Land Rover Explore
The Land Rover Explore is a great expedition companion, but it’s hard to recommend as an everyday phone
PRICE £499 (£599 inc VAT) from landroverexplore.co.uk
While many smartphones include some level of waterproofing, they aren’t truly rugged. For that, you need to pay £800 or more for a specialist phone such as the CAT S61. Land Rover aims to hit the middle ground with the Land Rover Explore, a phone “created for the outdoors”.
It’s IP68 rated, which means it’s resistant to dust and dirt and can be fully submerged to a depth of 1.5m for half an hour. A Mil Spec 810G rating means it can withstand extremes of temperature, humidity and altitude. Attach the bundled Adventure Pack and you not only boost its battery by 3,620 mAh and add a larger GPS antenna; it’s also been drop tested to 1.8m. Then there’s a robust case that can be attached to a belt or bag using a carabiner, and it comes with mapping app ViewRanger pre-installed, along with free map vouchers.
The phone borrows design cues from the iconic Land Rover Discovery. The casing’s rounded corners mimic the shape of a bonnet, and the speaker grille below the display resembles the grille on the front of a car. Even the camera surround echoes the Defender’s circular headlamps.
Despite its toughness, the Land Rover Explore isn’t as chunky as you might expect. Yes, it’s heavy at 228g, but it will fit happily in a trouser pocket. Connect the Adventure Pack and things get bulkier. In this state, it weighs 354g but you might prefer to slip in into the rubber case and attach it to a backpack. I did precisely that, but within a few minutes heard a thud as the phone landed face down on the pavement, leaving only the carabiner and the clip that connects it to the case still tethered to my bag.
The screen escaped unscathed, with only a few small chips on the bezel where it had come into contact with the tarmac. No doubt it helps that the phone’s display is covered with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 and a tough factory-fitted screen protector (Land Rover has also worked with the Bullitt Group, which makes the CAT phones, to ensure the display will respond to gloved fingers, even when it’s wet).
But then I saw the flaw in the design that caused the crash. When you hang the phone from its carabiner attachment, it constantly pulls against a small, 2mm plastic notch. Should you fail to engage the clip fully, or it becomes snagged, the attachment will come loose and the phone tumbles to the ground. Not great if you’re abseiling down a rocky cliff face.
The Explore’s 5in 1,920 x 1,080 display is fine for everyday use, covering 91.6% of the sRGB colour gamut. Contrast, though, was a woeful 739:1, which is probably a consequence of the screen protection. Land Rover compensates with a maximum 546cd/m2 brightness, so it is at least easy to read in all but the brightest of conditions.
The area of greatest disappointment, though, was its performance. Its Mediatek Helio X27 chip produced scores of 1,768 and 4,818 in the single- and multi-core Geekbench 4 benchmarks respectively. That’s on par with the two-generation old Snapdragon 821. The Explore returned an average frame rate of 20fps in the GFXBench 3
“Land Rover’s intentions are clear: to create a smartphone for those who spend much of their lives in the great outdoors”
Manhattan onscreen benchmark, which is a long way behind other phones that cost this much money. In everyday use, swiping through menus, browsing the web, and even loading maps, you shouldn’t have any problems, but this isn’t a phone for playing graphically intensive games.
Considering the Land Rover Explore has a large 4,000mAh battery, I was also disappointed by its battery life, at least in our video rundown test. Without the Adventure Pack attached, the Land Rover Explore lasted 11hrs 13mins. In response, Land Rover says this isn’t the sort of activity the phone has been optimised for; instead, it’s been tweaked to deliver the best performance in activities that require GPS and cellular connection in areas of weak signal, so you can keep in touch while you’re out in the wilds. This seems fair because, with the Adventure Pack attached, the Explore lasted several days between charges when used to record hour upon hour of outdoor activities in Strava.
You’ll be able to capture sharp, colour-accurate pictures in good natural light, with the 16-megapixel rear-camera employing a f/2.0 aperture. Unfortunately, in low-light conditions there was an obvious lack of detail, with softness evident throughout the frame. And although the Land Rover Explore will shoot footage at up to 4K and at 30fps, it does so without video stabilisation.
Land Rover’s intentions with the Explore are clear: to create a smartphone for those who spend much of their lives in the great outdoors. When assessed on those terms, it’s a roaring success, oozing style and refinement while boasting practically every mark of robustness and resilience you could ask for in a smartphone.
However, the Explore’s camera is below par and its day-to-day speed is that of a budget phone, not one costing £600. Consequently, I can’t help but feel that, with such an iconic, luxury brand, it would have been better to equip the Explore with the best components possible, even if it meant charging customers £800.
SPECIFICATIONS
Deca-core 2.6GHz MediaTek Helio X27 processor 4GB RAM Adreno 505 graphics
5in IPS screen, 1,080 x 1,920 resolution 64GB storage microSD slot 16MP rear camera 8MP front camera 802.11ac Wi-Fi
Bluetooth 4.1 USB-C connector 4,000mAh battery Android 8 75.3 x 14 x 152mm (WDH) 232g Adventure Pack bundle 1yr warranty