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[–] 44 points 1 year ago (10 children)

No. If I add any more requirements for what I need from a phone I'll go from 1 option to zero.

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  • [–] [S] 12 points 1 year ago (9 children)
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)
  • [–] 37 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I don't really look for "this one's rated to 20 meters but this one only 10" I just want to see a water resistance rating of some kind. Which, it is my understanding the Galaxy Folds don't have.

    My phone will be in my pocket during five years of sudden rain storms, sweat, washing cars, fixing sinks etc. It needs to be able to survive getting dunked in a bucket of water. I'm not taking it diving, but also my chauffeur isn't going to hold an umbrella while I climb into the limousine.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Folds have water ratings but no (or worse) dust ratings. So you can use them in the rain but be careful in a beach, wood shop, etc.

    The first number in the rating is dust resistance, and the second is water resistance. So an IP 48 phone (new Samsung folds) has the same water resistance but worse dust resistance than an IP 68 phone (e.g. S25). IP X8 means there is no dust resistance but it is water resistant. IP 6X would be the other way around.

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  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago*

    Yes. It has saved my bacon at least once (went down a water slide into a swimming pool forgetting it was in my pocket.) I need all the help I can get keeping my phone alive.

    Do you?

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  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago

    Yes. I'm not too demanding about it but I want my phone to survive being soaked in rain or a washing with clean water.

    Bonus points if I can take it into the sea, but I never had a phone for which I was confident it could survive salty water.

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  • [–] 34 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I don’t care for the number and just go by what they say it will endure, but absolutely. As the owner of a toddler it’s saved the day on as number of occasions.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I did back in the day. Now everything is IP67 or whatever's the most common one. It's honestly a crapshoot, my Xperia Z3 died from just being in the shower room while I showered, nowhere near the water but vaguely steamy in there.

    I accidentally flushed, yes - flushed my Pixel 1 XL down the toilet and it was fine (it swam up).

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Right?! Electronics would straight rust, quickly. Remember having to take your watch off to wash your hands? Now I have a collection of Casios and would be shocked if any so much as got foggy. LOL, now you can pull the battery and put your motherboard in the dish washer.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Absolutely, I don’t want to worry about water damage, I also often just wash the phone while washing my hands, especially during flu-season.

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  • [–] [S] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I also often just wash the phone while washing my hands

    I did that often around covid, water got in the supposedly IP68 water resistance anyways after doing that for a few months.

    I'd consider their claims to be exaggerated.

    If theu say its "water submersible" treat it as just protection against light splashes, if its just "water repellant", don't trust that near water at all. Expect less than their claims.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    Yes. I use my phone in rain/snow and boats all the time plus it's nice to be able to use it in sauna also

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    I feel like that defeats the purpose of sauna a bit...

    But anyway, I thought heat rating was a different metric entirely?

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Sauna is a place where you either chat with other people or sit with your thoughts. It's blasphemy to bring your phone in there.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    I thought that chatting was rude because people are trying to enjoy the silence (for a public sauna).

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Well, that depends on the culture where you live, but at least here in Finland - the sauna capital of the world - it’s perfectly fine. In fact, Finns in general are quite introverted and don’t talk much, but in the sauna you don’t only undress your clothes, you undress titles as well. Everyone is equal there, which makes people more open to starting conversations with strangers. In the past, it was even a place where many political decisions were made.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago*

    Cool! I guess it's just the culture where I am in the USA. Some people do chat (usually not English so idk what they're talking about) but most people turn inward.

    Some people bring their phones in. Some people even exercise.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 year ago

    Yes, outdoor work and phones are expensive.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    No. But I would love a replaceable battery.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Samsung Galaxy XCover series does both.

    Sadly, Samsung doesn't allow bootloader unlocks... so yea its a hard pass for me 🤷‍♂️ (also, spec to price ratio is horrible)

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Same for me, locked bootloader is basically useless. Fortunately, from 2027 batteries must be replaceable in the EU. I guess it may have an impact on other regions in the world as well.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    That is fantastic news!

    I wonder if manufacturers will be allowed to say "waterproof until battery is replaced the first time" or if they'll still be waterproof even with a replaceable battery.

    I had always heard it was hard to make those waterproof.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago

    Yes. I've never had a bad liquid incident, but I don't want my phone to be one spilled drink or dropped-into-toilet-or-puddle away from being fried.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    Yes. I have three young children, I need my phone to be waterproof.

