Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered, for example, load times have gone from 15-20 seconds on the PS4 to less than a second on the PS5, and Demon’s Souls takes literally seconds to load entire, sprawling levels. Returnal is another game that benefits greatly from the PS5’s super-fast SSD, with not a load screen in sight as you traverse countless biomes.
Graphical improvements, particularly when it comes to resolution, are the next immediate highlights when it comes to playing on PS5. Astro's Playroom runs at a rock-solid 60 frames per second at a 4K resolution, and almost every title we’ve played is either playable at 60fps by default or provides a 30fps mode with more visual flourishes. It's a dramatic and pleasing shift from the PS4, where games were often 1080p / 30fps.
In the future, more titles will run 4K resolutions at 120 frames per second, too, and there's the potential that less graphically intensive games could reach 8K/60fps. For now, though, we don't expect many games to hit that ambitious target (most will drop the resolution from 4K to achieve a higher frame rate), but there's a chance some titles will be able to achieve that coveted 4K/120fps output down the line.
A small slice of the PS5 launch library supported 120fps, and included Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Devil May Cry V: Special Edition, Dirt 5, Rainbow Six Siege and WRC 9. It's worth noting that you'll need a HDMI 2.1-compliant TV to display the 120Hz refresh rate at higher than 1080p resolution. Here's how to enable 120Hz on PS5.
Unfortunately, we haven’t seen as many 120fps enabled games as we’d hoped since the PS5 launched. Still, things are slowly improving, though you'll find far more 120fps games on Xbox Series X|S.
(Image credit: Future)
So what can you expect if you pick up a PS5 today? For now at least, most games will be capable of delivering 4K resolution at 30fps or 60fps when using a game's Performance Mode (which we'll explain below). Many will also utilize 4K image assets for crisper textures, while HDR support helps to provide better colors and contrast.
Combine that with ray tracing and improved particle effects that are now possible with the current suite of development tools. Games look leaps and bounds better now than they did a decade ago.
Even though not every PS5 launch game will have it, most should feature the aforementioned Performance Mode, which prioritizes higher frame rates over resolution and extra graphical features. With many games, this sacrifices various graphically-intensive effects like ray tracing or higher shadow quality, and drops the base resolution, in order to achieve higher frame rates like 60fps instead of 30fps.
But why would you want the extra frames at the expense of resolution? Well, higher frame rates make games feel far more responsive – which is a must for first-person shooters that require twitch-based reflexes and split-second decisions.
For some gamers, higher frame rates are the holy grail for consoles – something that has been hard to achieve for decades due to weaker hardware. To have this finally be an obtainable goal feels like a monumental achievement, even if it comes at the cost of some graphical flourishes.
If you'd prefer not to use Performance Mode, you can always choose Resolution Mode. This prioritizes higher resolutions, better rendering techniques like ray tracing, and more detailed graphics. We got a taste of that with Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and we loved what we saw. Lighting was improved substantially: windows glistened in the sunlight and contained realistic reflections, and the particle effects looked stunning.
What you can expect from this new generation of gaming, then, is faster load times, better framerates in Performance Mode, and higher target resolutions everywhere else. Simply choose which option you prefer.
(Image credit: Future)
How good is PS5's 3D Tempest Audio?
Adjust your 3D audio profile
(Image credit: Sony)
If you head into the PS5 settings, you can adjust the 3D audio to suit your preference. There are five levels of height to choose from, so select the option that sounds closest to your ear level. Remember that 3D audio works on any headset, either wirelessly or when plugged into the DualSense controller, and can also be enabled using your TV speakers.
The PS5's 3D Tempest Audio is Sony's take on Dolby Atmos, or spatial audio in general. It works on any headset, with 3D audio support for TV speakers now available thanks to a recent update.
We've tested various spatial audio solutions in the past, ranging from Windows Sonic to Dolby Atmos, and we've found that PS5's 3D Audio is a comparable experience overall, though it isn’t quite the revelation we hoped it might be.
We enjoyed hearing ships fly past and over our head in Astro's Playroom, and appreciated being able to pick out thugs that were closing in on us in Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales. It's not as detailed or as realistic as Sony made out, though, at least not at this stage, and it will be up to developers to get the most out of the technology as it matures.
Returnal has shown that 3D audio can be a powerful tool when it comes to increasing immersion and that it can also be beneficial in fast-paced games where audio cues are just as important as what you see on screen.
It’s the best implementation of the technology yet, and we hope Sony continues to support it. Right now, these are the best PS5 headsets for 3D audio. You can expect to experience Tempest 3D audio in all of Sony's first-party titles, like Sackboy: A Big Adventure.
(Image credit: Future)
What about heat and noise?
The PS5's monstrous footprint gives it one significant advantage over its predecessor in that the console is basically silent – and heat production is also minimal. We have noticed a bit of coil whine on some units, which is where the console emits a faint electrical noise during certain games, but compared to PS4 it’s a monumental improvement.
The PS4 and PS4 Pro were renowned for their ability to kick up the system fans to obnoxious levels and output lots of heat, particularly on the earlier models, so those looking to pick up a PS5 will be relieved to hear that those problems have been eradicated.
We held our hand near the system during a long play session, and although the PlayStation 5 was clearly outputting hot air (as it's designed to do) it was emitting far less than what the PS4 Pro would push out.
Very rarely in our testing did the fans reach an audibly loud level to the degree that the PS4 Pro did when running games like Horizon: Zero Dawn or God of War. However, that could simply be due to the fact that we haven't seen any resource-heavy PS5 games yet. Sony has also promised that it plans to optimize the PS5's fans using over-the-air updates, so the machine could get louder, or indeed quieter, when playing certain games later down the line.
PS5 review: DualSense controller
New DualSense Controller feels like a revolution over the DualShock 4
Highlights are the adaptive triggers and haptic feedback
Mute button can mute your mic or, if your TV has HDMI CEC, your TV
(Image credit: Future)
To navigate this brave new world of console gaming, you'll need a new gamepad – namely, the new Sony DualSense controller.
You'll be pleased to hear that you get a DualSense controller in the box with your PS5, and the DualSense feels oddly similar in the hand to the DualShock 4 that shipped with the PS4. We found it to be incredibly comfortable to hold for extended periods, and were shocked that when we went back to our trusty DualShock 4, it felt plain wrong to hold after using the DualSense.
Picking it up for the first time, the DualSense is fairly weighty and balanced, with most of the heft resting in the grips of the controller. While the majority of the controller features a matte white plastic finish, the bottoms of the grips themselves have a slightly rougher texture that actually makes the controller easier to hold, and less likely to slip out of your hands.
In fact, if you look closely, the texture is made up of tiny PlayStation face buttons, which is a neat little touch. The two-tone PS5 controller color scheme extends to the four face buttons, which still consist of the classic Triangle, Circle, Square and Cross (or X); however these are now devoid of color, and remind us of the PS Vita's minimalist approach.
