Sonim XP5 XP5700 | 4G LTE | Military Grade | Rugged PTT Feature Phone | 4GB, 1GB RAM | (Black) - AT&T Unlocked

UPDATE: I have had this phone for almost a year now. It has been dropped repeatedly including a 9 foot drop off a roof onto hard packed dirt. An extra note is that the screen is tempered glass and has NO scratches after a full 11 months of abuse. (There is a reason I wanted this type of phone ;-)NOTE: I have been using this phone for two weeks and I am 100% satisfied. Photos were taken by this phone to show resolution and color accuracy.NOTE I purchased this phone in March of 2020 and paid $79 for a refurbished phone, they are $150 new as I write this review.I think this phone is ideal for rugged living outdoor people that don't care about "apps" and other smart phone silliness. Its great for builders, farmers and anyone else that plays and works hard on the edge.If you want a tough dumb phone this is the ticket. Dropped it the day I got service on it. Bounced a foot off the asphalt. Yesterday it fell in mud, I unplugged the headset and closed the plastic flap on the headphone jack, and then (gently) sprayed it off with a garden hose. #&$^@% Awesome!Includes calculator, timer, stopwatch, alarm, world clock , calendar, simple web browser (works for forecast.weather daht gov), FM radio (excellent long distance reception, requires wired headphones for antenna but can play mono through the loud speaker), speaker phone (very loud), flashlight, 5MP camera with 720P30F video camcorder (with decent picture and good white balance), audio recorder (can also record the FM radio), SMS and MMS texting.This phone is full 4G-LTE and sounds better than my older LG smart phone (according to my friends). The speaker phone is very loud (you can turn it down) and you can play the radio through the speaker but you have to have a headphone plugged in as an antenna.This phone connects to a computer as a regular USB storage device (umass) and offers full access to your SD card and access to the phones public storage. Verified works on Windows 7 and Linux -- no special software needed.There are no apps and no GPS but it does appear to talk on the network when you are not actually using it so I assume it can still track you somehow but what I really wanted was a tough phone and the ability to say: "Sorry, I have a real phone and it won't run you silly app" the next time I ask for help at a brick and mortar and they tell me they have a *%# app.The only hiccup I had with this phone was getting the data working, you don't have that problem if you are reading this review, I already figured it out and wrote some instructions:GETTING DATA SERVICE TO WORK:Note, depending on your carrier you will need to contact them to get the "APN" configuration that they use and then you will need to manually enter this info into the phone. Try searching on their website for "apn configuration" if you cant contact them by phone.You need to already have phone service, then you configure APN. You use the APN information from YOUR carrier (they will need your SIM# or phone number). For example, Net10 has a site at net10 dot com slash apn, enter your sim or phone number and they will return a page with the APN info you need to put into your phoneHere is how to put this APN information into the SONIM XP 5700 phone:1. click: System Settings (from application screen or the menu button (top left on keypad)2. click: More... (this is a menu item in system settings)3. click: Mobile Networks (scroll down)4. click: Access Point Names (APN)5. [Press the menu button, top left on the keypad]6. click: New APN7. Enter the information from [YOUR CARRIER] in the appropriate text box on the phone.*** DO NOT ENTER any other information than what the carrier gives you.8. [Press the menu button, top left on the keypad]9. click: Save10. After you click save you will see the APN screen, make sure the APN you just added is ticked (a blue dot to the right of it) and press the back button (top right of keyboard) 4 times to get back to your main screen.11. Turn off the phone, wait a minute and turn it back on.GOAL! Browser and MMS texting should work, it does on mine.Feel free to share these instructions.

This phone has a lot of promise- Very rugged construction. Water-tight gaskets. Gorilla Glass screen. Beefy buttons. Great audio in a phone call when using the built-in speaker and microphone. Speakerphone is very loud and clear.Now the Downsides (MANY):Bluetooth audio on car audio sounds great, but person you are speaking with only gets every third word or so. This is consistent with three different people on landlines and cell phones. They can't make out what I'm saying but I can hear them fine.Verizon has no ability to update the firmware.SONIM, the manufacturer, offers no firmware upgrade.I have 800 contacts I wanted to transfer from my previous phone to the SONIM XP5700, and the literature says one can download those contacts from Verizon Cloud. I uploaded all 800 to Verizon cloud from my previous phone, but the XP5700 can not download an application. period. NO APPLICATIONS CAN BE DOWNLOADED.Next, I tried to use the XP5700 backup and restore function. It complained it needed a SD card. FIne- I put an SD card in and told it to back up its one contact I manually entered into the phone. the XP5700 told me it couldn't use the SD card because it wasn't primary. There are no instructions on how to make this card primary.Supposedly, one can set the phone to transfer over bluetooth from the other phone. Only thing is, there is no APPLICATION on the XP5700 to transfer via bluetooth.The phone uses the Android operating system, yet has no PlayStore icon or connection.Texting is a NIGHTMARE. Predictive text is put up on the screen and runs far from what you want to type in. It's useless to use the web browser, as it uses the same predictive text to try to guess your website you are trying to put in. Total waste of time.If you don't have many or any contacts to put in the phone, and you just want to punch in telephone numbers to call others, this is a pretty darned good phone as a phone. If you want to transfer contacts, use any of the advertised features beyond the basic phone function, you are not going to be pleased with this phone.In short, this has the potential to be a great phone, but it appears as if no one at SONIM has the least idea how to make a phone work like a phone.