Review: I drove over the DOOGEE S200 10,100mAh night vision phone, no cats were harmed

There are plenty of options if you are shopping around for a rugged smartphone today, today I have one of these in to share details about and my experience with it having been chucking it about for the last few weeks.

DOOGEE's official product page highlights many of the S200's key features, such as the 100MP main camera capable of what they claim to be astonishing detail, although no module details of the sensor used is available, and the fact that it has no HDR+, OIS or 4K 60fps support means the results are not the greatest but are simply above average.

That's not to say everything about the S200 is painted with a bit of a skew, because much of its specifications and credits are legitimate. It is IPX rated up to the 69K standard which protects against high pressure dust and water ingress, although the water submersion times remain the same as all other IP68 phones whereby the manufacturer states 1.5m submersion for up to 30 minutes.

Even though DOOGEE mentions that the S200 has an "underwater camera", I would edge on the side of caution from using it as one.

Here are the most important specifications:

Construction

Here's the thing, the S200 is claimed to comply with IP68 and IP69K, the former applies to water and dust resistance from light exposure to water and dust, low pressure only, whilst the 69K variant applies to high pressure and high temperature jets.

On top of that, the S200 is also in compliance with the MIL-810H standard which is governed by a set of testing methods to determine if a piece of equipment can be used in extreme environments. Keystone Compliance lists out what these tests comprise of here, but in short, they are quite extensive and any smartphone listing MIL-810 standards compliance would surely inspire the highest confidence and perhaps even sway a buying decision, right? More on this in the torture test section of the review later.

The screen is surrounded by thick layers of impact resisting rubber and multiple metal-alloy panels, the side buttons feel tactile and robust, and everything about the S200 feels and looks like you could throw it at a brick wall, and it would be fine.

My immediate concern was that the screen to mid-frame lip ratio was rather tiny, the frame lip is rubberised and because it's so thin above the screen, any impact would compress the rubber putting the excess pressure onto the screen, this was something I wanted to put to the test in a meaningful way, and sadly my concern was only affirmed by the outcome as you will see shortly.

The USB-C port is covered by a rubber gasket which can be detached via the screw to the right should you not wish to use it. It is not clear if the USB port is sealed already negating the need for the flap, or if the flap just adds additional protection.

To give you an idea of how thick the rugged frame and panels are, here's my Pixel 9 Pro XL next to the S200. Both phones have similar screen sizes, just look at those bezels! Of course, the extra size has to accommodate the battery which is over twice as large as the pixel's, but even still, it is an absolute unit.

A side profile probably best shows the visual difference in thickness, all that metal and rubber does inspire confidence and in basic drop tests I was unable to even scuff the surface, so this complies with its rugged credentials.

Corning's Gorilla Glass features on the S200, too, though it is not clear which version. Under my finger it doesn't feel like Victus or equivalent as found on phones from Samsung, for example, but this could also be because this is an IPS LCD and the top layer has to feel a certain way. It's been many years since I last used an LCD panel smartphone I must admit.

Features

I want to talk about two unique features on the S200, the rear facing screen and the night vision IR camera. Both of which initially sound like gimmicks, but they do have their uses.

First, the rear OLED touchscreen, it can be customised using the Mini Screen page under system settings. It also serves as a quick way to check notifications and use as a camera viewfinder (as shown above). I personally found no real need to use the screen for anything other than display memes when the phone was flipped over.

Though I can see how others would have specific use cases for it, and it uses very little extra power, not that it would be an issue given the massive battery inside anyway.

And then we have the night vision camera. The lower right area of the lens array contains two IR emitters that throw enough light forwards to illuminate a whole room effectively, though anything beyond that is less visible in photos and videos, and that combined with the lower quality of recorded videos, makes the output quite hard to discern object details that are about 20 feet away.

Still, the quality is good enough to use to see in the dark and it could serve some uses such as situations where using the LED flashlight is not ideal, though honestly I spent days trying to come up with situations where this sort of camera might come in handy in normal situations and could not think of anything other than a cool feature to show off to friends - That in itself might be enough to sway many, though!

One thing I did want to try out but cannot find, is attaching it to a Google Cardboard and using it as night vision goggles. That might have been fun for a bit.

The fingerprint scanner is a highlight feature, too. With many phones in the mid-range class using optical under-screen readers, it's nice to see the S200 using a fast reader which is side mounted.

Just gently resting my finger on it results in the screen unlocking, and a nice touch is that you can customise actions based on this reader, which is also a physical button, actions like what happens when you tap and hold the reader only.

DOOGEE OS

The S200 comes with Android 14, and as mentioned in the DX10 review, DOOGEE only offer 1 year of support,. which means the chance of getting Andorid 15 on the S200 is hjighly unlikely, along with future security updates after the year of support is up.

Named DOOGEE OS 4, this lightly ksinned version of Android 14 is essentially stock Android with some additional features added on top, such as the mini screen features and toolbox applications.

There is very minimal bloat and the usability and feel/performance was exactly what I experience when using any other modern Android phone.

There are no slowdowns or apps closing in the background, the memory expansion feature is enabled by default giving a total of 32GB of RAM (12GB physical, 20GB expanded), though this can be turned off as at no point did I experience all 12GB being consumed.

If you have used a modern Android phone from google, Sony, or any of the other brands out there, then things will feel right at home.