(Image credit: Future)
There's a pop of color around the side of the central touchpad, though, as the PS4 Lightbar has thankfully been moved from the top of the gamepad to a less problematic position – thanks to its new placement, you won't now see an annoying glow reflecting off your TV.
Where early PlayStation controllers sported a convex analog design, the PS5 DualSense controller has concave control sticks, just like the DualShock 4, and they feel noticeably more durable this time around, with a pleasing textured finish on the outer ridge.
On early models of the PS4 the rubber analog sticks would sometimes wear away under vigorous gameplay sessions, and we’re pleased to report that even after six months of use, we haven't seen it reoccur with the DualSense. You'll notice a few new buttons you haven't seen before on Sony's new pad, too – like the mute button that turns off the microphone that’s built into the controller.
(Image credit: Future)
When this is held down, it can mute your television speakers or headset, which we found to be a useful quality-of-life feature. When speaking into the mic, we found it worked best when we kept the controller in our usual playing position, instead of holding it towards our mouth. We wouldn’t recommend using the DualSense microphone for voice chat, though – it isn’t the highest quality and has a tendency to pick up a lot of environmental sounds.
The highlights of the new DualSense controller, however, are the adaptive trigger buttons that allow developers to add resistance to certain in-game actions. The adaptive triggers can use resistance to create various sensations that mimic real-life actions, like pushing down on the pedal of a car or pulling back a bow string.
It's a huge step forward for haptics in Sony's hardware, and we found that the haptic feedback itself is a vastly superior replacement for the traditional rumble of old. When a character runs across a certain surface, like metal, it manages somehow to replicate that feeling in the palms of your hands – it's a truly wonderful sensation.
So far, we've seen a variation of haptic feedback support integrated into every PS5 game we've played so far, and hope to see it supported by more games in the future; we expect the feature to shine most in first-party titles, though. Returnal uses the DualSense to great effect, mimicking the effect of rainfall using haptic feedback, and the trigger performing two fire types by pressing it either halfway or all the way down.
Battery life, so far, has been a massive improvement over the DualShock 4. We played through a handful of PS5 and PS4 titles during our testing, including Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Astro's Playroom, and the controller eventually ran out of charge after 12 hours and 30 minutes. This will obviously vary depending on the types of games you’re playing and how much they use the DualSense’s features, of course, so that 12 hour figure could end up a lot lower.
Still, it's an impressive feat when you consider the DualShock 4 lasted around five to eight hours at a stretch. While internal batteries can degrade over time, it's a strong start for Sony's new pad, particularly when you consider how much technology is packed into it. Of course, you can also use the controller wired if you prefer.
To charge the DualSense, you have two options: either connect it to the PlayStation 5 itself with the USB-C to USB-A cable that comes inside the box, or shell out for the optional PS5 DualSense Charging Station, which can charge two controllers at a time using the metal conduits on the bottom of the pad near the 3.5mm audio jack.
You can also charge the controller, or your USB headset, via the rear USB ports, or opt to use a USB-C to USB-C cable when using the front USB-C port to charge the DualSense controller.
Either option works well, but the Charging Station does certainly look nicer sitting on the shelf, and more cost-effective third-party charging stations will likely become available in the coming months. We'll also need to test whether charging the controller via a USB-C to USB-C cable is quicker than using the USB-C to USB-A cable that comes with the console.
Still, if that doesn't sound entirely appealing, there's always the recently announced DualSense Edge, Sony's rival to the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller and the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2. Presenting a more premium build with customizable options and bespoke features, we don't have a release date just yet for this, but we'll keep this updated once we know more.
(Image credit: Future)
PS5 review: features
Redesigned user interface with beautiful splash screens for every game
PlayStation button has all new features
Party chat allows you to screen share
Design is one thing, but what can really elevate a console to the next level is its feature set – and thankfully the PS5 delivers here.
The PS5 innovates on what Sony's consoles have done in the past and, as a result, it might take a minute or two to get used to some of the new controls – pressing and holding the PlayStation button on the controller no longer brings up the quick menu, for example, but instead brings up a new Control Center.
This operates in much the same way as the quick menu did, and lets you view various sub-menus such as your Friends list, downloads in progress, notifications and, if you have your account linked, Spotify.
One of the more prominent new features is the PS5's Cards, with the most impactful being Activity Cards. Cards have various functions, allowing you to track trophy progress, jump into specific parts of a game like a challenge or multiplayer mode, see how far along you are on a game level, or simply see news from a developer. You can even watch a livestream of your friend’s gameplay using a picture-in-picture mode, which is pretty cool.
Cards are also present as you delve further into a game’s information, which is now displayed beautifully on the home screen.
By pressing down on the D-pad or flicking down on the analog stick, you can see the available Cards at a glance, circumventing the need to visit a game's main menu or particular mode to find out what's going on. They should prove useful for gamers of a lesser ability, too, as they can contain in-game hint videos in supported titles that help you overcome specific challenges or find that one last collectible.
Since launch, we've already seen Sony retiring this PS5 launch feature, Accolades. Designed as a community awards feature to lets players commend fellow gamers for their assistance, Sony revealed that it hasn't received much use as anticipated, so it's now been dropped.
(Image credit: Future)
Overall, we found Cards to be a useful addition, though horizontally scrolling through each one did feel cumbersome at times.
There's also a slight delay before they appear, which is at odds with the speed of the system as a whole. But, while not essential by any means, they help to add another layer of next-gen gloss to PlayStation 5 experience that you won’t find anywhere else.
Outside of the interface, you can expect the return of groups and other social-based features from the PS4, like SharePlay, as well as easy video sharing. You'll be able to jump straight into the game your friends are playing from the menu, or invite them to larger groups. Video sharing on the PS5 works similarly to how it did on the PS4, but it's nice to be able to see a preview in Cards.
Speaking of social features, if you're tired of typing out messages using a D-pad or analog stick, the PS5 also supports voice dictation for messaging thanks to the DualSense controller's built-in mic. You can also use PS5 voice commands to open games, apps and put the console in Rest Mode.
While your mileage may vary when it comes to the accuracy of the dictation (as with all voice recognition software), it could prove handy when you need to fire off a quick message to a friend. We did find it to be inconsistent in our testing, though, and not as accurate as something like Google Assistant.
We also like the fact you can choose system-wide settings for certain aspects on PS5 such as your preferred difficulty level or whether you invert the x or y-axis on your controller during games. You can even choose which graphical mode you prefer games to automatically select: performance or resolution.
PS5: streaming video services and other apps
(Image credit: Nick Pino)
Of course, game consoles can do more than just provide your thumbs with something to do - modern consoles are also full-on streaming video players.
