Smartphones that Don’t Fear Water

Vacations and road trips can be a great way to relax from your hectic schedule and—with the advent of social media—no matter where you go your smartphones goes with you. But we are not always headed to places which are dry as a bone. Sometimes you may head to a pool or a wet and damp place with lots of rain. And when that happens you know you cannot really enjoy yourself knowing your phone may or may not survive the water.

Manufacturers understand this and have slowly started incorporating ways to protect your phone against minor spills and even larger dunks into the water. Hence, manufacturers started rating their phones with IP (Ingress Protection) which rates each phone against intrusion by dust and water. In this, IP68 rated phones can be dunked underwater for up to 30 minutes and sand and other debris is prevented from entering inside the phone and damaging it.

Here are a few facts to remember about IP ratings:

• The ratings are given for fresh water only, dip your phone in salt water and your phone will meet its maker.
• No phone is truly waterproof as they can be protected from water for only a short time. General weathering and wear and tear can reduce your phone’s water resistance.
• Another little factoid is that the IP ratings are not cumulative, which means the IP68 rated phone has not gone through the tests for IP65—which is awarded to phones that have protection from waterjet sprays. If a phone has gone through both immersion and jet sprays it will have two IP ratings like the Sony XZ3 mentioned below.
• No phone makers provide warranty coverage against liquid damage no matter what the IP rating

So, if you have butter fingers and are around water a lot do check out the phones mentioned below.

iPhone XS and XS Max

As one of the most expensive smartphones in the market, the iPhone has full IP68 water protection, which means you can dip it in water up to 1.5 meters for around 30 minutes and it’ll survive it without any issues. Your precious iPhone also has protection again harmful dust entry so even if you are in a sandy area your phone should not have any issues. The newer iPhones are in fact an improvement over the iPhone X which had only IP67 (submersible in water up to 1m for 30minutes). What that means in all is that you can use the lovely dual sensor camera and high-quality video recording on the iPhone XS and XS Max to capture some truly great moments in the rains or in the pool.

Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL

In the smartphone industry today, almost all the flagships carry water resistance ratings and Google too has them on the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL. Both these phones feature IP68 protection and can withstand the same things as the iPhone XS and XS Max. What this means is you can chill in the pool clicking some great pics from the Pixels highly revered camera without having to worry about water entering into your phone and damaging it.

Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+

Samsung for a long time has been known for its innovations in software as well as hardware. Their innovations in the processor, display, battery, camera and more have helped shape the smartphone industry that we know today, and waterproofing was something they added to their phones way back in 2013 with the Samsung Galaxy S5. At that time Apple probably had no idea about waterproofing! So, it’s only natural that the latest generation of the S series, the S9 and S9+ have IP68 protection. Add in the innovative dual aperture rear camera on the S9+ and the gorgeous double curved Super AMOLED panel and your holidays are going to be that much better, come rain, shine or darkness.

Samsung Galaxy Note 9

The Galaxy Note 9 is another flagship from Samsung geared towards productivity and creativity and this too comes with class-leading IP68 protection. The Note 9 comes with a beefy processor, a liquid cooling strip, one of the best displays in the industry, a large 4000mAh battery and an active stylus. If you have to juggle between work and play, there’s nothing better than the Samsung Note 9.

LG G7 ThinQ

In the league of flagship phones, LG has carved a niche for itself with some truly unique features. The G7 ThinQ does a lot to really give its customers what they truly want like the headphone jack and Quad DAC, at a time when most manufacturers have ditched it. A wide-angle camera along with a regular one when most are using depth sensors and of course the super bright S-LCD display that goes all the way up to 1000 nits. Add in the IP68 protection and it is on par with all the other flagship despite the much lower price tag.

HTC U12+

Despite HTC’s lackluster performance in the past couple of months, their latest offering the HTC U12+ comes with some cool tricks up its sleeve. First, there is the translucent body, the dual front and rear cameras, capacitive buttons and the innovative edge sense feature that lets you squeeze the frame of the phone to perform certain tasks. But the feature that takes it to great depths is the IP68 protection that gives it the same level of water and dust protection as the others on the list.

Sony XZ3

As one of the first smartphone makers to launch a phone with waterproofing (Xperia Z) way back in 2013, Sony surely knows a thing or two about waterproofing. If you look closely at the IP rating of all the phones mentioned above, they have an IP68 rating which means you can dunk it in water for a certain time but that’s it. With an IP65 and IP68, the Sony XZ3 cannot just survive dips in a water pool but also can take jets of water at 30 kPa from a distance of 3 m. Making it truly one of the most wwater-resistantphones in the market.

Moto X4

Motorola has in the past couple of years given a basic splash protection to almost all the phones that they have. They did, however, launch the last version of the Moto X in a full-blown IP68 protected avatar. Priced a lot cheaper than all the flagships in we talked about and with a compact design when compared to the current generation of phones. With a shiny glass body, 5.2-inch screen, dual cameras with a wide angle and the classic Moto features the X4 is a rarity in its class.

Unihertz Atom

The Unihertz Atom is for people who think the X4 is large and with its 2.4-inch display, the Atom is truly Atom sized, but stronger than you expect. There is a TPU-like material enclosure for the phone with chunky bezels and a full IP68 rating, forget water, this phone can survive any harsh terrain and yes, the specs are not bad for the size with 4 GB of RAM, 64GB storage and an octa-core processor.

These are some of the coolest phones with IP68 water resistance. So, go out into the wild with any one of these and capture some great moments. Comment down below if you know about any other phones which have waterproofing and still look good.