Doogee S88 Pro review

Introduction

Doogee has been known for its rugged phones, and those seem to be excellent yet budget alternatives to more premium devices such as CAT's. Doogee (pronounced du:dʒi: if you wondered) sells well-specced, nearly indestructible phones at a bargain price, and if you happen to drop yours in, say, a lava pit, well, you wouldn't care that much, and you'd just buy another one.

And here is one of these weirdly interesting specimens - the Doogee S88 Pro. It's been sitting in our backlog for a while, but we are glad we finally got to review it.

Just like many other rugged phones, this S88 Pro has a Transformer-like look with a ruggedly handsome body made of metal and rubber for IP69K water and drop resistance, among others. It has a decent 1080p screen, adequate hardware for the job, a modern camera setup, but what's probably the key selling feature is the enormous 10,000mAh battery. Wow!

So, the Doogee S88 Pro offers a 6.3" 1080p IPS LCD screen, it runs on Helio P70 chip, and packs a triple camera on the back with a 21MP primary, an 8MP ultrawide shooter, and an 8MP depth sensor (that has to be a first). There are additional custom and emergency keys, you also get a fingerprint scanner mounted on the frame, while on the back, two eye-shaped LEDs complement the front notification light.

Doogee S88 Pro at a glance:

• Body: 171.6x85.5x18.7mm, 372g; Front Gorilla Glass, plastic/metal back with reinforced soft corners, aluminum frame; IP68/IP69K dust/water resistant (up to 1.5m for 30 mins), Drop-to-concrete resistance from up to 2.0 m, MIL-STD-810G compliant.
• Display: 6.30" IPS LCD, 1080x2340px resolution, 19.5:9 aspect ratio, 410ppi.
• Chipset: Mediatek MT6771T Helio P70 (12 nm): Octa-core (2x2.1 GHz Cortex-A73 & 6x2.0 GHz Cortex-A53); Mali-G72 MP3 GPU.
• Memory: 128GB, 6GB RAM; microSDXC (uses shared SIM slot).
• OS/Software: Android 10.
• Rear camera: Wide (main): 21 MP, f/2.2, 1/2.4", 1.12µm, PDAF; Ultra wide angle: 8 MP, f/2.2, 130˚, 1/4.0", 1.12µm; Depth: 8 MP, f/2.2.
• Front camera: 16 MP, f/2.2.
• Video capture: Rear camera: 1080p@30fps; Front camera: 720p@30fps.
• Battery: 10,000mAh; Fast charging 24W. Wireless charging 10W. Reverse wireless charging 5W.
• Misc: Fingerprint reader (side-mounted); FM radio, NFC, Iron Man-like notification LED eyes on the back.

Unboxing the Doogee S88 Pro

The Doogee S88 Pro comes packed within a large paper box, but it's a large phone, isn't it? Anyway, inside you'll find a 24W charger, a USB-C cable, a 3.5mm-to-USB-C adapter, and one small sling.

The S88 Pro also ships with a thin screen protector, which you can easily apply by yourself. Well, it is supposed to be easy though we screwed up a bit with ours.

We expected a tempered glass - like the one Ulefone ships with its Armor phones - but Doogee's is just a rather thin plastic film though the maker is claiming it is explosion-proof. Right...