8849 has announced the Tank 3 Pro rugged smartphone featuring a projector, a massive battery, and more. This beast has so much stuffed in it that its size got out of hand, literally. If you work in harsh environments or like to go hiking, this may interest you.
A Dimensity 8200 chip powers Tank 3 Pro alongside 16GB or 18GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. You can expand the latter to 2TB via an SD card. A 6.79in FHD (2460 x 1080) 120Hz screen and 50MP selfie camera cover the front. The back houses another four lenses, including one 200MP main shooter and one 64MP night vision.
In addition to the usual smartphone features, the Tank 3 Pro incorporates reverse charging, a flashlight, Red/Blue warning lights, and even a laser range finder.
While these are nice and all, the star of the show is a digital laser processing (DLP) projector. Yep, you read that right. Unfortunately, due to its size and power budget, this projector can only handle 100 lumens. That’s not particularly bright. Generally, we’d consider 500 lumens the minimum to consider for low-lit scenarios. It might not be a home cinema replacement, but credit where it’s due: this is the first of its kind. Follow-up iterations might improve on this and prove it’s a viable feature.
To feed its power-hungry features, the Tank 3 Pro comes equipped with a massive 23,800mAh battery. For comparison, most smartphones – like the Xiaomi 13T Pro – top at around 5,000mAh. Thankfully, 8849 thought about it and added 120W fast charging support; otherwise, you’d have to wait hours to fill it back up.
The brand claims up to 38 hours of gaming, 118 hours of calls, and 75 days of standby. Are we back to the old days when you didn’t need to charge your phone each night?
Needless to say form factor goes out the window when you try to cram as much stuff as possible in one place. This bad boy, or should I say chonky boy, takes as much space as two, if not three, regular smartphones. If you like to use your phone with one hand, you better have a large paw to grasp this brick.
That said, having fewer size constraints allows 8849 to also make the Tank 3 Pro act like its namesake. Indeed, this handset is rugged and rated for drops up to 1.5m in addition to IP68 water and dust proofing. The latter is particularly interesting since it uses a dedicated cooling fan.
How much does all of this cost? Surprisingly not outlandish. A Tank 3 Pro will set you back $600 using a $50 coupon. However, this seems to simply be a launch discount as the product’s AliExpress page indicates $1,300.