Right now, you'll find over a dozen supported streaming services on the PS5 including most major services like Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Peacock and Apple TV, as well as a few more niche services like Twitch, NFL Sunday Ticket, ESPN, Vudu, Tubi, WWE Network and Crunchyroll. The selection here isn't as big as you'd find on, say, a Roku streaming player, but it should be enough for most.
The worse news is that, as it stands, there's no support anywhere on the console for Dolby Atmos or Dolby Vision. We thought we might see them appear on launch day, but neither materialized and Sony appears to be shunning the popular HDR and audio formats for now.
What that means, unfortunately, is that the PS5 is really only a middling media player - it can't best dedicated streamers like the Nvidia Shield, Amazon Fire TV Cube, Apple TV 4K or the new Roku Ultra, and isn't the console we'd recommend to our cinephile friends looking to host movie night with the highest fidelity films.
PS5 review: game library
(Image credit: Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Every PS5 comes with Astro’s Playroom installed
PlayStation Plus Collection is a great introduction to new players
Limited backwards compatibility with PS3, PS2 and PS One games
Most consoles don't launch with a full library of games right off the bat, so the launch bar was pretty low for the PS5. That being said, what you make of the PlayStation 5's current game library largely depends on if you finished the masterpieces from the PS4's era – games like God of War, The Last of Us Part II, Marvel's Spider-Man, and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.
If you haven't finished them, or haven't played them at all, you could have over a dozen excellent games to play from the second you turn on the PS5 via backwards compatibility, a number of which have been improved thanks to a 60fps update, like Ghost of Tsushima and Days Gone.
If you have PS Plus, you might also have access to some older games that passed you by, as Sony's new PlayStation Plus Collection includes 19 defining games from the last generation that you can download on day one. Every PS5 comes pre-installed with Astro's Playroom, too, and it's a thrilling showcase for what the system can do.
(Image credit: Future)
A fully fleshed-out sequel to Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, Astro's Playroom is a platformer that features exotic locales in which are hidden artifacts from Sony's PlayStation hardware catalog. You'll find a PlayStation VR Aim Controller hidden in a snowbank somewhere in one level, for example, while another level might contain a PlayStation Portable for you to discover.
It's a nice homage to the PlayStation hardware that's come and gone, but we expect some folks will play through it, then uninstall it to reclaim the 10GB of storage space it takes up on the console. You can always re-download it from your games library or the PlayStation Store should you wish to play it again.
But what else is there to play if you pick up a PS5 today? Well, the PS5 library mostly consists of cross-generation titles at the moment and is helped greatly by the fact it’s fully backward compatible with PS4.
There are also various independent games that are worth a shout, like the indie charmer Bugsnax (that one with the infuriatingly catchy theme tune), which was available as the console's first PlayStation Plus downloadable game.
We'll continue to keep an eye out for the best PS5 games as the console matures and you can keep track of all the new PS5 games on the way.
PS5: backward compatibility
(Image credit: Guerrilla Games)
Those masterpieces that we mentioned earlier? Those are all part of Sony's new PlayStation Plus Collection: a small library of hits from the PS4 that Sony's making free to PlayStation Plus subscribers on the PS5.
Some real mainstream classics are included, but also some less-popular gems that are well worth checking out, like Persona 5 and The Last Guardian. The PlayStation Plus Collection might never swell to the size of Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass lineup, but even with the 19 games available right now, it's a great perk for PS Plus subscribers.
What about folks who want to play older games? Well, the PlayStation 5 can play almost any PS4 game but not everything is compatible, though the incompatible games list is miniscule. There's no way to pop in a PS3 disc and have it work or transfer over your PlayStation Classics purchases you made on the PS Vita a few years ago.
We're as disappointed as you are with the lack of backward-compatibility support for Sony’s previous generation of games, particularly as Xbox 360 and original Xbox games (physical discs included) work on the Xbox Series X, but it's not uncommon for a new console to only support the last generation of games as manufacturers look to the future.
It used to be that you could choose select PS3/PS2 titles via PlayStation Now… but that's been replaced with a revamped PS Plus service, which also includes PS1 and PSP games. Accessing your old PS4 games is thankfully a cinch on Sony's new system, though. Simply select the Library icon and the PS5 will automatically pull in all your digital purchases and previously installed games, providing you're signed in to your PlayStation Network account.
You'll need to redownload them to the console, of course, or insert the physical disc to activate a game's license. Some games have been upgraded to run better than ever on PS5, too, like Days Gone, which now runs at a silky-smooth 60fps, while God of War can now comfortably hit its 60 frames per second target using the game’s performance mode.
One thing to note is that you may notice your save file is missing when you boot up a PS4 game that you previously owned for the first time – that's because you'll need to redownload your save files from the cloud onto your PS5 console first. Here's how to transfer PS4 save data to PS5.
PS Plus members have access to cloud saves, but if you haven't been backing up your save files over the air, then you may notice your data won’t be there initially. It's not the most seamless system, admittedly, and is bound to confuse some users, but support for carrying over your save files appears to be there for most of the older titles we tested – however, this will vary on a case by case basis.
We pride ourselves on our independence and our rigorous review-testing process, offering up long-term attention to the products we review and making sure our reviews are updated and maintained - regardless of when a device was released, if you can still buy it, it's on our radar.
When you’ve recently reviewed the 16 Pro and then are sent the 17 Pro, it’s not an unreasonable conclusion that the new phone will build on the previous design.
But, the Ulefone Power Armor 17 Pro takes very little, if anything, from its predecessor.
Where that was a super-cheap and heavy, rugged phone with a massive speaker on its back, the 17 Pro is double the cost, significantly lighter and generally has a much better specification.
Where the 16 Pro uses the lacklustre MediaTek Helio G25 SoC, the 17 Pro sports the very pinnacle of the Helio series, the G99. A chip that, in comparison to other SoCs, the G99 is a very powerful ARM processor and offers excellent performance.
The underlying platform allows this phone can handle most tasks with ease while also offering great battery life. Additionally, it supports a wide range of features, such as dual-SIM support, NFC, and Wi-Fi 6. In terms of gaming performance, the Helio G99 is enough power for most games, although it may struggle with more intense titles.
The strengths of this design over other rugged options are that at just 290g it is much lighter than most, and the case isn’t oddly shaped and thickened. That makes it a more practical phone to carry, even if you don’t use the optional protective case and its belt clip.
It also has an impressive 108MP rear camera, along with an 8MP PDFA wide-angle sensor and an 8MP night vision camera, Though even with that massive rear sensor, it still can’t capture 4K resolution video, only 2K.
There are two significant weaknesses in the 17 Pro, and the first of those is a battery capacity of just 5380 mAh, an amount that you would find in any typical mid-priced phone.
The battery can be fast charged, and the phone supports wireless charging, but this isn’t a phone that you would want to take on a long hike away from civilisation.
The second major weakness is that it doesn’t support 5G, making this a 4G phone with LTE support at best. Phones costing this much are starting to come with 5G, but this one doesn’t.