Performance

I touched on general OS performance above, but what's it like for app usage and some heavier work? The Dimensity 7050 is not the flagship SoC yet can still hold its own I'd say.

It isn't a chipset designed for gaming, but you can certainly play games on it, maybe not the more demanding games at a locked 60fps, but with 10,100mAh of battery reserve, a whole day of gaming is possible on this, especially for those using things like Steam Link or emulation.

Using the camera is the only place I found that the mid-range processing speed and general performance to be affected, it's not as quick as higher end phones that is for sure, but it's not entirely bad either. Mainly because the image processing is minimal, probably due to the lack of advanced features available in this performance class.

Using DevCheck to monitor resource usage showed that DOOGEE OS 4 was doing a fine job of handling memory management as well as keeping background apps active instead of killing them in the name of battery savings.

Camera

Compared to other phones, the camera optics on the back are relatively tiny, above is a comparison against the Pixel 9 series where you can see the massive difference in internal optics size vs the DOOGEE's glass lens elements.

Even though it uses 100MP sensor for the primary camera, the optics visually sets an expectation which is then confirmed after using it.

In normal lighting conditions it does an alright job, compared to the Pixel 9''s primary shooter the colours are less vibrant, and fine detail is less sharp, but overall it does fine.

It's when you get to more complex light where the sensor, optics and processing combination are no match for phones with more focus on the camera.

The above demonstrates what I mean, the pebbled beach has not been captured with enough dynamic range to then process an even output image.

Moving onto the night vision camera, and as I noted before, whilst it is great indoors, it doesn't really hold up at a distance, for example, here is a shot using the night vision mode compared to the Pixel's Night Sight mode, these were both taken hand-held:

Night vision indoors fares much better of course, but once again it's no match for night mode if there is any ambient light coming into the scene:

For this shot I included some exposure settings to show just how much more advanced Night Sight is when the relative exposures are close enough between both phones accounting for the difference in ISO.

Battery

With 10,100mAh, I never once had the need to even think about charging, where other phones need a top up once a day, this can go on for an entire weekend on a single charge. Okay it isn't a flagship SoC under the housing or a bright OLED panel that drains the battery, but what the S200 is capable of in terms of battery efficiency and sheer capacity deserves an honourable mention,

This is a genuine 2-3 day phone all things considered. I even used my 5G SIM for a short while and saw very little dent in the battery life, though I guess this is to be expected when you brute force your way through in this way with high capacity.

Torture test

Something a little unorthodox for a change, and given that DOOGEE promote the MIL-810 standards compliance for their rugged phones, it only made sense to go one step beyond and see if it can withstand being driven over in what could easily happen to any phone if it slipped out of a pocket without realising or just fell out of the hand and onto a road to then be driven over by a car.

Yes, this test is rather extreme, but then again, the MIL-810 standard of compliance tests is also quite extreme. A device should be able to withstand the vibration from gunfire, for example. A full list of tests for the standard can be viewed here at the Keystone Compliance website.

Whilst the S200 's screen did not survive this test, the rest of the phone did. The test demonstrated a weak point at the top of the screen where the earpiece grille and camera cutout are, and that the rubberised frame's lip is simply too small as the compression pressure from the tyre meant there wasn't enough frame lip to compress which then transferred the pressure to the top area of the screen.

I suspect that had there been more lip, even a few more mm, that this test would have been a pass. Other rugged phones have bigger lips flanking the entire screen, and the S200 has merely ~1mm of lip, if even that.

A DIY screen replacement will bring closure for this test, at least.

Conclusion

The S200 is a fine phone at a great price. There aren't many like it with this combination of features. Whilst the MIL-810 and rugged credentials may not satisfy everyone, especially those working in industrial locations where the phone may be subjected to harsher and less-controlled conditions than being slowly driven over by a car tyre.

I should highlight that other phones can be put into one of those armour style rugged cases which could get the same level of impact/pressure protection, if not better, thanks to much thicken frame lips absorbing much tougher impacts and pressure.

DOOGEE has implemented Android 14 nicely here, too, with smooth animations and slick response times from the 120Hz screen and no real sign of bloatware coming pre-installed.

My only real concern would be future updates, and whilst the S200 has had two OTA updates during my time of review, what this looks like a year after launch remains to be seen, as many brands in this price segment forget about older models within a year or two sadly.

A good phone that can withstand most of the abuse thrown at it, a genuine 2-day battery life, if not more, an above average camera for the most part and only lacking in areas that would have benefited greatly, such as not having wireless charging, or a true fast wired charging standard, as 33W will still take hours to fully charge a 10,100mAh battery.

I can recomend the S200 but that recommendation comes with some caveats. If you intend to keep the phone for a few years then you'd need to bear in mind future updates after the first year will likely not happen. On top of that the camera and LCD panels won't be competing with even midrange phones from bigger brands like Samsung, Sony or Google. Even Xiaomi and OPPO have higher camera quality and performance.

But at this price point, the S200 offers enough to hold interest I think, and for that reason it is a very good phone for its intended purpose, without going too extreme.

Although the MSRP of the DOOGEE S200 is $429.99, it can be picked up on Amazon at 21% off for $339.99 (at the time of writing) or for $399.99 at the official DOOGEE website.