Quick testing the toughness of Nokia XR20

Marin | 01/09/2021 | Phones | 3 Comments

Our dear Finnish friends from the SuomiMobiili challenged us to test the toughness of the Nokia XR20, and do it the Croatian way. They did the test and did the standard drop test (which I recreated just recently), ran over the phone by bike and dipped it in a puddle (OK, it was a small lake, and there are many of those in Finland). Well, since Nokia XR20 is IP68 certified and has MIL-810STD build quality, it survived the tests.

I was thinking what could be the right Croatian way of rough testing it, and since I’m located on the Adriatic coast, and it is still summer here, I took XR20 for a swim. Seawater acts a bit different than a lake or river water, and in general, it is not recommended to dip or dive with your waterproof phone in it since it can corrode the charging port or maybe damage the speaker or microphone membrane. Well, since I was challenged to do a tough test, jumping into the sea with XR20 seemed the right thing to do.

Here is a short video from XR20 with resolution a bit reduced to save the server space

The phone survived, of course, not only the jump but even a short drive. After some 10 minutes in the sea, I check if the phone was working and it was. I checked all the footage while in the sea, and I did find it hard to control the screen since I turned on the enhanced touch sensitivity option that improves touch when using a screen protector or wearing gloves.

Water probably messes with the display touch sensitivity, so it makes it nearly impossible to take a photo or record a video, but you can always export a frame from the video. I did click all the buttons while in the sea, and the phone is still alive and well. Also, water enters microphone perforations, so the sound recording might not be the best while in the water.

Exported frame from Nokia XR20 underwater video

Since I can’t be ruthless with a Nokia phone, I did take a bottle of distilled water and submerged the phone in it for 5 minutes after a swim. Seawater is full of various minerals which are the main cause of water damage in smartphones. It is always recommended to wash the phone in cleaned distilled water after swimming with it and using it as an underwater camera (even in lakes and rivers).

I do not recommend swimming with your device, especially if it is not waterproof, but if you do drop IP68 rated phone in water or seawater, clean it with distilled water and let it dry.

A message for SuomiMobiili 🙂