Overall, a phone that is more practical than most rugged designs and an interesting divergence from the previous 16 Pro.
This isn’t an expensive device and has plenty of useful features for the asking price..
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Ulefone Power Armor 17 Pro price and availability
How much does it cost? $340 / £290
When is it out? It is available now
Where can you get it? You can get it in most regions direct from AliExpress or on Amazon.com
Typically, on Amazon or other mainstream online retailers, the 17 Pro costs around $340, but for those willing to wait for AliExpress to deliver, it can be purchased for $60 less.
That still makes it almost twice the cost of the 16 Pro, but the power and performance in this design justifies the additional cost.
Alongside just the phone, the 17 Pro can be bought with an additional protective case, a wireless charging base, a portable Bluetooth speaker, or various combinations of those items. With them all included by AliExpress, it costs about the same as just the phone from Amazon.
Even with the increase over the 16 Pro, this is still one of the cheapest phones built around the MediaTek Helio G99 SoC and more sophisticated than the typical rugged designs.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Value score: 4/5
Ulefone Power Armor 17 Pro design
Solid construction
By-the-numbers buttons
Dedicated flashlight
Rugged phones tend to fall into two subcategories; chunky or slim. And, the 17 Pro is distinctly in the ‘slim’ category, only 12.5mm thick.
It would be even thinner if the camera cluster on the rear didn’t project outwards.
At just 290 g, this is one of the lightest phones from Ulefone we’ve seen, and unless specifically primed, most people picking up this device would assume it was a regular Chinese smartphone.
That said, there are a few rugged hints, in that the back has a faux carbon fibre finish, and the sides and all the buttons are metal.
The button layout is the de facto standard comprising of the audio rocker and power button (doubling as thumbprint reader) on the right and the custom button and SIM tray on the left.
On the bottom edge is the USB-C charging port and a 3.5mm audio headphone jack, and neither of these is protected by a rubber plug.
Despite the lack of a plug, the phone is rated for IP68 (maximum depth of 1.5 metres up to 30 minutes) under IEC, and it even has underwater camera modes.
Also, in the bottom left corner is a lanyard hole for those wanting to secure the Pro 17 to a strap or belt.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
As with most modern phones, the standout feature is the display. It’s a 20:9, 1080 x 2408 FHD+ screen, offering 6.58‑inches of touch panel that even those with big fingers should be able to operate. It’s bright and colourful and has a decent resolution for viewing captured images and video. The refresh rate is 120Hz, enough to avoid screen tearing when rapidly scrolling images.
In the centre of the back are the cameras, in a generally good position for those that often accidentally put their fingers on the edge of their photos. This is a triple-sensor cluster with the top sensor offering an amazing 108MP resolution. The two other sensors are one for wide-angle work (8MP) and a night vision camera (also 8MP).
To provide flash illumination, three conventional LEDs and two IR LEDs are also part of the rear camera cluster.
The 16MP selfie camera on the front is centrally mounted in a cutout at the top of the display. Normally the loss of a part of the panel to this feature would annoy us, but the screen here has extra pixels to avoid this being a factor in presenting video or images.
Overall, the Pro 17 is a good example of a new generation of ruggedized designs where its ability to withstand the environment and a few hard knocks hasn’t compromised it as a phone in any substantial way.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Design score: 4/5
Ulefone Power Armor 17 Pro hardware
Low spec platform
Decent battery size
Endoscope option
Specs
The UleFone Power Armor 17 Pro that was sent to us for review came with the following hardware:
CPU: MediaTek Helio G99 GPU: Mali-G57 MC2 RAM: 8GB LPDDR4X Storage: 256GB eMMC 5.1 Screen: 6.58-inch IPS LCD Resolution: 2408 x 1080 SIM: Dual Nano SIM (+microSDXC up to 128GB) Weight: 405g Dimensions: 172.7 x 80.4 x 12.5 mm Rugged Spec: IP68, IP69K and MIL-STD-810H Rear cameras: 108 MP, f/1.9, (wide), 1/1.52”, 0.7µm, PDAF 8 MP, f/2.2, 119˚, (ultrawide), 1/4”, 1.12µm 8 MP, (night vision), 2 infrared night vision lights Front camera: 16 MP, f/2.2, (wide), 1.0µm Networking: Wi-Fi 5 dual band, Bluetooth 5.2 OS: Android 12 Battery: 5380 mAh
The Mediatek Helio G99 is a mid-range mobile system on a chip (SoC) released in 2021. It is based on the 12nm fabrication process and is the successor to the Helio G90T. The Helio G99 is an 8-core CPU with 4 ARM Cortex A-76 and 4 ARM Cortex A-55 cores. This package includes a Mali-G57 MC2 GPU for graphics and support for up to 8GB of LPDDR4x RAM and UFS 2.1 storage.
In this design, 8GB of memory is combined with 256GB of main storage, providing enough space for most use profiles. But this is also one of the new designs where some of the main storage can be reallocated to RAM, boosting the amount available by up to 5GB. But, the maker warns that not all Android software is compatible with this Virtual Memory Expansion feature.
While this chip doesn’t compete with some of the latest Snapdragon designs, it’s an excellent all-around performer and allows the 17 Pro to deliver impressive benchmark scores.
An SoC of this performance level is critical when you have a camera capable of 108MP images in the system for the post-processing of that data.
One contradiction of this design is that the screen has a resolution of 2408 x 1080, providing more space than a 1080p video requires to be fully represented without scaling.
However, the Pro 17 doesn’t support the Widevine L1 video decryption standard, resulting in streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ reducing the best resolution available to just 480p. It is possible to get 1080p playback on YouTube and with capture videos, but not over most streaming services.
This limitation appears to be the norm among Chinese phones, and it may be to do with the additional cost of getting L1, over the L3 decryption many come with.
While still image capture can be made at crazy resolutions, even with a 108MP sensor, the Pro 17 can only offer 2K recording at 30fps, with no 4K options.
While there may be good reasons for avoiding 4K, why they didn’t include faster frame rate versions of 1080p, 720p and 480p is a mystery. They’re all locked at 30fps.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
For western buyers, the lack of 5G comms might be an issue, depending on the locale, but it does offer a pervasive selection of 4G LTE frequencies (FDD and TDD) alongside support for 3G and 2G legacy services.
One curiosity is that this design supports simultaneous dual SIM support, allowing both connections to be active. However, the support of two 4G connections to a single device depends on the local telecom operator and if they allow this on their service.
When you see the Samsung HM2 108MP sensor on this phone, one is immediately drawn to conclude that this might be a good phone for pictures, and it is.
However, the 108MP mode that captures whopping 12000 x 8992 resolution images isn’t the one that most people will use. Because none of the ‘Pro Mode’ features exists at this level of detail, and with the exception of 4X digital zoom, there are no options.
