A new waterproof phone

Rukbat

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It's rated IP67, which is water RESISTANT to 1 meter for 30 minutes, so I'd want to see the written warranty that covers water damage before I'd call it waterproof. There's currently no specification for completely waterproof, except for IPx8, which means the manufacturer specifies the conditions, so some manufacturer could specify 100 meters for an hour, or water can get in but the circuitry is protected if it gets wet, or something like that.

The last phone I know of that was waterproof to a decent depth (I dove to 20 feet of ocean with it a few times, just to have a timer with me, and it still worked after an hour) was the Nextel i700. (I don't know if it was atom bomb proof, but we used to throw it hard against the floor of the store to demonstrate what it would take. [The battery cover popped off and the battery fell out.])

There are probably military phones that are "everything but blow it up-, or put a bullet in it-proof", but I don't know of a single civilian phone that the manufacturer guarantees against water damage. (They're working on it, though - coating everything inside, so that if water gets in, only the coating gets wet and the phone still works.)
 

Rukbat

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I know. So many people see blogs saying "waterproof", then scream when the manufacturer won't repair the water-damaged phone.

To me, waterproof means I don't have to close any ports and I can take the phone down to 100 feet and run my diving app. And if water damages the phone, it's covered under the warranty. Like the Nextel.

IP67 really means "heavy downpour proof". Or, in other words, keep the phone dry if at all possible, and treat it as a non-waterproof phone if it gets wet. My Note 3 in a double ziplock baggie setup is more waterproof than an S5 Active.

(We had one thread here where Samsung claimed that an almost imperceptible distortion in the case caused the seal to not be perfect, so the S5 Active water damage wasn't covered. Who's to say it wasn't shipped that way, if it's almost imperceptible? Do they really examine every nanometer of the case of every S5 Active with a microscope before shipping it?)

The military had the right idea in WW 2 - slop glyptal over everything and it could withstand immersion, jungle rot, being dropped in a latrine trench - anything but a bullet. Start doing things like that to cellphones and we won't need warranties against water damage - you couldn't damage a phone like that with water.
 

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