I tested the Oukitel WP200 Pro and it's a curiously compelling blend of a phone, earpiece, and smartwatch

Oukitel WP200 Pro: 30-second review

Oukitel is one of the Chinese rugged phone makers that doesn’t follow the crowd, and the WP200 Pro is certainly a design that stands out as being distinctly alternative.

At close to $600, this phone is a premium-priced rugged design that’s certified for both IP68 and IP69K, enabling it to cope with being submerged for thirty minutes at a depth of 1.5M.

It sports a large OLED screen with a fingerprint sensor under the glass and an impact-resistant case that should easily shrug off being dropped.

However, many phones offer these features, but relatively few have 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage linked to an exceptionally powerful MediaTek Dimensity 8200 Soc. That gives the WP200 Pro plenty of power for even the most demanding applications and sufficient storage for hours of 4K video to be captured using the 108MP rear sensor.

But the other unique feature is a module that fits into the rear of the phone to provide a small display that can be detached. Once removed, it can be used as a Bluetooth earpiece (for one ear) or inserted into the included watch strap to become a smartwatch.

Depending on how you feel about secret gadgets, this module is something we’ve not previously seen, even if it might be considered a gimmick. And for the power and storage of this phone alone, it’s one of the best rugged phones I’ve reviewed.

Oukitel WP200 Pro: price and availability

• How much does it cost? $599/£599/€479
• When is it out? Available now in Europe and Asia
• Where can you get it? Available outside the USA from online retailers

Bought from the maker’s own website, the WP200 Pro is $599 or £599, which seems a better deal for American customers.

It can also be found on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

Over on AliExpress, it goes for about £25 less for UK customers, but the dollar prices are higher than those from Oukitel.

That asking price makes it over $100 more than the Unihertz Tank 3 Pro, but it has more RAM, double the storage, and a unique smartwatch feature.

As Chinese-made rugged designs go, this is one of the most expensive, but there is a valid argument that, given what the maker included in the phone, the cost is probably reasonable.

For those who prefer a specific colour scheme, the phone is available in Black, Grey, and Green.

• Value score: 3.5/5

Oukitel WP200 Pro: Specs

Oukitel WP200 Pro: design

• Big and thick
• Smartwatch module
• Lacks documentation

The design of the WP200 Pro is at the same time elegant and refined, and yet imbued with the grace of a sledgehammer.

The main metal-banded chassis is large but comfortable to hold, mostly due to the sloped sides and the dimpled texture over the underside. The buttons are large and easy to locate without seeing them, and the SIM tray is removable with a fingernail rather than needing a tool.

What slightly ruins the aesthetics of this model is the huge camera cluster projection, which stands so proud of the underside that it increases the thickness from 14.5mm to over 21mm.

There is a reason why this sticks out so much that we’ll get to it shortly, but with such a big projection on the underside, it was always going to be impractical to have wireless charging on this phone.

It is so thick because in the middle is a removable module that’s more than 12mm deep, and when this is removed, it leaves a deep recess in the back of the phone.

When in place, the basic function of the module is to provide a small secondary display which can be accessed by tapping on it. You can use some of the other mini-apps on it, but most of them are designed to work when the module is removed.

Once away from the phone, the module has two modes, the first being a single-ear Bluetooth earpiece and microphone, and the second being a Smartwatch when inserted into a provided watch strap.

The earpiece aspect of this hardware works reasonably well, if it will stay in your ear, and the watch has some near features that enable it to help you worry about getting enough sleep, or if you’ve taken enough steps.

However, I had issues with this device’s Smartwatch concept, which started with the complete lack of any documentation included with the phone (or online) about how it is meant to work and what features on the phone need to be active for some parts to function.

Obviously, Bluetooth needs to be on for the earpiece to work, and the device needs to be paired, but that’s not enough for the Smartwatch.

Without documentation, most users will assume that there is an app on the phone that can set the watch dial or link the module to the phone when snug in its recharging receptacle on the back of the WP200 Pro, but there is none.

Some features I will eventually got to work by trial and error, but launching something this complex without any documentation will frustrate many customers intensely.

And if they’re a large person, like our reviewer today, then even when provided with instructions, the watch isn’t a practical device. Why? Because the watch strap doesn’t fit around my wrist.

