Doogee S96 Pro wireless charging rugged smartphone review – is it a 4G phone?

Doogee S96 Pro wireless charging rugged smartphone review

Can you play game in Doogee S96 Pro wireless charging rugged smartphone? DOOGEE phone equips with Sony 48MP ultra clarity camera delivers super high resolution and 4K support, every detail is captured with striking clarity even when shot from a distant or high vantage point. 16MP front camera with AI Face Beauty function can enhances your facial features even further with clarity and delicacy. Reveal more in Doogee S96 Pro wireless charging rugged smartphone review.

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The DOOGEE S96 Pro is an Android Smartphone that features a 6.22 ” screen, a  48MP Infrared Night Vision Quad Camera, a Helio G90 processor, a 6350mAh battery, and 8GB+128GB memory.

Package contents

1 x S96 Pro rugged phone
1 x Charger (12V/2A)
1 x USB Type-C Cable
1 x Earphones
1 x Anti-explosion film
1 x Card Slot Opener
1 x Sling
1 x User Manual

Pros & Cons – Doogee S96 Pro wireless charging rugged smartphone

PROS

  • Stylish (cyberpunk-ish) rugged design
  • IP69K rating
  • Large 6350 mAh battery with fast charging
  • Low price tag

CONS

  • Poor screen quality
  • Mediocre performance
  • Nighttime camera feels gimmicky

Doogee S96 Pro wireless charging rugged smartphone Specs

  • Screen size: 6.2-inch
  • Resolution: 1520×720 pixel
  • SIM tray: Dual SIM + microSD
  • Satellite navigation: GPS, Galileo, Glonass, Beidou
  • Protection rating: IP68 / IP69K, MIL-STD-810G
  • CPU: Helio G90T octa-core processor — 2x Cortex A76 2.0GHz + 6x Cortex A55 2.0GHz
  • GPU: Arm Mali-G76 quad-core GPU
  • RAM: 8GB DDR4
  • Storage: 128GB Samsung UFS
  • OS: Android 10
  • Battery: 6.35Ah
  • Charging: 24W
  • Weight: 308g
  • Dimensions: 167x81x155mm
  • Rear camera: 48MP+20MP+8MP+2MP
  • Front camera: 16MP

Who is this for?

I don’t know about you, but I use my phone a lot in the field. Primarily it allows me to contact people if I need to, of course, but aside from that I also use it for mapping and navigation, weather, jotting down field notes, identification guides and apps, recording and submitting sightings, photographs, digiscoping, sharing content and more.

Price

The Doogee S96 Pro retailed for $229.99 at the time of writing at online Chinese retailer Banggood. This is a time limited promotion that ends on January 25th 2021.  For people who spend time outdoors, especially at night, having a rugged smartphone with built-in night vision capability gives them features that not even a $1,000 iPhone or Android smartphone can offer.

Doogee S96 Pro wireless charging rugged smartphone review

Design

At 167 x 81 x 15.5mm for a weight of 307g, it is significantly larger and heavier than most – if not all – non-rugged smartphones sporting a comparable display size (6.22-inch). It has protection in the right places and unlike the less resilient models, this one doesn’t need to hide behind a casing. Instead, Doogee says that there’s a metal frame that makes up more than 50% of the device, presumably by weight.

Build

Four rounded corners, four long sides, an industrial design where metallic grey, black rubber and bright yellow come together to produce what some might call a utilitarian design devoid of any attempt to look stylish or “cool”. The Doogee S96 Pro is built like a tank. A solid lump of polycarbonate, toughened glass and aluminium alloy composite, this phone feels like you could drive over it without inflicting much damage.

Display

With a pixel resolution of 1520×720, the 6.22-inch display has an extremely low pixel density, even compared to other HD+ budget phones. Exacerbating matters is the low maximum brightness of the LCD panel, which makes it difficult to use under bright outdoor light. Ironic for a device that’s meant to be used in such environments.

Ports and connectors – Doogee S96 Pro wireless charging rugged smartphone

It comes with the usual MIL-STD-810G/IP68/IP69K ratings and a circular island at the back that contains four camera sensors – arranged in a 2×2 matrix – and two banks of four LEDs (half of them traditional lights and half of them infrared lights) on each side. There’s a SIM/memory card tray above a customizable button on the left hand side. The right hand side contains a fingerprint scanner, a volume rocker and the power button while a flap secures a USB-C connector and a 3.5-inch audio port near the bottom.

