It’s not often that I come across a rugged Android smartphone that’s at home in the rain, mud, and bouncing onto rocks, but that also looks at home in the office or at a meeting.
The Doogee S58 Pro ticks those boxes.
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I’ve had the opportunity to use the S58 Pro for the past few weeks, and when it came to gathering my thoughts, I took a look at the price tag and was stunned to find that this handset can be picked up for $130 on sale (regular price is $220, and even at this price, it feels like a steal).
OK, so what is it that I like about the S58 Pro? In many ways, it’s much like many other Doogee handsets that I’ve looked at lately. Here you have Android 10 running on a Helio P22 octa-core CPU, backed by 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage.
Not enough storage? No problem. Bump it by up to 256GB by popping a microSD card in the slot.
The display is a 5.71-inch Corning Gorilla Glass HD+ Waterdrop panel with a resolution of 1520 by 720 pixels which for a phone in this class is perfectly acceptable.
Battery life is also amazing. You can leave this for a day or so and come back to find the battery still going strong. The specs claim about 16 hours of video playback, 12 hours of gaming, and 550 hours of standby, and I’d say these figures are close to accurate.
The fingerprint reader on the back of the handset is fast and recognizes prints well, and offers convenient biometric security, which is a nice feature on such a low-priced smartphone.
But the thing that impresses me about the S58 Pro is that it’s a rugged handset, but doesn’t look it. This handset looks equally at home in mud as it does in the office. During my testing of this handset, it’s survived deliberate abuse (drops from a meter or so onto rough terrain, water dunks, muds, and so on) as well as accidental tests (such as bouncing down a couple of flights of stairs, and falling out of a pocket a few times).
The S58 Pro is a solid, well-made Android smartphone that delivers performance and features that are well beyond its budget price tag.
- Android 10
- Helio P22 octa-core CPU
- IMG GE8320 GPU
- 6GB RAM
- 64GB ROM (expandable with up to 256GB microSD card)
- 16MP+2MP+0.3MP rear camera array
- 16MP front camera
- Li-Po 5180mAh battery
- Type-C connector
- IP68/IP69K/MIL-STD-810G certified
