Samsung Solid Immerse

For many of us, a mobile phone is an item which needs to exude a certain class. When you’re spending up to £600 on a handset – either all in one go or spread out over the length of a contract – you expect something that looks as good as it performs.

However, for all their desirability, most modern smartphones are seriously lacking when it comes to durability. With frames built to impress visually rather than resist the elements, it's little wonder that we treat our phones like newborn children, wrapping them in protective swaddling such as screen protectors and bulky rubber cases.

The Samsung Solid Immerse is not one of these phones. It laughs in the face of silicon skin and scoffs at the idea of any form of protective casing. This is a phone which is built for the outdoors and made to withstand the elements.

Tough on the outside

It boasts IP67 accreditation, which basically means it can take plenty of punishment. It’s also capable of going underwater for short periods of time. To cap it all off, the phone’s screen has a tough anti-scratch coating which can repel even the sharpest of objects.

This is most certainly a handset for the more adventurous among you, and is perfectly happy being covered in mud, dust, water, and grime. The Solid Immerse can endure the kind of aggravation that would permanently damage any other mobile phone beyond repair.

There’s a catch to this manly ruggedness, however – under the bonnet, Samsung’s phone is rather ordinary.

Unlike the similarly tough Motorola Defy – which runs Google’s Android operating system – the Solid Immerse is very much a ‘dumbphone’. It’s rocking a proprietary OS, it only runs Java-based apps and games, and it can’t do all that fancy multi-tasking.

What it does have is limited connectivity with Twitter and Facebook, 3G data transfer, and an LED flashlight at the top of the phone which we imagine could prove to be a real bonus when you’re in a pitch-black cave sixty foot underground on a pot-holing expedition.

These elements boost the Solid Immerse’s credentials, but they’re balanced out by a shockingly average 2-megapixel camera and particularly woeful battery life. Considering how outdated the phone’s specifications are, we expected the power cell to last weeks rather than days - even when compared to energy-hungry smartphones, the Solid Immerse’s stamina is a real disappointment.

It’s equally disappointing as a gaming device. There are few decent Java-based games to be had these days, and the Solid Immerse’s chunky rubber keypad makes a poor interface for precision play.

The one benefit is that the massive casing does call to mind the bulk of the original monochrome Game Boy, but that’s obviously not a good enough reason to select this over an Xperia Play or iPhone.

Still, Samsung’s sturdy handset is priced reasonably enough, coming in at around £100 on a pay as you go contract. A device like this clearly isn’t built for playing Angry Birds or watching YouTube videos on the move - it’s a tool for communication in the great outdoors.

To that end, the Solid Immerse can be considered something of a success – but the terrible battery life could curtail its usefulness on long trips away from home.