Doogee sent me the S98 Pro with its giant 6000 mAh battery to put it through its paces. The company is well known for rugged devices and we’ve tested a few, so how does this one hold up?
The folks over at Doogee sent me the Doogee S98 Pro which is a successor to the S98, a phone we have not tested, but is almost the same specs-wise, aside from missing out on a slightly better main camera (60MP) and a small circular rear screen that is not included on the Pro. Both are rugged phones, which have IP68, IP69K, and MIL-STD-810H, the latter of which is a military grade certification for ruggedness, something they are well known for by now. The company says that the design is “heavily influenced by the fictitious visitors from outer space” adding that:
The camera bump serves as the alien’s head, the cameras as the alien’s eyes, and the lines on the case round out the alien ensemble
Okay then, decide for yourself in the image up above. First up, let’s dive into the specs:
RAM:
SONY IMX582-AAJH5-C Sensor chip
48 MP f/1.8 ± 5% Aperture, 90° FOV
Support PDAF / 2 Flashes
SONY 20 MP Night vision camera
SONY® IMX350 Sensor chip
F/1.8 ± 5% Aperture
80° FOV
Supports 2 infrared night vision lights
Unfortunately, there’s no 5G here, but since my carrier doesn’t provide 5G on the prepaid plan I am using in this phone, it’s not a great loss. However, in 2022, we should be expecting flagships to be shipping with 5G, and that also includes rugged phones. The first thing I noticed when unboxing it, is how heavy it is. At 320 g, it’s not even one of the heavier rugged phones we’ve tested, but this thing is chunky at 1.5 cm thick. Now, I’m a big lad with big hands, but I could already see myself struggling to operate this one handed for prolonged periods. As you can maybe see on the bottom left and top right of the display in the above photo, the phone came with a screen protector pre-installed, which is interesting, since it uses Corning Gorilla Glass scratch resistance, which is supposed to negate the need for such things, I left it on anyway. I was allowed to throw this thing around, according to my contact, but I was more worried about the damage I could do to my own floors. Dropping it from about a meter did not result in any damage to the phone, which is the minimum expectation you should have for it anyway. On the right side of the phone you will find the volume rocker, power key and dedicated fingerprint sensor. The keys sit mostly flush with the side bezel only protruding around a millimeter or so in height, but they are easily detected by feel, especially since the power key is textured. On the left there is the dual SIM and SD card tray, which is really difficult to access. You need something sharp to push into the small groove and then yank out the tray. As you can see in the photo, I have already scratched up the indented groove by removing the tray to insert a SIM card. If you will be swapping out SD cards regularly, this can be a pain point. Thanks to the waterproofing, there is no hole to access the tray, but I feel like maybe a “push down to release” mechanism could have worked far better here. Next to the SIM tray, there’s a “custom key function” button, more on that later. On the bottom you’ll find a mic, (much easier) tab access for the USB Type C charger port for the included 1 m USB Type C to USB Type C cable and 33 W Fast charging brick, and a speaker. There is no headphone jack on this device, but it supports Bluetooth 5.1 for headphones, which is good enough. Above you can see all of the main points of interaction thanks to the handy and detailed specs sheet that came with this phone on a 8 GB USB stick for the purpose of this review. The Doogee S98 Pro has a 6.3” LCD FHD+ screen with a maximum resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels and a 19:9 aspect ratio along with Corning Gorilla Glass protection. It’s not fancy by any means, but I didn’t plan on watching 4K HDR movies on it anyway. The display is bright and vibrant enough to look at. Unlike its predecessor, there’s no 90 Hz screen refresh rate here either, and because it isn’t AMOLED, you aren’t getting an Always on Display, which is a shame, because the S98 Pro misses out on the gimmicky rear circular display that showed the time and notifications. The notification LED is housed between the right side and front camera, and on the left side are the barely noticeable proximity and ambient light sensors. Now I am no camera buff, but it is clear to me that smartphone makers seem to want to concentrate a hell of a lot on camera quality, sometimes at the expense of other features, and here is also no exception. On the rear we have a 48 MP rear shooter with a f/1.8 ± 5% aperture and 90° FOV, there’s also a night 20 MP vision camera with F/1.8 ± 5% aperture and 80° FOV both made by Sony. Unfortunately, there’s no optical image stabilization (OIS), which is a common omission on cheaper phones, but this is the Pro we are talking about here, so it is definitely a disappointment.
