Until just a couple of years ago, the rugged phone category was almost exclusively about military-grade durability and water resistance for use in the field. Nowadays, you can expect giant batteries and super-bright flashlights on board too, making these devices more versatile and useful on daring expeditions.
The Tank X is no exception – and it packs a couple of neat tricks up its sleeve to boot. This upcoming model from 8849, an outdoors-focused sub-brand from Chinese phone maker Unihertz, packs an enormous 17,600-mAh battery that should last you several days, as well as a 1,200-lumen flashlight and camping light, and a 1080p projector that can beam video on a screen from 1.6 - 10 ft away.
That 17,600-mAh is absolutely nuts. It's actually not the highest battery capacity you'll see in a phone (that honor, as far as I can tell, goes to this 33,000mAh brick from Oukitel), but it should be enough to get you through several weeks on standby, and something like 25 hours of continuous video playback.
Speaking of video, the Tank X has arguably the highest resolution projector built into a handset today. The 1080p beats out the Tank 4 Pro which tops out at 720p, and it gets twice as bright at 220 lumens. While it won't give most standalone projectors a run for their money, you should be able to comfortably enjoy a movie while camping, and have no trouble going through a slide deck on your next outdoor team building exercise with this bad boy.
It's no slouch as a phone, with a mid-range MediaTek Dimensity 8200 chip under the hood; that's paired with 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage. Up front is a large 6.78-inch 1,080 x 2,460 display that manages a 120-Hz refresh rate, and a 50-megapixel selfie camera.
On the rear, you've got a 50-megapixel main snapper, along with a 65-megapixel night-vision camera supported by four infrared LEDs, and an 8-megapixel 3x telephoto lens.
That huge battery supports 120-W fast charging, so you should be able to top it off in a couple of hours. It also supports reverse charging at 10-W, so it can also juice up your other devices in a pinch. The 1,200-lumen flashlight should be more than capable of helping you navigate campsites after dark, and it's also got RGB warning lights for emergency situations.
The Android 15-based Tank X is IP68 rated for water resistance, and supports dual nano SIMs or a single SIM along with a microSD memory card to expand storage.
All that fits into a sturdy chassis that measures 1.22 inches (31.9 mm) thick – about the same as 4 iPhones stacked together – and weighs a hefty 1.65 lb (750 g). So it's really not something you'd use as a daily driver, but it could save a lot of room in your luggage when you consider the other gadgets it replaces.
8849 says the Tank X will become available from early February via the brand's site, but hasn't revealed what it'll cost. For reference, the Tank 4 Pro sells for US$650, so I wouldn't be surprised to see the X come in somewhere around that figure.
Source: 8849
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