Does anyone actually take into account "IP Rating"/"Water Resistance" when they buy phones?
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Yes and you should (good IP rating also means better hardware and assembly quality).
I was using 2nd hand (refurbished) samsung, 3 months later it just failed because of summer, rain, sweat ... -
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Yes, absolutely. When my phone gets drenched in the rain on a cycling trip, I want it to survive.
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Obviously, duh.
One rain drop on your phone screen, and already shit don't work right anymore.
This message coming from a tech that has worked on thousands of mobile devices.
All my phones so far worked in very light rain to some extent. A single drop of water won't make it unusable.
The IP rating isn't meant for making the device usable in all conditions. It was meant for the device to survive those conditions.
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Yes, but I also get into a rage about manufacturers being dicks about it. People by and large don't seem to understand the IP rating scale is in fact two largely-unrelated scales, and companies slapping IP ratings on their products use that in what I feel are underhanded ways.
The values IPx1-IPx6 correspond to varying levels of resistance against directed streams of water. IPx7-IPx9 are degrees of resistance to submersion. The latter does not imply the former, not even a little bit.
It is in theory entirely possible to build a device that could withstanding being put in the bottom of a swimming pool that's being slowly filled with water, but failed from the higher pressure of a small amount of water falling on it from a certain direction.
But you still see phones listed just as "IP68", which tells you nothing. The better manufacturers will explicitly write the likes of "IP65/IP68"; showing that it reaches the 5 rating of "water jets 12.5litre/minute" but not the 6 rating of "powerful water jets 100litre/minute", but also IP67 "immersion <1 metre / <30 minutes" and IP68 "immersion >1 metre / >30 minutes".
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_code#Second_digit:_Liquid_ingress_protection)
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I don't bother with the exact ratings, but it has to be water resistant. If you're researching phone options, open a tab in desktop view and go to Versus.
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Samsung Galaxy XCover series does both.
Sadly, Samsung doesn't allow bootloader unlocks... so yea its a hard pass for me
️ (also, spec to price ratio is horrible)Same for me, locked bootloader is basically useless. Fortunately, from 2027 batteries must be replaceable in the EU. I guess it may have an impact on other regions in the world as well.
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What's your one option btw?
Carrier pigeons.
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Yep. Non-negotiable. Not only do I live in a very rainy place, but I have uses for this stuff that require getting splashed A LOT very often for other reasons.
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Absolutely, I don’t want to worry about water damage, I also often just wash the phone while washing my hands, especially during flu-season.
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wrote last edited by [email protected]
This is a bit obtuse for the sake of pedantry.
I mean, is it possible that you could build a device resistant to submersion but not splashing? Maybe?
But this isn't "a device", this is a phone. The problems with water ingress are very specific. You have a couple of speakers, a few microphones, a sim card slot and a USB port, plus the seams for the screen and backplate. If you secured those well enough for the immersion tests they're going to be splash-resistant. If you have a way in which you can somehow have a phone screen adhesive survive being underwater for several minutes but not falling rain or being placed under a tap/hose please do share, because I can't think of one. The scenario where your speaker seals are good enough for being fully submerged but get water damaged by shooting high pressure water directly into them is so niche it's probably not worth it to further confuse people by having two different IP ratings listed.
Plus... you know, don't be shooting water hoses directly up your phone's holes regardless? I don't see why you would in the first place, but... just don't? It's not gonna happen by accident, so it doesn't need to happen at all.
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Absolutely, I don’t want to worry about water damage, I also often just wash the phone while washing my hands, especially during flu-season.
I also often just wash the phone while washing my hands
I did that often around covid, water got in the supposedly IP68 water resistance anyways after doing that for a few months.
I'd consider their claims to be exaggerated.
If theu say its "water submersible" treat it as just protection against light splashes, if its just "water repellant", don't trust that near water at all. Expect less than their claims.
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Yes. I use my phone in rain/snow and boats all the time plus it's nice to be able to use it in sauna also
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I also often just wash the phone while washing my hands
I did that often around covid, water got in the supposedly IP68 water resistance anyways after doing that for a few months.
I'd consider their claims to be exaggerated.
If theu say its "water submersible" treat it as just protection against light splashes, if its just "water repellant", don't trust that near water at all. Expect less than their claims.
If you used soap, that could be why. Soap can deteriorate the rubber gaskets and adhesives that keep the ingress protection together.
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Yes and no.
Taking advantage of the very real waterproofing of the phones I have owned (past and present), I will just wash the damn thing off under the kitchen tap if it gets dirty, which I have with one of my previous phones done with a high-pressure restaurant-sink-style spray nozzle (I was making beer, and boiling the wort kicks a lot of sticky crap into the air).
That phone was fine afterward, and continued to work for several years after.
Also at a more basic level, it is (at least in theory) an assurance that they actually tested the damn thing, and didn't just slap a largely meaningless (and as already noted, "bigger number better") rating on the thing, as is largely the style of our times because consumer protection is dead and regulations are meaningless.
This is exactly the kind of should be done properly, or just not at all. Test it and rate it for the people who do care, or STFU, put the unqualified but perfectly reasonable label of "water resistant" on it, and the bulk of people who indeed do not care (or will be confused) will be no worse off than they are now.
Anything else is just annoying.
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What's your one option btw?
XCover 6 Pro
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Yes. Have exclusively used rugged phones for past ~10 years. Mostly Cat (RIP), now Doogee S96. My phone is exposed to a lot of particulate matter, metal fragments, sawdust, etc. It needs to withstand fall damage on hard surfaces. The IP rating indicates it's resistance to anything entering the case, including water.
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Yes. I use my phone in rain/snow and boats all the time plus it's nice to be able to use it in sauna also
I feel like that defeats the purpose of sauna a bit...
But anyway, I thought heat rating was a different metric entirely?
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XCover 6 Pro
Well, it already has IP68 anyways so you got that covered
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wrote last edited by [email protected]
Yeaah, but what good is washing something without soap? (Germs aren't gonna come off)
Nowadays I just try to use alcohol wipes instead
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Yes. I use my phone in rain/snow and boats all the time plus it's nice to be able to use it in sauna also
Sauna? Bruh you're really pushing the limits of the water resistance, its water resistant, not water + heat resistant (rubber gaskets are gonna fall apart with the steamy hot air constantly)