The standard resolution for pictures is only 12MP, or 4000 x 2992, or about 12% of the sensor area.
Admittedly not as impressive as 108MP, but the lower quality setting gives full control over ISO, aperture and speed, resulting in much better quality results.
It’s also worth considering that the typical size of a 108MP image is between 20MB and 25MB, whereas a 12MP is usually below 10MB. It takes longer to take 108MP images, you have less control, and they take up excessive space.
Usually, we might complain that RAW isn’t supported, but 108MP RAW images would be exceptionally large and probably not practical on this platform.
It’s tempting to think that the 108MP is just a hook to get customers who want the best pictures, but it’s more complicated than that due to the results of using a 108MP sensor to take 12MP images.
These pictures are predictably good, display relatively few artefacts and chromatic aberrations, and are well colour balanced even with everything set to auto.
It would have been nice to have a 24MP or 56MP mode which had all the controls of 12MP, but it is possible to get some excellent results out of the Pro 17, just not by using 108MP.
Camera samples
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Night vision (Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Camera score: 4/5
Ulefone Power Armor 17 Pro performance
Performance powerhouse
GPU isn’t the very quickest
Benchmarks
This is how the Ulefone Armor 17 Pro performed in our suite of benchmark tests:
These results are right up with the very best we’ve had from rugged phones, bettered only by those powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 900 SoC or Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 5G.
And, even those devices only make a handful of score points more, and not across all benchmarks.
To underline this, the Passmark score of 9359 is one the highest we’ve tested from a rugged phone, and only Dimensity 900-powered devices did better.
The only weakness we noticed is that the Mali-G57 MC2 isn’t as quick as the Mali-G68 MP4 that the Dimensity 900 SoC uses, delivering 1359 on the Wild Life test on this phone, but more than 2000 on the Doogee V30 and Ulefone Power Armor 18T.
That makes the G99 a little less suitable for gaming, but not by an amount most players would immediately notice.
What is more likely to be noticeable is the amount of battery capacity.
Performance score: 4/5
Ulefone Power Armor 17 Pro battery
Small capacity for rugged design
66W super fast charging
Qi charging and MagSafe
The elephant in this powerhouse is the battery, or more specifically, the 5380 mAh battery Ulefone blessed the 17 Pro with.
By rugged phone standards, that’s not huge, and while it is bigger than the 4,323mAh that Apple gives the iPhone 14 Pro Max, we typically see phones with 10,000 or more mAh in this sector.
The available capacity has a quoted standby of 294 hours and a talk-time of 29 hours, but realistically most phones don’t run out of power on standby or while being used as a phone.
With a smaller battery, Ulefone did make some effort to enable the phone to charge quickly, and with a suitable charger like the one included with the phone, it can handle a 66W fast charge. Due to the flattened back, this design can also wireless charge up to 15W using Qi charging pad (not included). It will also wireless reverse charge to another phone with Qi.
Its final trick is that it can also magnetically wireless charge in much the same way as a recent iPhone, allowing it to be used with a magnetic wallet. Included in the box is a soft magnetic wallet that doubles as a phone stand, conveniently.
While the 17 Pro might not have the battery capacity of the 16 Pro or 18T, it does have a few other neat charging features that go some way to balance this equation. The smaller battery positively impacts the phone's overall weight, importantly.
Battery score: 3/5
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
There are many things to like about the 17 Pro that address some of the issues with the 16 Pro and also offer a hint at where Ulefone is likely to go with future rugged designs.
Instead of emulating spare parts from a transformer, the Pro 17 offers a large but not excessively sized phone that is robust and protected from the environment without resorting to shipping container aesthetics.
The MediaTek Helio G99 SoC gives plenty of processing performance, and the 108MP camera sensor delivers excellent photo capture. The only real caveat is the limited battery capacity, making it less than ideal for long adventure holidays away from mains power.
It might cost nearly double the cost of the 16 Pro, but the 17 Pro is a lot more phone for the cash and probably better value on the investment.
The Xbox Series S is a more affordable alternative to the Xbox Series X, and despite the two seeming fairly similar on paper, there are some integral differences to note when comparing. But that's not to say it can't perform at a similar level for half the price.
While The Xbox Series S is designed to take the same generational leaps as the Series X, such as being capable of ray tracing, sporting lightning-fast load times, and showcasing higher frame rates. It remains to be significantly cheaper than its competitor, but there's certainly a hit to overall power and features.
The Xbox Series S is praised for its digital-only build, but surprisingly there is significantly less storage than the Xbox Series X. The console also targets a 1440p resolution rather than 4K, with the opportunity to upscale when connected to an Ultra HD display. But the console is designed to run optimally at lower resolutions. So you should take your display setup into account when thinking of purchasing the Series S.
Microsoft's more affordable Xbox also does away with the 4K HD Blu-Ray drive of the Xbox Series X, making this a digital-only affair. If you've amassed a large library of the best Xbox Series X games over the years, this alone could be a deal-breaker and means you're at the mercy of Microsoft's store pricing when it comes to buying new titles.
Xbox Series S one year on
(Image credit: Shutterstock/m.andrei)
We've updated our Xbox Series S review to reflect our impressions after using the console for nearly two years. Microsoft has rolled out a few welcome improvements to the Series S, and we now finally have exclusive titles that take full advantage of the hardware's power like Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5.
These cutbacks might be too much for some users, then, but it makes the Xbox Series S a much cheaper and less hefty device as a result. Crucially, it's still capable of playing new-gen games, making this a great entry point into the Xbox ecosystem.
Each one impressed us, with smoother frame rates, increased resolutions (when compared to Xbox One, and Xbox One S), and faster load times, even if the games didn't look quite as pretty as they did running on the Xbox Series X. But that's mostly due to Xbox Series S targeting a lower resolution.
That said, for gamers who have no qualms about buying games digitally, or subscribing to Xbox Game Pass, you’re getting the full suite of next-gen features on Microsoft's cheaper console: Quick Resume, Auto HDR, 120Hz, you name it. The Xbox Series S is a great option for those wanting to experience new-gen gaming, without the sizable financial outlay required to own a full-blown console.
(Image credit: Future)
As we've alluded to already, there are drawbacks to consider. If you prefer to purchase games physically, or have amassed a large collection of Xbox One games over the years, the Xbox Series S's lack of disc drive may put you off.
You only get a 512GB SSD, too, as there's no higher-capacity option. And while the console's SSD is dramatically faster than the old mechanical drives in the Xbox One X and Xbox One S, it can fill up fast. The five games we mentioned above almost took up the entire 512GB SSD on our review unit (you only get 364GB of usable space), leaving us with just 30GB of storage to play with.
That means if we wanted to install a game of that size to the system's internal drive, we'd likely have to delete something first (or additionally purchase the Seagate Xbox storage expansion card, which costs nearly as much as the Xbox Series S itself).
