Important criteria:

  1. Long Life Battery. Depending on the time in the field, it should have a capacity of at least 5000 mAh
  2. Robustness. Dust and water prove (IP68)
  3. GPS accuracy. More is better: GNSS (USA), GLONASS (Russia), Galileo (EU), BeiDou (China), QZSS (Japan), IRNSS (India)
  4. Supported frequency bands: Match regional availabilities (type of GSM, WCDMA, LTE, WiFi, Bluetooth)  
  5. Price. A good phone costs costs about 300 USD. 


When used 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


When used in the forest you may experience problems with determining your location. The GPS-antenna of your phone is often too weak to perform well under a canopy. Hence, we  advise you to link your smartphone to a Garmin device, such as a Garmin Inreach Mini, which is specially designed for that task. 


Also pay attention to the camera, storage capacity (at least 16Gb), and screen contrast (reading in the bright sun).