Sonim XP5s Ultra Rugged 16GB Dual-SIM 4G LTE AT&T Unlocked (Black on Gray)

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 phone Here 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 APN 7. 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: Save 10. 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.

I love this phone, and I hate this phone at the same time. I've used an iPhone 7 for the last 2.5 years, and that phone is wonderful for texting, browsing the internet, using various apps, etc., in fact, it's a little too good at all those things, to the point that I found I was addicted to it. Addiction is an idol, and idolatry is sin, so I ordered this phone to replace it. I am already an AT&T customer, so changing over from the iPhone to the Sonim was as simple as swinging by the AT&T store, them removing the SIM from the iPhone, snapping it into an adapter, and installing it in the new phone. Done. I then installed a 128GB micro SD card, and AT&T has an app that allows for swapping over pictures, contacts, and call history. Nothing else transfers, however, including the music, so I was a little sad about that. What this phone does well: phone calls. It has reception where the iPhone didn't. It has battery life that the iPhone didn't. In fact, if not using the phone for anything except calls, it lasts more than a week on a charge. Compared to a day for the iPhone, I am impressed. It has a built in light, it has a small camera, it makes calls, it can text in a pinch, and you can save music to it and play back pretty loud with the phone itself. The ringer is very loud, if you need it loud (I do since I work in a noisy auto repair shop), and the speakerphone is equally loud. What it does not do well: hide in one's pocket. It's big, really big, much bigger than I expected. If you want to see what it's like, go to a store that sells wood, get a 3X5/4 piece of wood 5.5 inches long, and try carrying it around. I highly recommend a belt holster because trying to carry this in my back pocket like an iPhone doesn't work, nor does carrying it in a jacket pocket or shirt pocket. The browser is terrible, no temptation to surf the internet with this thing (which is good for me). Texting is awful. If someone starts a text conversation, after two or three messages, I just call them because it's too frustrating to try to text. It does pretty good predicting text, although not as well as the iPhone, but it's a long laborious process, and I don't have time for that. The PTT requires special service. It's not something AT&T advertises on their website, and I haven't gone and talked to them in person to see if I can get it set up to work. Therefore, I have not been able to use that feature. It also has a pretty high learning curve on how to make things happen, not as intuitive as the iPhone. Do I regret it? No. It's just what I need: a basic phone that makes phone calls and has a few simple tools. Do I miss the iPhone? Well, just like an addict misses getting a hit of whatever they are addicted to. So, five stars for being a tough capable phone that does what a basic phone should do very well. Yes, WiFi tethering does work. Works very well with my laptop, but it drains the battery pretty quick. It's supposed to have cable tethering, but for some reason my computer doesn't recognize, communicate with, or charge the phone through the USB ports. It's not a big deal to me, just kind of perplexing. We bought two, one came with good, clear instructions, the other looked like there are blank slashes across the pages, making it worthless. I'm not going to ding it because of that, but if both had bad manuals, it would have lost a star.

My first impression of this phone was good. Its a huge brick, its rugged and works great clipped to your belt. The speaker phone is very loud, super clear, an excellent feature. I like the flashlight button on the front too. The camera for a phone like this? Incredibly good. Yes its not a smartphone, this camera is lightyears ahead of my old nokia. The problem? Group txting is NOT supported. Sure you can send an individual txt to several friends at once, but it is not a thread that everyone on the txt shares. Group txts from iphones? You can NOT even read them, thats probably apple's fault, but not great. Typing? Is a nightmare. SO, i'm one of those rare indivuals who HATES T9 and any predictive txt thing. Not my style. I can type lighting fast on most basic phones, there's usually a shortcut (you hit the down arrow button and than you don't have to wait 2 second to hit "4" again to type "hi".) This phone has tiny arrow button, and you have to hit the back button. And even with T9 off, it still tries to predict your words, which is obnoxious and actually slows down your typing. I have to hit the space bar button 2 or 3 times between words to get it off the predictive train. I'm one of those people who will never get a smartphone. All i want from a phone is: talking, txting, group txts, and taking photos and sending them to people over txt. The calculator is handy and so is the calendar (and alarm clock too..). I've noticed over the years that its near impossible to find a phone that does all of those thing and pretty much just those things. This phone fails the basics: no group txts, and nightmare txting (seriously, ditch the predictive crap!). So I'm returning it, and this is why. My old nokia at least, I can type four times as fast on it. But it also doesn't support group txts, so the search continues for a fully functional phone. I miss the early 2010s when this stuff came standard.

Was Using Net10 then Tried a TracFone sim, neither would work, called Foreign Customer Service to no avail. Don't Buy, It simply will not work in the U.S. , yes i know its on the AT&T list but still doesn't work... The Voice & messaging work fine, however the data/internet does not. I am using Tracphone. Tracphone suggested that i have to change some setting on the phone to get the data to work, however i cannot find where/how to do that in the settings. I do not know if this is only a track phone issue or what... The Phone itself is well built, the battery last for 4 days without charging(several phone calls/messages per day) I like the separate flashlight button but the LED could be brighter. Speaker clarity is also good. There are however no good choices for ringer/message tones on this phone. At least nothing that sounds like a actual phone ringing & since i cannot use the data/internet i dont know how i would download any or if you can even download any new ring tones.

I received the phone Quickly, but there was a a screw broken off in the phone that made it impossible to put the back on and screw it down. Thanks to my husband who saw he could take another section of the phone off to release that piece of screw. The phone had to have been sent out knowingly as the back was in the box with all the screws in it which were in place and could not be taken out. When I would put the back on the top right screw would only go in cockeyed and stuck out from the back. The phone is working and does have a good loud sound. The directions on trying to save contacts don't jive with the phone. I cannot seem to find how to save contacts to the phone. I feel I have tried everything everything, since it's only myself, who my husband calls, he hasn't had a problem as yet, He just redials me. It's a good phone and seems sturdy if I could just fix the contacts problem.