Xbox Series X review
(Image credit: Future)
The Xbox Series X utilizes its powerful specs to significantly reduce load times and increase overall game performance and visual fidelity. But, while features such as Quick Resume, Smart Delivery, and backward compatibility give it that extra boost, it's hard to deny that it’s lacking in key areas, notably significant UI improvements and captivating exclusive launch titles.
What may deter people from buying Microsoft's more affordable Xbox is the fact that it outputs at 1440p for gaming. This lower resolution is a firm favourite in the PC gaming space due to the superior image quality it provides over 1080p, and the lower amount of graphical grunt it requires from developers to achieve. This has allowed Microsoft to create a lower-spec machine that still boasts next-gen features.
If you own an Xbox One X, the drop to 1440p from native 4K can be noticeable. The Xbox One X could deliver games like Forza Motorsport 7 at 4K/60fps and is still capable of some sumptuous visuals. It's easy, then, to think that the Xbox Series S is a step back – however, it's capable of a lot more than Microsoft's aging Xbox One X, even if it doesn't always beat it in terms of resolution.
Looking at the system internals, the Xbox Series S separates itself from the One X with its vastly more powerful CPU and more technically capable GPU, courtesy of AMD's RDNA 2 architecture which enables cutting-edge features like ray tracing. Yes, the Series S has fewer teraflops than the Xbox One X (four compared to six), but teraflops are no longer the defining factor in how GPU power is determined.
For Xbox One owners looking to upgrade without breaking the bank, the Xbox Series S is a great option, if you can accept what it's been designed to achieve. If you've already got the Xbox One X and a 4K display at home, however, we suggest considering the Xbox Series X instead. Read on for our full Xbox Series S review.
Considering the bigger sibling? Check out our Xbox Series X video review below.
Xbox Series S: price and release date
Xbox Series S release date: Out now (released November 10, 2020)
Xbox Series S price: $299.99 / £249.99 / AU$499
Can be bundled with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $24.99 / £20.99 / AU$33 a month
The Xbox Series S is available now for $299.99 / £249.99 / AU$499 and was released on November 10, 2020. That's the same release date as the Xbox Series X, though the price is significantly cheaper than the Series X's price of $499 / £499 / AU$749. Thankfully, Xbox won't follow PlayStation with price hikes, so while Xbox doesn't rule out future price hikes just yet, this isn't changing anytime soon.
Keep in mind however that, without a disc drive, you won't be able to buy used games or trade games with your friends: you're dependent on the Xbox Store for any purchases, which means you won't always get the best deal.
That issue is negated somewhat if you subscribe to Xbox Game Pass (a separate expense, but exceptional value nonetheless), or if you only buy the occasional game at full price around launch. Still, it's not ideal for those who rely on physical game sales or trade-ins to fund their favorite pastime.
Xbox Series S is also available on Microsoft's Xbox All Access subscription service in select regions, including the US, UK, and Australia. Xbox All Access bundles the console with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate on a 24-month plan (giving you access to the latter for the duration) for $24.99 / £20.99 / AU$33 a month, with no upfront costs – that's a good deal which proves cheaper than buying the console and 24 months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate separately.
Of course, Microsoft isn't the only one with newer hardware out. Sony released the PS5 and PS5 Digital Edition soon after the Xbox Series S and Series X dropped, so if you're still on the fence then it's worth checking out our PS5 review before committing.
(Image credit: Future)
Xbox Series S review: design
Looks great when placed horizontally or vertically
Can comfortably fit into any setup
The console and controller look great in white
While the hardware powering the Xbox Series S is brand-new, the Xbox Series S design is reminiscent of the now-discontinued Xbox One S All-Digital Edition.
The Xbox Series S has a distinctive black fan vent, almost like a speaker grille, on the top that breaks up the swathe of white which encases the rest of the console, and it's where the majority of heat is exhausted. It's the smallest Xbox that Microsoft has ever made, with a plain front face that sports a single USB port and a power button. It's a clean, understated, and functional design.
For ports, you’ll find an HDMI 2.1 output, two USB 3.2 ports, an Ethernet port, a storage expansion slot, and an AC input. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Xbox Series S doesn't have a port for Kinect, Microsoft's now-defunct motion-sensing camera, or a HDMI input for cable boxes. However, that the Xbox Series S only ships with a High-Speed HDMI cable, not an Ultra High-Speed HDMI cable.
With weight and size, the Xbox Series S measures in at 6.5 x 15.1 x 27.5cm and 4.25 pounds (around 2kg). Its size should ensure it easily fits into most entertainment center cabinets and on TV stands, and it's light enough to pack up and bring to a friend's house or take with you on vacation.
As we mentioned above, the Xbox Series S is smaller than the Xbox One S. That's an impressive feat considering that it’s packing a 4 TFLOP GPU and an octa-core Custom Zen 2 CPU that needs to be cooled.
While some might not like the way Microsoft has aped its own design from the last generation, we're okay with it. It's nice to have some continuity, especially in products that are advertised as a family of devices, although it is fairly straightforward and industrial-like in its appearance.
(Image credit: Future)
Xbox Series S review: performance
Upscaled 4K looks great, and native 1440p is a nice compromise
Offers smooth and fluid 120fps gameplay
Xbox Velocity Architecture is fast… but not instantaneous
The Xbox Series S's strong suit is its value proposition – it's a compact powerhouse. It can offer either upscaled 4K gaming, native 1440p resolution, or a 1080p picture.
Its GPU, while not as powerful as the one in the Xbox Series X, can upscale games to 4K (in a similar way to the Xbox One S) and still run games at 120fps at 1440p, but you'll need a HDMI 2.1-compliant TV if you want to keep the resolution at 1440p. It's also capable of ray tracing, and loads games faster than ever, thanks to Microsoft's Xbox Velocity Architecture.
Combine Velocity Architecture with the 10GB of GDDR6 memory and built-in SSD, and you’ve got all the makings of a powerful console. Better still, Microsoft recently gave a performance boost for Xbox Series S games, which frees up hundreds of additional megabytes of memory. Crucially, this should help improve graphics performance.
Xbox Series S specs
CPU: 8-core 3.6GHz (3.4GHz with SMT) custom AMD 7nm GPU: 4 teraflops at 1.565GHz RAM: 10GB GDDR6 Frame rate: Up to 120fps Resolution: 1440p with 4K upscaling Optical: No disk drive Storage: 512GB NVMe SSD Usable storage space: 364GB
But do you actually need a 4K TV? And furthermore, do you need one that supports HDMI 2.1 for its 120Hz refresh rate? Let’s walk through all the scenarios.
If you're using a 1080p TV, the Xbox Series S uses a technique called supersampling to create better-looking images, even on less-capable displays. Supersampling is a complex process, but the basic idea is that the game is rendered at a higher resolution, and then the console downscales the image to match the output of your TV.
