Important criteria
Long-life battery – Depending on time in the field, capacity should be at least 5,000 mAh.
Robustness – Dust- and waterproof (IP68).
GPS accuracy – The more satellite systems supported, the better: GNSS (USA), GLONASS (Russia), Galileo (EU), BeiDou (China), QZSS (Japan), IRNSS (India).
Supported frequency bands – Must match regional availability (GSM, WCDMA, LTE, WiFi, Bluetooth).
Price – A good phone costs about USD 300.
Additional requirements
For on-air patrols, the CPU (SoC) and RAM need to be stronger than average:
RAM: 8 GB or higher
CPU: at least 4 GHz
For forest use, GPS accuracy may be reduced under canopy. The GPS antenna of a phone is often too weak, so we recommend linking your smartphone to a dedicated device such as the Garmin InReach Mini, which is designed for this task.
Also consider:
Camera quality
Storage capacity (at least 16 GB)