Resistance

Doogee S96 Pro has the basics of ruggedness down, boasting IP68 dust and water protection rating, MIL-STD-810G certification, and the usual capability to operate under extreme temperatures. Then again, those points, especially the IP68 rating, are almost common among smartphones these days.

Camera

While the main camera is a 48-megapixel Samsung S5KGM1SP03-FGX9, it is the Sony IMX350 20-megapixel camera sensor that is used as a night vision sensor in the smartphone. Night vision differs from thermal imaging in a specific way. While thermal imaging reads infrared emitted by objects, night vision uses an infrared floodlight to illuminate the darkness, and the camera uses this to see in the dark.

Night-vision

The inclusion of a 20MP night-vision camera on the S96 Pro is unique. I haven’t been able to find any other phone on the market that includes it, and while it might seem a bit gimmicky it’s actually very cool.

Doogee S96 Pro wireless charging rugged smartphone review

Switch to Night Vision on the S96 Pro’s camera and the four infrared LED’s on the back literally light up the night. You can take black and white photographs in complete darkness — which is just nuts. In practice the photos aren’t great quality — focusing in the dark is hit and miss, and shutter speeds are slow, with predictable results. They’re fun, nonetheless.

While it’s novel to take photographs in complete darkness, the real killer use-case for this feature, at least from a wildlife enthusiasts point of view, is being able to see in complete darkness without using a torch or other light source. If you’re moving to a hide before first light, for example, you can find your way without using light that might scare wildlife away. Or say you’re in situ for a bit of nocturnal wildlife watching and need to find something in your bag — just turn on night vision and rummage away — no torch required.

I haven’t really used it much yet — but can see it being a very handy added-value feature of the phone.

Connectivity – Doogee S96 Pro wireless charging rugged smartphone

The Doogee S96 Pro isn’t a 5G phone, but it does support a wide range of 4G bands, which should give you excellent voice and data connectivity not just here in Ireland, but when you can travel overseas again too. The phone is backward compatible with 3G and 2G networks too.

Of course it supports the latest suite of WiFi standards and includes features like WiFi Hotspot, WiFi Direct and WiFi Display. It has Bluetooth 5.0 on board and supports NFC, so contactless payments work.

The S96 Pro supports dual sim cards (both nano-sim) as well as an SD Card simultaneously.

Can you play game

The phone is powered by a MediaTek Helio G90, the chipmaker’s mobile gaming bet, and boasts 8GB of RAM and 128GB of UFS storage. Despite MediaTek’s marketing, however, the Helio G90 just doesn’t stand up to expectation and scores poorly in benchmarks, though it competes fairly well with Qualcomm’s non-5G mid-range selection.

Battery

The phone tries to make up for its flaws with its gigantic 6,350 mAh battery, enough to last you for two days or even more considering the other low specs. The size could be worrying when it comes time to charge the phone but, fortunately, it does support 24W fast wired charging and even 10W wireless charging, something of a miracle considering how thick the bumper is.

Face recognition

DOOGEE S96 PRO Unlocked smartphone supports most global network frequencies with broader coverage and guard you to travel all around the world freely. The DOOGEE S96 Pro Unlocked Cell phone doesn’t support parts of CDMA network carriers. S96 Pro supports Fingerprint unlocking and Face recognition. The two options exist in unison to offer your phone the safest.

Doogee S96 Pro wireless charging rugged smartphone Performance review

Night vision differs from thermal imaging in a specific way. While thermal imaging reads infrared emitted by objects, night vision uses an infrared floodlight to illuminate the darkness, and the camera uses this to see in the dark.

There are some limitations — the emitter has a range of about 10 meters, and it can only capture grayscale still photos. Also, the infrared emitter is partially visible to the naked eye as a dull red.

Benchmark:
The following are screen photos of CPU and Compute benchmark results using Geekbench 5.

Benchmark - Doogee S96 Pro wireless charging rugged smartphone review





Photography
This phone has many features for photography and takes really good pictures:


(Photo was taken on a very cloudy day and through the windshield of my truck)


This next photo was taken through my glass sliding door.

This phone also has a night vision feature that allows you to take a picture in darkness.
Here is a photo that was taken in my backyard at night with the lights on:

Here is a photo in the yard with all of the lights out with the exception of the very low solar dusk to dawn accent lights: It takes amazing pictures even in total darkness.

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