Land Rover Explorer Smartphone Is As Rugged As A Land Rover SUV

Ever wonder what it would look like if Land Rover made a phone? Okay, neither have we, to tell you the truth. But this is the answer.

Stemming from a collaboration between the SUV manufacturer and the Bullitt Group, the Land Rover Explore smartphone is designed to be as rugged as the British off-road vehicles themselves. It’s built to withstand extreme temperatures, thermal shock, harsh vibration, and even being submerged in six feet of salt water.

It has a five-inch high-definition screen that can be controlled even through a glove, it packs an SOS light, weather info, a compass and off-road mapping data. It runs on Google’s Android Nougat OS, and is scheduled for upgrade to the new Oreo system in the near future.

The phone is backed up by 4 gigs of RAM and 64 gigs of internal memory (expandable with a micro SD slot), plus a 2.6-gigahertz 64-bit deca-core chipset. The screen is made from Corning Gorilla Glass 5, and it has a 16-megapixel rear camera and an 8-mp front camera for video conferencing. And with a 4000mAh internal battery (plus a 3600mAh auxiliary pack), it can be used for two days straight without needing to be recharged.

“This is the smartphone we’d all like to own,” said Joe Sinclair, JLR’s licensing director – “a perfect combination of design and functionality that embodies the Land Rover DNA and enables customers to be outdoors for longer, with the confidence to go further.”

The Explore is, in short, as versatile and indestructible as a Land Rover should be, and it’ll work with the automaker’s in-car apps. But unlike the rest of JLR’s products, it won’t be unveiled at the forthcoming Geneva Motor Show. Instead it’s bound for debut at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week, and will hit shelves for £599, or about $830 at current exchange rates.