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I wasn’t expecting to write about a smartphone that advertises itself as a tank, but here we are. Unihertz, the Chinese brand you probably know for making networking hardware and some of the most fascinating tiny smartphones, has announced the Tank 3 Pro. The “ultimate 5G smartphone” has an intriguing set of features that will pique the interest of anyone living who spends a lot of time outside.
The release of the Tank 3 Pro is under a brand called 8849, which is known for its tough smartphones and tablets jam-packed with features. The flashy feature of the Tank 3 Pro is its 23,800 mAh battery pack, which powers a 100-lumen DLP projector built into the smartphone chassis. Yes, there’s a projector in there with a 1.2:1 throw ratio, so you can stream a movie in the dead of night on the wall of a pitched tent. When you’re not using the projector, there’s a 6.79-inch Full HD display with a 120Hz refresh rate to gawk at. The processor powering it up is a MediaTek Dimensity 8200 chip with the option of 16 to 18GB of RAM and 512GB of storage—plenty of space to offload movies or hours-long light effects for a camping trip, and it’s expandable up to 2TB. There is even a 200-megapixel primary camera, plus a 64-MP camera with “super night vision.”
This is a smartphone for the great outdoors. The big ass battery pack can last days on a charge. It charges fast, with a maximum charging wattage of 120W. The Tank 3 Pro is IP68 water, dust, and shock resistant, and the projector has a built-in cooling fan for heat dissipation. If you forget your camping lights, the phone has one with adjustable brightness and a red and blue emergency warning light. And so you don’t get lost out there, the Tank 3 Pro includes GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo, and L1+L5 dual-band GPS in the price.
All of this costs $600, which is not bad for a smartphone built to withstand the world and streaming movies on the side of a building. However, there are caveats to getting this kind of niche smartphone. For one, the software update schedule may be slower than you experience with a Pixel or Samsung Galaxy device with a case on top. The Tank 3 Pro doesn’t even ship with the latest version of Android. Also, while the processor is a 4nm process, its benchmarks are ranked among the low-cost subset of smartphones. The Tank 3 Pro does have 16GB of “extended” RAM, so it can throttle itself a little easier than other devices.
Despite the downsides, I love these phones because they genuinely keep the dream of the all-you-need gadget alive and well. I almost want to hit the road in my car with nothing but this phone to see if it gets me out of trouble. You can buy it now online or at Amazon.