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  • Yup. Its not a deal breaker, but I try to find at least some options that have a rating and consider if its worth the other tradeoffs.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I don't bother with the exact ratings, but it has to be water resistant. If you're researching phone options, open a tab in desktop view and go to Versus.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    Yes. Have exclusively used rugged phones for past ~10 years. Mostly Cat (RIP), now Doogee S96. My phone is exposed to a lot of particulate matter, metal fragments, sawdust, etc. It needs to withstand fall damage on hard surfaces. The IP rating indicates it's resistance to anything entering the case, including water.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    No, they tend to be good enough to have in a pocket while sweating in light rain which is the worst I'll put them through.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    No.
    I still treat it as if it was from 2014

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    Only that there is one. I don’t expect my phone to get wet but I do want it to survive everyday life.

    Supposedly the Apple Watch is fine to go swimming with. I’m happy to see that feature, as confidence I can wash my hands without ruining my watch

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    Totally, I use my phone to play music while in the shower. I also do a lot of work outside, work that doesn’t stop if it starts raining.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    I take it with me too the beach. Between the sand in the air and bringing it into the water it's nice to know it'll be fine. Also, when it gets dirty I can just wash it.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Yep. Non-negotiable. Not only do I live in a very rainy place, but I have uses for this stuff that require getting splashed A LOT very often for other reasons.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    No, I grew up with phones (and electronics in general) not being water tight or resistant so I sort of still have the mindset of not taking my phone near lakes/bathtubs and putting it away when it's raining.

    Haven't really had a problem with water damage in all the years of owning phones. Most of my phones were not water tight/resistant because they were older Nokias, had a replaced battery or are Fairphones.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Right?! Electronics would straight rust, quickly. Remember having to take your watch off to wash your hands? Now I have a collection of Casios and would be shocked if any so much as got foggy. LOL, now you can pull the battery and put your motherboard in the dish washer.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    I pay attention to the fact that it has one that will let it survive a drop into water.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Yes and you should (good IP rating also means better hardware and assembly quality). I was using 2nd hand (refurbished) samsung, 3 months later it just failed because of summer, rain, sweat ...

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Not me. I always used the phone in the rain if i needed to. It's a nice plusy, but I woundnt trust the ip rating enough to carry the phone in wet swimming trunks after swimming.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Battery life (>5000mAh) and price (<$200) comes first - long days of work, often outside, it'be nice but.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Not really, I just assume it can handle being rained on.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Sorta. I live in the Ohio Valley. It can literally be sunny one moment and the next be raining cats and dogs. I've walked out of the house and where I was standing, it was sunny, but 20 feet away it was raining. It's pretty wild.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Nope. Never had a water-related incident with any cellphone in the 20ish years I've been using them. Just not relevant to my life.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (3 children)

    I dunno about everyone else, but definitely not me.

    I don't swim and I'm not prone to dropping my phone in the toilet.

    Also, if you get even one drop of water on the screen, the touchscreen doesn't even work correctly.

    Electronic devices aren't meant to get wet in the first place.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Electronic devices aren’t meant to get wet in the first place.

    Rain exists... 👀

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Obviously, duh.

    One rain drop on your phone screen, and already shit don't work right anymore.

    This message coming from a tech that has worked on thousands of mobile devices.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Yes, but I also get into a rage about manufacturers being dicks about it. People by and large don't seem to understand the IP rating scale is in fact two largely-unrelated scales, and companies slapping IP ratings on their products use that in what I feel are underhanded ways.

    The values IPx1-IPx6 correspond to varying levels of resistance against directed streams of water. IPx7-IPx9 are degrees of resistance to submersion. The latter does not imply the former, not even a little bit.

    It is in theory entirely possible to build a device that could withstanding being put in the bottom of a swimming pool that's being slowly filled with water, but failed from the higher pressure of a small amount of water falling on it from a certain direction.

    But you still see phones listed just as "IP68", which tells you nothing. The better manufacturers will explicitly write the likes of "IP65/IP68"; showing that it reaches the 5 rating of "water jets 12.5litre/minute" but not the 6 rating of "powerful water jets 100litre/minute", but also IP67 "immersion <1 metre / <30 minutes" and IP68 "immersion >1 metre / >30 minutes".

