Doogee S90 Complete Walkthrough: A Modular Rugged Phone

Doogee is a Chinese manufacturer that has come up over and over in other publications for making some unique devices with decent specs and much lower prices.

I did a video not too long ago on the Doogee S60, which I mentioned was a bit similar to in a lot of ways to the CAT S60 phone that came out right before it. Coincidence? Maybe. But that was a rugged Android phone meant for camping, offroading, construction sites, and other adventurous-type activities. One of the big differences between the CAT S60 and the Doogee S60 was the price. And that’s no different here. The Doogee S90 which is clearly in the same family as the S60 takes a similar rugged style and adds some interesting features to it while keeping the price relatively low.

Now, Doogee sent me a device to check out so I figured I’d take this time to do a complete walkthrough on it. If you aren’t familiar, a complete walkthrough on this site is where I try and go through as many features as I can on a device so you guys are better prepared should you be in the market to buy one.

If you want to learn more about the Doogee S90 or see the best price I could find, head here.

Styling

With that said, there is a lot to go through so let’s get started with the styling.

So, as I said, this device is aimed at the “rugged” market and you can tell at first glance. The device is pretty bulky and apparently made out of a titanium alloy, but along with the heft, the device has some serious durability ratings.

You’ve probably heard of IP ratings and lately, a lot of high-end smartphones are coming in IP68 which means they can remain under 1.5 meters of water for up to 30 mins. Well, the Doogee S90 is IP69K rated. That means it can survive in up to a meter of water for up to 2 weeks. In addition to that, it can also survive high-pressure water so if you work in an industry that everything has to be sterilized to some degree when you enter, you can hose this guy down to clean it without issue. IP69K is basically the highest rating you can get.

Beyond water and dust rating, it’s also military spec for drops, shock, etc. and has a Gorilla Glass 4 display.

That display is a 6.18″ FHD+ IPS display that above it is an 8MP f2.0 90-degree FOV front-facing camera that you can check the video above for what that looks like and sounds like.

Moving around the device, we have a programmable button on the left side.

The power and volume buttons are on the right side.

On the bottom, we have a covered USB-C port.

At the top, we have… nothing.

Moving to the back, we have our dual camera. A 16MP f2.0 aperture with phase detection autofocus paired with an 8MP camera that they use for software tricks like portrait mode.

Samsung just launched their latest S10 lineup. Here’s my video on everything you need to know on them.

I’m going to tell you right now, the camera isn’t great, but as a rugged device, I’d say that it probably isn’t a priority for most of the target market, but here are some samples I took:

Something interesting here on the back though, are these magnetic connectors.

These are used for attaching a collection of outdoor-themed mods. There are a total of four available at the moment. The first of which is this walkie-talkie mod which connects to the back of the device and then can be used to communicate with any other RF device that works in the 400-480mhz range. The cool thing about that is that if your out somewhere where you maybe don’t have cell signal, you can use this to communicate with other people out there (between 6-10 km away) that either has the same device with this mod on or any RF device that can access those same frequencies.

Then we have a massive 5000mAh battery pack that brings the total mAh to 10050mah and will supposedly bring you to a total of 4 days of use.\

Want to see how long the Huawei Mate 20 Pro lasted on one charge? Check out the real-world battery test I did on it here.

We have a gaming controller attachment which I figure any gamer appreciates and adds a joystick, buttons, etc.

And finally, we have a “night-vision” camera add on. Now, this isn’t a real infrared light night vision like you would see on actual spy-like night vision goggles, but it is a Sony sensor that can capture more light and has a 131-degree FOV.

Powering the device, we have a MediaTek P60 chipset paired with 6GBs of RAM.

For storage, it has a 128GB SSD and a microSD card slot to expand the memory if needed.

Software

As for software, the device is running Android 8.1 and there isn’t much of a skin on top which is nice and there are only a few additions they includeding pre-installed.

Conclusion

Now, Doogee managed to launch this device on Kickstarter and blow past their original goal of $10,000 to $350,000 or so so there is definitely some sort of market that likes this idea. Now, the Kickstarter is over but the device is going on sale on the 21st of February on AliExpress for $299 for the device by itself and $399 for the package including some of the mods (you can check which mods they’ll give and order the device at the link here if you’re interested).

I have to say, that the price is really what makes this a compelling buy. It’s similarly priced to the S60 I mentioned that I reviewed not too long ago, and yet, it’s just an upgraded version, even if we ignore the mods. And at that price it’s a good call for someone who wouldn’t normally be able to bring a nice phone to their work or on a camping trip, etc. or it mght even be a good second phone for someone who could afford it to just take with them to these events in the same way they buy special camping gear, for example. For the price of a nice camping tent, you can get a decent camping phone.

If you want to learn more about the Doogee S90 or see the best price I could find, head here.

Let me know what you guys think and if you want more tech news, videos, tips and tricks, and more, sign up for my weekly newsletter here. Thanks for reading!