In a nutshell: Doogee says its new S97 Pro flagship phone is the first to offer a rugged exterior with a built-in professional laser rangefinder. The chunky handset is chock-full of hardware, most of which is the battery, to be precise, and is otherwise made up of mid-range components such as the (non-5G) MediaTek Helio G95 chipset and a mediocre 720p display. However, it does have a tempting $329 price tag that goes into effect once the phone's week-long promotional run ends.
Chinese phone maker Doogee is no stranger to producing big batteries that also happen to have a display and other phone hardware attached to them. The N100, for instance, launched in 2019 with a massive 10,000mAh unit. That capacity has slightly shrunk in the company's latest S97 Pro , but coming in at 8,500mAh, it's still roughly twice what's available on most mainstream phones.
The S97 Pro also has another trick up its sleeve: an on-board laser rangefinder for quickly taking indoor/outdoor measurements. Located at the top, this infrared laser can be used to detect distances of up to 40m (131ft) and supports four measurement modes. These include calculating single/continuous lengths, area, volume and a 'Pythagoras' option for triangular measurements.
S97 Pro's colored sides are reminiscent of the Nokia XpressMusic series
The phone also appears to be built like a tank. Its IP68 and IP69K ratings are meant to protect against dust, water, extreme temperatures and high-pressure sprays. The internals, however, aren't as impressive as the exterior, but fairly decent in their own right. Powered by MediaTek's 8-core Helio G95, the phone features an 8GB/128GB memory configuration and supports microSD expansion of up to 256GB.
The 6.39-inch 720p LCD is nothing special, as it lacks the sharpness, picture quality and high refresh rates found in most 2021 phones. The quad-camera setup appears to be solid, though, as do other features like the 16MP front camera, side-mounted fingerprint sensor, NFC, USB-C connectivity and 33W wired/10W wireless charging.
Doogee's S97 Pro runs Android 11 out of the box and comes with several built-in 'toolbox' apps for making use of its various sensors and hardware. It's launched this week on Chinese retailer AliExpress , with a choice of three color options: Orange Tiger, Red Lava and Silver Black.