"What do you want to do with it? Hunting? "- or similar were the first reactions to the outdoor phone Thunder IceFox.

First impression

Big, heavy and martial, therefore, is the Thunder. It certainly looks robust, filigree is different. Almost sympathetic to the current. Therefore, probably comes the format: from the current, respectively the battery. That is almost exactly twice as large as batteries from other smartphones.

The first features that stand out immediately are the circumferential rubber coating. Visually unappealing, just quite martial, she sums up the block. The controls on the outside are stable and stiff. On / off and volume buttons already need some power to push them. Thick rubber caps seal the headphone input and the USB port. If the USB door can not be opened immediately, a sharp object helps to pry up the protective cap.

inner workings

But now it's up to scratch: as soon as you open the heavy back plate with the enclosed Schaubendreher, you will notice three drawers for cards: one SD slot and two SIM card slots. Dual SIM, one for GSM, one for GSM and WCDMA. Super handy, especially when traveling (or here near the border to Switzerland). I get now only once a suitable adapter to use my nano-SIM, as well as a Swiss PrePaid card.

The battery is, as I said, already a pretty block. With 2930mAh he delivers loudly Manufacturer 360 hours in standby for a SIM, with two SIM cards still 120 hours. From the indication "450" for the talk time I can not do anything, probably minutes are meant.

Technology

It features a 4 × 1.2 GHz Qualcomm MSM8212 Snapdragon 200 quad-core processor, 1 GB of RAM, 4 GB of ROM (with Micro-SD expandable to 32 GB) and 2930mAh battery. GPS, WLAN IEEE 802.11b / g / n and Bluetooth provide the necessary connectivity. Played is an Android 4.3, virtually naked and pretty much no annoying preinstalled apps. No dream values ​​so, but suitable for the most important things in the mountains - except photos!

Camera and display

Unfortunately, savings versions of the cameras are installed: 8 megapixels in fairly poor picture quality at the back and front 0.3 MP. The display is IPS with 480 × 800 pixels on 4 inches. But the display is rather of the bad kind, even at low tilt angle the display fades and becomes illegible. For outdoor so rather impractical.

weaknesses

This brings us to the weaknesses of outdoor phones. Today, I expect a high quality camera on smartphones. Probably can not be realized for a price of less than 160 €, but I still feel the poor quality of the images of the Thunder as no-go.

The display also has its pitfalls and becomes illegible when tilted or exposed to sunlight. Besides, the glass does not look as robust as promised. Some case tests have survived unscathed, but how tough it really is, time must show. I'll keep you up to date!

Conclusion

For the price a suitable phone, which I can imagine but rather in Bauarbeiterhänden than on a summit. But it has a too bad camera and is under real outdoor conditions too poor to use (display!) - And to have it only as a robust "emergency phone", it is simply too heavy, for that I do not need a smartphone , There are smaller, lighter cell phones that serve the purpose.

updates:

• outdoor blog news had the Thunder also in the test
• as well the outdoorseite.de
• also recreational alpine had the Thunder in the test