Land Rover Explore Mobile Phone is the ‘DEFENDER’ of rugged smartphones

The Land Rover Explore Mobile Phone is a new smartphone from Land Rover which actually promises to be a bit more than just an overpriced, premium-badged waste of time.

‘Premium’ car makers – and others – do like to serve up ‘Brand Merchandise’ to flog to marque anoraks willing to lap up second-rate offerings as long as it has their favourite brand’s logo splatted all over.

But, sometimes, car makers can actually deliver something properly good, which cynics like us shouldn’t just dismiss as yet another merchandising opportunity from a ‘Premium’ brand. Like the new Land Rover Explore Mobile Phone.

The Land Rover Explore Mobile Phone appears to be a properly good piece of kit; well thought out, useful, practical and not too stupidly priced.

But the Explore has been built by Bullitt – a firm which knows what it’s doing – and has a spec that is perfectly decent mid-range Smartphone (not last year’s has-been innards) and some truly useful flexibility.

Yes, it gets a ‘Land Rover’ logo and a microphone that looks like a car grille. But it gets a 5″ screen, deca-core 2.6 GHz MTK Helio X27 processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage and a 4000mAh battery said to be good for two days of real world use. It even comes with its own off road mapping, compass and SOS light.

That real world use offers the ability to use the phone with gloves on, in wet conditions, it will survive a 1.8. drop in to water and it costs a not unreasonable £599.

That alone, if you’re the type to get joy from mud and countryside, makes it worth considering, but the modular packs you can add on could be the icing.

The Explorer comes complete with an Adventure Pack which adds an extra 3600mAh battery, boosts signal with a ceramic patch antenna for use in remote locations and survives a 1.8m drop test.

But there will also be available a Bike Pack which adds a stem and handlebar mount, and a Battery Pack which throws an extra 4370mAh in to the mix.

Leave the Packs off (they attach with pogo pins on the back) and the Explore isn’t too embarrassing to use as an everyday phone, and you will have a properly adventure-proof phone for weekends and outings.

The Land Rover Explore Mobile Phone officially launches at the  Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on 26th February.