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Sonim's Super-Tough Phones Come to Sprint

Sonim's XP Strike aims to capture the hearts of America's toughest workers.

December 19, 2012

The world's toughest phones are coming to Sprint. The nation's third-largest carrier joined AT&T today in carrying Sonim's rugged phone line, a set of unique, super-rugged phones with a three-year, no-questions-asked warranty.

We've been covering Sonim's phones for a while; they're designed for outdoor workers, first responders, and other people whose devices typically take a beating. I've broken a Sonim phone out of concrete with a hammer, broken one out of a block of ice with a chisel, thrown one against a concrete wall, thrown the same one out of a second-story window onto concrete, used it to hammer a nail into a piece of wood, and washed it with soap. It kept on ticking.

Sprint's model, which it calls the Sonim XP Strike, is very similar to the existing XP3400 Armor. (We reviewed the previous model, the .) According to Sonim, it's a brick-like feature phone with a 2-megapixel camera, GPS, 9.5 hours of talk time, and support for Sprint's new push-to-talk system and BREW business applications like lone worker panic buttons and enterprise device management. Sprint will sell the Strike for $179.99 with a two-year contract, minus a $50 mail-in rebate.

The Strike may be critical to Sprint keeping hold of some legacy Nextel subscribers, who've been bleeding away with time. Sprint is next June and wants to move customers over to its CDMA PTT system. The phone resembles the classic, rugged Nextel i580 flip phone, all the way down to the yellow and black rubber body. Of course, it'seven more rugged than the i580 was.

Sprint is the second major carrier to pick up Sonim products. In November, AT&T said it would start selling the Sonim XP5560 Bolt for $199 with a two-year contract. Sonim products are also available from many smaller rural carriers such as C Spire, Cellcom, and nTelos.

Sonim Smartphones Coming
Sonim's lineup is still all feature phones, but CEO Bob Plaschke said the company's next device will be an Android-powered, LTE smartphone.

"It's an incredibly difficult challenge, with multiple variants for multiple carriers, but we've been asked for it by our partners and our customers," he said.

A smartphone could expand Sonim's reach, but its feature phones still appeal to 30 million blue-collar workers in America, Plaschke said.

"We're very focused on purpose-built phones for sanitation, construction, security, facilities, management, utilities, oil and gas," he said. Accessories include headsets and microphones that security guards can wear on their shoulders, for instance.

Sonim's push into the major U.S. carriers coincides with those carriers' attempts to break down the walls of private, corporate radio networks, Plaschke said. With companies like United Airlines, carriers have been agressively selling push-to-talk cell phones as an alternative to radios. Sonim's phones offer the durability, reliability, and simplicity these companies expect, he said.

"[Carriers] are really searching for new market spaces where they know they can work on a relatively unassailed basis, and the enterprise is one of those spaces," he said.