Why should sedentary city folk have all the fun? Samsung has outdoor types firmly in its sites for the Solid Immerse, a handset with tough phone credentials - though there's nothing smart about this Android-less offering.

Design

The Solid Immerse has several aspects to its protective design. First comes a dust and water protector that shields its innards from dirt and splashes; Samsung promises that nothing can get inside the shell, and that the handset can even be immersed in meter under water for up to half an hour with no ill effects. As well as being protected from the elements - it's even IP67-certified and built to US Military Standard - the Solid Immerse's screen is also something special. Well, sort of.

Always the first component to break on a dropped or badly treated phone, Samsung has used a special anti-scratch screen that can withstand falls from pocket to rock as easily as it can scrapes from keys. That said, the TFT screen is the Solid Immerse's downfall; it measures just two inches across and has a resolution of just 240x320 pixels. That's not where the outdoor features end, though. There's also a one-touch flashlight built onto the side that proved incredibly useful during our test week. Also on board is an altimeter, stopwatch and digital compass, while the voice memo feature may also be useful on the go, and so too the lanyard grip on its top end.

Basic features

Elsewhere, the reasonably compact 120.7x53x17.9mm has a lot of the basic features you would expect to find on a 3G smartphone - though we do mean basic. An internal memory of just 15MB can be increased using a microSD card slot hidden inside the phone, though it's the cleverly padded sides that hide the microUSB connector, which also doubles as a headphones slot.

That's a bit of a shame since the provided headphones are not of stunning quality, and because of the choice of connector, they cannot be upgraded. The 116g Solid Immerse comes with Bluetooth 2.0, speakerphone and MP3/MP4 playback - all par for the course on a £100 handset - but there's no Wi-Fi option, and the camera is a lowly two-megapixel affair. We do, however, like the FM radio - and essential outdoor feature for tuning in to Final Score on a mountainside.

Performance

After a dunking and a dropping, we're convinced of the Solid Immerse's core integrity, but elsewhere it proves its one-trick nature with a series of lacklustre performances. Most disappointing is the camera - surely a key outdoor skill - which produces poor quality shots that lack both sharpness and colour, though we like the six stitched shots that make up its novel panoramic option.

The battery life, too, falls short by just being so very average when it should be built to last long enough for a two-day trek. With such a small screen there's no virtual keyboard - no room - and browsing the web and using apps (there are upfront links to Google, Facebook and Twitter) is interminably slow. That said, its simple, though relatively well-equipped user interface will be just what some users are after. Basic calls are fine, and the sound from the rear-mounted mono speaker is clear with speakerphone engaged even if audio from MP3 files is nothing to get excited about via the bundled headphones.

Verdict
For its outdoor and if audience, the Solid Immerse is right on the money. With a reasonably low spec backing up those tough phone features, this is best categorised as an occasional phone for using while hiking, boating, farming or fishing, though we do wish it had Wi-Fi and a much better camera - the latter, especially, would mean carrying less gadgets while gallivanting. 

Company: Samsung

Website: http://www.samsung.com/uk

Tags: solid immerse gt-b2710 samsung