The end result is a noticeable boost in image clarity and anti-aliasing (the removal of jaggies and pixelated edges) and means that gamers who aren't using a 4K or 1440p -capable screen will still benefit from improved image quality from the Xbox Series S.
Most folks though, we expect, will be pairing the Xbox Series S with a 4K HDR TV – potentially one with a 120Hz native refresh rate, although the majority of displays sold over the last few years are likely to only support 60Hz at 4K and 1440p. If you do have a capable display, here's how to enable 120Hz on Xbox Series S.
Hook the Xbox Series S up to a 4K panel, and the console uses a technique called upscaling to convert a non-native 4K signal to 4K. While there's a stark difference between rendering in 4K, and rendering in 1440p and then upscaling to 4K – especially if you've got a keen eye for detail – it still makes games on the Xbox Series S look better than if the console was locked to a 1440p output.
It's worth noting that the Xbox Series S can render some games in native 4K if a developer chooses to enable that option. Just be aware it's done on a game-by-game basis, and isn't something you’re going to see on every game on the system.
The upshot here is that the console can utilize HDR (high dynamic range), which enables a wider color palette, higher peak brightness, and better contrast levels. Skies look bluer, the grass looks greener and colors pop in every scene. If you haven't had the opportunity to game in HDR yet, you're in for a treat.
If you are fortunate enough to have a display that's compliant with HDMI 2.1, you can enable 120fps at 1440p without having to drop down to 1080p resolution. To enable 120fps, simply pop into the console's audio and visual settings, where you can choose from various frame rate and resolution options.
It's pretty straightforward, but it's worth noting that not all games can hit 120fps, though Microsoft has amassed a handsome collection of titles since launch including Halo Infinite, Gears 5's multiplayer, and Call of Duty: Vanguard. Check out the full list of Xbox Series S games with 120fps support.
Even if you don't invest in a new TV, you're still going to see the benefits of the new SSD and Microsoft's Xbox Velocity Architecture. The latter is a multi-step solution that combines the Series S's custom NVMe SSD, hardware-accelerated decompression blocks, a brand-new DirectStorage API layer, and Sampler Feedback Streaming (SFS).
That's a lot to parse, but the gist of it is that data is stored in a more efficient way, and can be loaded into memory faster thanks to both the physical storage medium and the software algorithms that Microsoft has implemented to load the data.
(Image credit: Future)
The result is significantly faster load times compared to Xbox One X – we're talking about games that now load in a matter of seconds. The SSD also enables features like Quick Resume, which we’ll get to shortly. Of course, the one area that's less impressive here is the meager 512GB of storage capacity, which most people will fill up fast.
While 500GB was sufficient early on during the last console generation, game file sizes have expanded exponentially in the years since, making anything less than 1TB of storage seem like a raw deal. It gets worse when you realise that you can't access the full 512GB of storage. The system OS takes up 148GB of space, meaning you've only got 364GB of usable storage to play with from the outset.
By the time you've installed four or five games, you'll need to start thinking about what to uninstall, which is never a fun experience. While Microsoft claims that games on Xbox Series S will be up to 30% smaller due to not having 4K texture files, this won’t stop the system's internal drive from rapidly filling up.
The good news is that Microsoft has released an add-on storage solution at launch, in partnership with Seagate, that can add 2TB, 1TB or 500GB of extra storage if you run out of room. The bad news? The 1TB Seagate Storage Expansion Card costs $219.99 / £219.99 / AU$359 – money that could be spent on buying an Xbox Series X instead, which has 1TB built-in storage and better 4K support.
Xbox Series S review: controller
More tactile than before thanks to careful refinement
Triggers are shorter, controller is easier to grip thanks to new textured finish
Share button is a welcome addition, and the 360-degree D-pad feels great
Still uses AA batteries, unfortunately
Coming from the Xbox One Controller, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the Xbox Wireless Controller for Series X/S isn't that different. However, it's now more comfortable and easier to use than ever before, due to subtle changes in the controller's ergonomics.
Its overall dimensions have been tweaked ever so slightly, reducing the size of the controller as a whole, but not to the point where it's noticeable to the average user. It means more hand sizes can use the new Xbox pad comfortably. Other changes include a textured and matte finish on the handles, triggers, and bumpers, that help you get more purchase on the controller during tense gaming sessions.
Probably the biggest change for the controller itself, though, is the new D-pad, which has been revised to be a full 360-degree pad that feels great on the thumb. Each direction clicks with a satisfying sound and tactile feedback (though some might find it noisier than they'd like). Its smooth finish makes pulling off half-circle sweeps in fighting games a real pleasure.
Another minor change is that the triggers have been shortened to make them more accommodating for smaller hands. These triggers still have haptic feedback in the form of rumble motors, but it's not the same as the adaptive triggers in the PS5 DualSense controller, which can change resistance on the fly.
The new Share button does exactly what you'd expect – it captures and shares moments in your game for posting in your Xbox Feed or on social media. One click takes a snapshot, while holding the button down longer captures a 15-second video (you can adjust the duration in the Capture settings).
It's much easier than on the Xbox One, where you had to press the home button twice and then X or Y, but it takes some getting used to if you’re accustomed to the old way.
(Image credit: Future)
Overall though, it's mostly what you remember, with two asymmetrical analog sticks, the menu and view buttons that fill in for start and select, and the four face buttons (A, B, X, Y).
The Xbox Series S controller keeps its 3.5mm audio jack and expansion port at the bottom, but it now uses a USB Type-C charging port instead of microUSB. You'll also find the pairing button at the top, which you use to sync the controller to the console, or for pairing when using Bluetooth.
The new Xbox pad is still a comfortable controller to play with, but its biggest weakness is the fact that it still uses AA batteries. That's instead of a rechargeable lithium-ion cell like the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller or Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 houses. We found a pair of AA batteries lasted for around 10 days or so of heavy gaming.
If you're appalled by the idea of a controller using AA batteries in 2020, you can also pick up Microsoft's play-and-charge kit, which comprises a rechargeable battery and USB-C cable, for $24.99 (£20.99 / AU$29.95 ) to save you money in the long term (you can also use rechargeable AAs).
While the kit is obviously an extra expense that may irk some, there's an element of flexibility at least – and you're also not at the mercy of a lithium-ion cell battery, which can degrade over time, and which is more costly to replace should anything go awry.
Our advice? Pick up rechargeable batteries, or Microsoft's play-and-charge kit, if you plan on doing more than 40 hours of gaming a week.
Xbox Series S review: features
User interface feels a bit overcrowded and, in some places, slow
Quick Resume feels really cutting-edge
Smart Delivery ensures you get the best possible version of a game
Good selection of streaming apps, plus Dolby Vision and Atmos support
If it's been a few years since you bought an Xbox console, and you're worried that the process of setting it up might be confusing, don't be. Setting up the Xbox Series S proved to be a streamlined process, thanks in no small part to the new-and-improved Xbox app for Android and iOS. We've even seen Discord become available for all Xbox Series S players.
