When I met Bob Plaschke, top chap at Sonim Technologies, a few weeks ago, he arrived with two JCB Toughphones. One was for me to play about with — a review unit — the other was for me to smash.
I smiled when he arrived. Anyone else would have done a fake smile, I think — me, I was far too concerned about the possibility of trying to smash a handset (especially with it’s ultimate owner sat opposite me). Sacrilege.
You couldn’t meet a nicer chap than Bob, which made it doubly hard to walk out into the forecourt of the Four Seasons in Palo Alto and have a go at trying to smash up the world’s premiere unsmashable handset. Egged on by Bob, I took threw the handset about 5 ft in the air and made a stupidly girly face whilst I waited for it to hit the cobbled stones.
Nothing.
The handset bounced once or twice and came to a rest.
“Right,” exclaimed Bob, “Switch it on, let’s try it out…”
A few seconds later, the JCB had switched on and was operational.
“That’s fantastic,” I said, astounded at the solid nature of the handset as I made to walk back into the hotel.
“Ok, but really throw it this time,” ordered Bob, handing me back the device.
I did a blank look at him. We’d proved the point. The device worked.
But Bob — correctly — wasn’t having any of that.
“REALLY throw it. I mean REALLY — as hard as you can, I want you to break this one, it’s excellent feedback for our team,” he instructed.
I’m firmly from the school of thought that every time you kill a handset like I’d been trying to do here, a small cute fairy dies somewhere — so this is difficult work for me.
Bellhops, the ladies on reception and the diners at the Four Seasons restaurant were all peering out at me as I took another step forward and three the JCB handset about… what… 45 feet in the air.
It landed with a sickening smashing.
I closed my eyes, expecting Bob to utter a few phrases like, “Er, well… well done…”
Opened my eyes.
No, there it was. Sat on the stone floor, fine. Turned it on. Geez, it’s solid.
“So, no messing about this time Ewan, really, really throw it…” Bob says, as he hands me back the handset.
I’m contemplating just how far I can throw the JCB as Bob starts hunting around for something to slam the handset into that might actually cause some damage.
Determined not to let the viewing public at the Four Seasons down, I summoned a considerable amount of strength and threw the handset as hard and as fast as I could up into the air.
I still couldn’t watch it hit the floor.
It landed — and this time — ah hah! Result!
After an eighty feet fall (I think it must have been about 80ft, I didn’t measure it), the handset came spinning down and smashed open.
“Oh arse,” I thought, thinking of a little fairy popping out of existence.
“Hmm let me see,” says Bob, pouring over the handset’s casing, eager to see exactly what happened. I note that the device itself is perfectly fine apart from mild scratching of the plastic sides (”that rubs off, look,” demonstrates Bob). I look to the floor and see that the battery and it’s casing were on the floor.
“Ah yes,” says Bob, “See here, it came down with such force that the little latch we use to keep the battery in place broke,” he continues, “But the phone will still work fine, watch.”
You know how if you drop your Nokia N95 on a hard floor from about 2ft — if it falls from a desk or something — and it smashes open — battery, battery compartment and device? That’s what happened. Only this was from 80ft. And the device still worked fine.
“We identified that vulnerability a while ago,” says Bob, busy putting the battery and case back on, “It’s already fixed in the next version.”
Wow.
A few seconds later, the JCB screen lights up and it’s making a call. Amazing stuff.
“Ok, again,” says Bob, “I want to prove to you that this thing is indestructible!”
100ft. 150ft lob. Slamming on the ground as hard as possible. All fine.
“Blender?” I asked.
“We tried that,” Bob grins, “But the handset broke it.”
“Car?”
“Fine. Anything. A tank, if you’ve got one.”
Er. No tanks spare that I could see in Palo Alto, so I took Bob’s word for it. I believe him too.
The handset operates in all sorts of conditions and copes with nearly everything your general sane individual can throw at it. (I’m talking temperature, heat, dropping and so on — not chainsaws and incinerators). This model, the XP1, is even splash proof. There’s another one coming out soon, Bob tells me, that will be entirely waterproof to some ridiculous level. And it’ll float.
Who will buy one? Apart from ultra geeks like me? Well, lots of people who don’t want their regular handset to break at the slightest hint of mistreatment: Builders, sailors, adventure enthusiasts, skiers…
… speaking of which… I’m in Tahoe right now. Outside the mighty Lake Tahoe stretches away — a pale blue expanse of 700 year old water, surrounded by lots and lots of mountains. All of which have snow on them.
So I’m taking the JCB skiing with me. I’m going to subject it to the elements — and I’m going to make a call with it from the top of the mountain and see how it performs.
More shortly.
I love books about pranks, scams, bar bets, and cons. Not because I want to cheat people, but because scams and cons are a fascinating way to look at human nature. Sucker bets reveal our natural tendencies to be gullible, greedy, sympathetic, friendly, and suspicious.
John Scalzi and Tor are making his groundbreaking novel 
