Land Rover Unveils "World's Toughest Phone" 146
Land Rover says their new S1 mobile is the world's strongest phone. Testing done by Land Rover and the staff at The Sun showed the S1 would still work after being stepped on by an elephant, run over by a Land Rover, dropped from a second-story window, buried in mud, soaked in a pint of beer, and roasted in an oven at 150 degrees centigrade. A forklift truck proved to be its match, and was able to crush the S1 under its three-tonne weight. The phone comes with 1,500 hours of battery life, a 2.0 megapixel camera, an extra loud ringtone and an unconditional three-year guarantee.
Ultimate test (Score:5, Insightful)
Was it given to an eight year old boy? Those tender little blossoms can destroy anything.
Re:Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
...Just take better care of your shit.
Or don't have a job where you are in a rough environment.
As it said in TFA, this is just the thing for tradesmen.
I regularly see electricians, plumbers, carpenters and movers phones being dropped from ladders, or bashed into in some way. Or splashed with anything from paint to concrete to sewage.
It's a tool for them, and as such it needs to be durable. Just like their other tools.
Re:Or... (Score:3, Insightful)
She does it so you don't see her calling history and can't track her via GPS to see what she's actually doing. Don't be naive man! Her tinfoil hat is even thicker than the average slashdotter's
Not, quite, as impressive as it seems? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of those tests aren't as impressive as they sound.
The Beer/Mud tests are, effectively, the same thing. The phone's waterproofing gaskets will either hold the moisture out or they won't, much like a water proof watch. This gets even easier to accomplish if they installed an iPhone style "permanent" battery, eliminated the headset jack in favor of Bluetooth, and installed an inductive charging system like a cordless toothbrush.
The test where it's being run over by a Land Rover is easier than it sounds because the flexibility of the tires serves to spread out the weight of the vehicle. As long as they don't over-inflate the tires or use ultra-high efficiency/low rolling resistance tires then the actual PSI on the phone should be relatively low. Coincidental, they featured a stunt just like this last night on that Billy Mays show "Pitchmen". In the show they were trying to sell a gel pad designed to absorb force so they ran over one of the salesmen's hands with an SUV. As for the elephant, I don't know enough about the forces at the bottom of an elephant's foot but it might be the same issue. Another thing to consider is how soft the surface was under the tire or the elephants foot. If either was done on earth instead of pavement/concrete then that will play a factor too.
Inversely, the above explanation serves to explain why the phone, finally, broke under the forklift. The tires on most forklifts I've ever seen tend to be made of a very hard rubber-like material (possibly just pure natural rubber). I'm sure that this manages to eliminate the need to replace tires over the life of the forklift and forklifts don't need the shock absorbing effects of a pneumatic tire since they move so slow and are only designed to be used over very flat surfaces. The hard tires transmit a much higher percentage of the forklift's weight to a much smaller patch of ground and the 3 ton forklift is, probably, as heavy or heavier than the Land Rover.
As for being dropped from a second story window, I would want to know what kind of surface it was dropped on. It would be much more impressive if it were dropped onto concrete. It would be less impressive if it were dropped onto thick grass and much less impressive if it were dropped onto a mattress (I doubt that one but, as it wasn't mentioned, I wouldn't put it past some marketing agencies).
As for the oven test, I would want to know how long it was left in. 150C is a pretty high temperature but people have been walking over 1000+ degree Fahrenheit coals for a long time and I've seen Shaolin monks lick red hot pokers. The trick is how long your body part is in contact with the hot stuff. In both cases, you move your foot/tough away from the contact immediately and don't give enough time for most of the heat to transfer. In the case of licking the red hot poker, they also have a thick layer of spit on their tough that absorbs much of the heat and evaporates away protecting the tongue.