Canadian Male Seeks Outdoorsy Phone With Great Battery for Long Walks by the Beach

Canada

My current phone (probably) needs to be replaced - the screen is fairly badly cracked, and even if I do it myself I'm not sure it's worthwhile to repair a Nexus 5 at this point.

I'm looking for a phone that:

  • Is available unlocked in Canada - I'm not willing to give up my current rate plan, so I need to purchase a phone outright. Online purchases are fine, though purchasing through my carrier (SaskTel) is also technically an option.

  • Is somewhat reasonably priced. This is a little flexible, but I'm not really interested in paying a flagship premium, and anything in the 4 digits (CDN$) is a hard no. Phones with a longer service life are more valuable to me than faster phones.

  • Has a massive battery. I'd be looking for several days of light to moderate usage in airplane mode (eg, photos and GPS) or several hours of heavy use (ie, Ingress) as a baseline, and more is better. Quick charge helps, but it's not a full replacement for a great battery in my use case.

  • Reasonably rugged would be nice - I use my phone outdoors quite often under all sorts of weather conditions, so something that can take snow/rain/blown grit/occasional bumps and shrug it off would be nice.

  • Is at least as fast as my Nexus 5 (though a little extra RAM would be appreciated). I don't need a huge performance improvement over my current phone.

Size isn't a huge concern, so long as the phone is pocketable - comfortable one handed operation is nice, and all else I'd prefer a smaller but thicker device, but it's not a strong preference either way. Camera performance is also not a huge concern, as I'll break out the DSLR if I really need good photos anyways. Substantial/expandable storage is nice, but I still have 10GB free on a 32GB Nexus 5 after several years without trying, so it's not a requirement.

The Moto Play Z and the Cat S60 (which would probably live on in my life as a FLIR camera long after being replaced as a phone) have both popped up on my radar, but I'm not married to either and am certainly open to other ideas.

Posted Jul 16, 2017, 9:31 PM UTC

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