    (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_code#Second_digit:_Liquid_ingress_protection)

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (2 children)

    This is a bit obtuse for the sake of pedantry.

    I mean, is it possible that you could build a device resistant to submersion but not splashing? Maybe?

    But this isn't "a device", this is a phone. The problems with water ingress are very specific. You have a couple of speakers, a few microphones, a sim card slot and a USB port, plus the seams for the screen and backplate. If you secured those well enough for the immersion tests they're going to be splash-resistant. If you have a way in which you can somehow have a phone screen adhesive survive being underwater for several minutes but not falling rain or being placed under a tap/hose please do share, because I can't think of one. The scenario where your speaker seals are good enough for being fully submerged but get water damaged by shooting high pressure water directly into them is so niche it's probably not worth it to further confuse people by having two different IP ratings listed.

    Plus... you know, don't be shooting water hoses directly up your phone's holes regardless? I don't see why you would in the first place, but... just don't? It's not gonna happen by accident, so it doesn't need to happen at all.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Yes and no.

    Taking advantage of the very real waterproofing of the phones I have owned (past and present), I will just wash the damn thing off under the kitchen tap if it gets dirty, which I have with one of my previous phones done with a high-pressure restaurant-sink-style spray nozzle (I was making beer, and boiling the wort kicks a lot of sticky crap into the air).

    That phone was fine afterward, and continued to work for several years after.

    Also at a more basic level, it is (at least in theory) an assurance that they actually tested the damn thing, and didn't just slap a largely meaningless (and as already noted, "bigger number better") rating on the thing, as is largely the style of our times because consumer protection is dead and regulations are meaningless.

    This is exactly the kind of should be done properly, or just not at all. Test it and rate it for the people who do care, or STFU, put the unqualified but perfectly reasonable label of "water resistant" on it, and the bulk of people who indeed do not care (or will be confused) will be no worse off than they are now.

    Anything else is just annoying.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Yeah, ok, so... don't wash your phone with a spray nozzle regardless, is going to be my advice. Wet tissue? Sure. Under the tap with light soap? If desperate. Just... don't hose your phone down, what are you doing.

    But let's be clear, IP ratings are certifications. You can still be water resistant under the conditions of the test and not have the certification for it.

    It makes perfect sense for... you know, people not using water jets on their electronics, to get just the certification that covers most real use cases (in this case the one that covers rain, accidental pool falls and the occasional toilet dunk) and communicate that. It doesn't mean your phone won't survive a bartop spray nozzle wash (which, again, you shouldn't be doing) or even that it wouldn't have gotten the IPx5/6 cert if the manufacturer had gone through the process, but it's extra cost that will only muddle how you communicate with your user.

    Are people not clear that IPx5/6 and IPx7/8 aren't on a linear scale? They are not. That's on the IEC's poor formatting of the ratings. Are manufacturers leaning on the implicit user assumption that the higher number just means more protection? Sure.

    Is it relevant/annoying/effectively problematic in real use? Not unless you're using a waterjet cutter to rinse ketchup off your phone. Which, again, don't do that, that's not a good thing to do.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    I look at it a bit but then throw it out at the same time since I've heard that they'll invalidate the warranty for water damage even if the IP rating says it should have handled it.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    People don't, but companies do.

    Company A might get a contract to do whatever thing for Company B and the contract says "all equipment brought on site by your team must be this or that or whatever IP Rating".

    It's an insurance / liability thing.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago
    [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Nope. I haven't bought anything other than a Pixel since they were known as Nexus. Originally because they were cheap, but decent, then because they were easy to tinker with, and now because it's the only phone that runs Graphene OS. If I need to buy a new phone, I just look for whichever Pixel is cheapest, and that's my new phone.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Not phone, but I definitely look at IP or Denier ratings for other things.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Nope, my current phone isn't even water resistant. It loses resistance over time anyways, so IDC.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    I won't have money to buy a water resistant phone anyways, so no.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Eh, $300 phones now have IP67

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  • [+] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)
  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Boots theory of economics. I can't afford another phone if mine gets dunked in the toilet. Can't really live in a lot of places without a smartphone these days, so you're looking at a minimum of ~$100. You can find IP67 phones on sale for ~$210 if you take the time to look.

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  • [–] -5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    These days the only thing that's remotely worth buying is a Pixel phone that's unlocked so you can get GrapheneOS.

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