You’ll need to download the Xbox app from the App Store for iOS or Google Play Store on Android devices, and log in to your Microsoft account. Once you're in, power on the console and type in the code you see in the app, which appears on your TV screen – this pulls in all your data without you having to type it all in. You'll still need to enter a few details via the console, like Wi-Fi password, but then you're off to the races after waiting for an update to land.
The UI that greets you when you’ve finished setting up the Xbox Series S will be instantly familiar to anyone who's used an Xbox One in the last three months. The 'new' Xbox Dashboard rolled out in August 2020, and is the same across both Xbox Series X and S and the older hardware. It isn’t the most intuitive of interfaces, though.
There's a lot of information on display at once, and it's fair to say there's a small learning curve when it comes to figuring out how to navigate the UI effectively. The downside to the new consoles having the same user interface as the One series is that the Xbox Series S doesn't feel any different right away. It doesn't feel that new, even if navigating the dashboard feels snappier than before thanks to the extra power underneath the hood.
Moreover, the new UI still presents some of the same problems we've noticed in the past with Xbox One's interface: some images on the screen take a few seconds to load as content is pulled from the internet, and it's generally a bit too busy for most tastes, with far more information on the screen than you actually need at one time. Look past the UI, however, and you'll begin to see some areas where the Xbox Series S really innovates, though they're admittedly more subtle.
We can expect further changes to come for the UI, too. If you're an Xbox Insider, Microsoft recently rolled new Xbox Series X homepage layouts but fans aren't happy. While this introduces some quality of life changes, some players weren't so keen on the "tile clutter" this introduced, while others aren't fond of ads still taking up homepage space. As a feature currently in beta testing, this could change, so we'll keep this updated as we learn more.
(Image credit: Future)
Smart Delivery from the Xbox Store means you'll always get the best possible version of a game when you download it, or if it's upgraded in the future. Your save data also carries over seamlessly, even if you jump back and forth between your old Xbox One / One X / One S and new Xbox Series S. It's simultaneously backward and forward compatibility, which is reassuring.
Jumping between multiple games is now possible thanks to Quick Resume, a new feature that allows the Xbox Series S to hold multiple game states in the memory at one time, so you can jump back and forth between games without having to reload them.
The number of games that can be suspended varies – we had as many as eight in rotation at one point – and it won't work with every title, especially those with ever-changing online worlds, like Sea of Thieves. It's a handy, time-saving feature that's only possible thanks to the console's SSD, and game states are preserved even if the console is completely powered down.
Lastly, we have to talk about the console's multimedia capabilities. As a streaming device, the Xbox Series S carries most major services. That goes between Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus, and others that are available on existing Xbox One consoles, plus some that are new to the platform, including Apple TV Plus. There's also region-specific apps such as Hulu in the US, and Sky Go in the UK.
Accessing these requires navigating to the Apps section of your library. Or, if you frequently use particular apps you can pin them to the home screen or create a specific group that can be accessed from the Xbox guide. We noticed that, like games, apps stayed in a suspended state when we flicked between them.
It's important to note that while the Xbox Series S only outputs at 1440p resolution when you're gaming, the console is capable of displaying streaming apps in 4K HDR. That means the likes of Netflix, Disney Plus and Apple TV Plus will output in 4K if you're using a compatible display.
As on the Xbox One X, some of these services are available in Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, giving you access to advanced HDR and 3D surround sound respectively, but you may have to pay for a higher subscription tier in order to access those formats.
Xbox Series S review: game library
Scarce launch lineup with few exclusives
Backwards compatibility with three generations of Xbox consoles
Xbox Game Pass is a great way to instantly build up your library
We won't mince words here: the Xbox Series S's game library got off to a bad start. With the delay of Halo Infinite, there weren't any first-party exclusives available at launch on the Xbox Series S, other than titles that have previously been available on Xbox.
More third-party and first-party exclusives have since arrived like The Medium and Microsoft Flight Simulator, but Microsoft's first-party output is slowly catching up. Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5, Psychonauts 2, Grounded, and As Dusk Falls are all now available.
Instead of releasing new experiences on day one, Microsoft mainly opted to improve the existing library of games via Xbox Series S optimizations. Games like Gears 5, Forza Horizon 4, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, and Sea of Thieves have all been optimized to either increase their base resolution or frame rates or to offer greater visual fidelity.
If you want to quickly see which games have been optimized for the Xbox Series S, head to 'My Games & App' > 'Games' > and then select 'Group by console type'. You can then see all the games optimized for Xbox Series X/S at a glance.
If you're someone who loves having access to the entire library of Xbox games past and present, the Xbox Series S will be appealing because it supports four generations of Xbox titles, stretching all the way back to the original Xbox. Being able to jump back and forth between Xbox 360 classics like Viva Piñata and Red Dead Redemption to more modern-day blockbusters is comforting.
It's nice not having to break out the old hardware or track down an old CRT TV but the caveat here is big. Because the Xbox Series S doesn't have a disc drive, you'll need digital versions of those older games in order to play them – and for that reason alone, Xbox Game Pass is great.
On it, you'll find over 100 games available to download on the Xbox Series S, with a mix of new first-party titles like Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Gears 5, and Forza 7, and some indie gems from the Xbox 360 era. If you're someone who loves the Xbox Games with Gold program but wished you had a few more options to download, Game Pass is really satisfying.
While Game Pass can't make up for that lack of exclusives, it does enable you to pad out your library and gives you a chance to see some of the best previous-gen games in a new light. You also get access to all of Microsoft's first-party games the day they release, which represents a huge long-term saving in itself.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers can also stream games via Xbox Cloud Gaming. It means that rather than take up storage space, you can play games instantly without having to wait. This is a great option if you simply want to try something out, but we still prefer gaming natively as opposed to via the cloud due to increased input latency and some image issues that can occur.
If you're hoping to get Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for an even cheaper price, we've got good news. While this is currently being trialled in just the Republic of Ireland and Colombia, Microsoft is looking to launch an Xbox Game Pass family plan, allowing you and four players to jump in for a monthly cost of €21.99 – which comes to around $21.99 / £19.99 / AU$32.99
At the end of 2021 Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, the first 5nm chipset for Windows on ARM devices. It used ARM-designed cores, so its performance is not too different from its siblings that are used for Android. But soon Qualcomm’s acquisition of Nuvia will pay off with the 8cx Gen 4.
As previous rumors reported, the company is working on a 12 core chip. According to Kuba Wojciechowski, these will be divided into 8 performance (~3.4GHz) and 4 efficiency (~2.5GHz) cores. They are based on Nuvia’s Phoenix design and will use the “Oryon” marketing name (rather than “Kryo” like...