What irks me most about this mess is that Oukitel engineers did some sterling work designing the module, including how it fits into the phone and the technology inside it. But it appears the person charged with communicating to the buying public how it might work or cope with oversized western wrists, went on holiday or left to farm llamas.

Therefore, the epic engineering effort is trashed due to their inability to fully execute.

One last point on the module. A blank insert might have been nice to include, so if you use it away from the phone, it doesn’t leave a massive hole in the WP200 Pro.

Design score: 4/5

Oukitel WP200 Pro: hardware

• MediaTek Dimensity 8200
• Nice AMOLED display
• 8800 mAh battery

When I first started reviewing rugged phones, MediaTek was the cheap option Chinese makers relied on to avoid paying Samsung or Qualcomm excessive money for a decent SoC.

This business turns out products like the Dimensity 8200, a powerhouse SoC with 5G comms and a powerful Mali-G610 MP6 GPU. It even has an incredible neural networking processor for AI tasks. This same SoC appeared in the Unihertz Tank Pad 8849 tablet and a host of other phone designs.

Another high-end feature is the display, a 6.7-inch Super AMOLED panel with a resolution of 1080 x 2412 pixels. Initially, I assumed this was the same panel as that in the Samsung A56, but the resolution is slightly different, and the one used in the WP200 Pro is dramatically darker. Where the A56 screen is rated for 1200 nits, the WP200 Pro backlight only puts out 500 nits, making this screen much more challenging to read outdoors.

As you expect with OLED technology, the colours are intense, and the display is exceptionally sharp, but this one could be brighter.

The last hardware feature I’d like to talk about is the battery, which in this phone has a substantial 8800 mAh capacity. Having that much battery life is helpful if you are trekking or away from power, and as I’ll talk about later, the extended running time is counted in days.

However, it does increase the weight and bulk of this device, and there are many ways to extend operational time that don’t need a battery this big.

My issue with this battery is that it doesn’t recharge quickly. Therefore, if you wake up and realise that you forgot to recharge overnight, there isn’t enough time to grab much capacity before work. While Oukitel did include a 45w charger, this phone needed a 66w or even greater to get enough capacity onboard quickly.

• Hardware score: 4/5

Oukitel WP200 Pro: cameras

• 108MP, 2MP and 0.3MP sensors on the rear
• 32MP on the front
• Four cameras in total

The Oukitel WP200 Pro has four cameras:

Rear camera: 108MP Samsung S5KHM6SX , 2MP Macro, 0.3MP depth
Front camera: 32MP Sony IMX615-AAJH5-C

Outkitel went all-in on the primary 108MP Samsung S5KHM6SX, a sensor that first appeared in 2022. This, according to Samsung, is a 1/1.67-inch format, 108 MP class stacked imager featuring 0.64 µm pixel pitch, ISOCELL 2.0 pixels, and Nonacell Bayer RGB colour filters.

Having 108 megapixels allows the sensor to be used to either take incredibly detailed images or to pixel-bin intensively to deliver accurate colours and HDR contrast.

And, as you can see from the examples, especially in outdoor lighting, it can capture great results, even if occasionally the focus system appears to prioritise the wrong object in the scene.

However, there is no optical zoom, and the digital zoom jumps are abrupt. There are no wide or telephone sensors, and the secondary sensors on the rear are a horribly soft 2 MP Macro sensor, and 0.3 MP sensor for creating depth separation. That leaves the SK5K doing all the heavy lifting, though Oukitel did at least make some use of its features with the camera application. That tool sports a full PRO mode for manual control, and it will do timelapse, slow-motion, nightviews and panoramas.

In the right conditions, the pictures it captures are fine, though hardly exceptional. But at this price, and with the physical thickness of the phone, why it doesn’t have telephoto optics is a mystery.

The use of the 32 MP Sony IMX615 sensor for the front-facing camera is overkill since the camera app only enables it to capture 1080p video. Why 32 megapixels are needed for 1080p video is another mystery, but this sensor can still take good-quality images for those who like to admire themselves digitally.

As is my predilection, I will mention that this phone doesn’t have Widevine L1 video encryption, only L3, meaning that if you stream using one of the bigger services like Netflix or Disney+, it will only offer 480p resolution streams, even if 5G comms connect you.

Oukitel WP200 Pro Camera samples

• Camera score: 3.5/5

Oukitel WP200 Pro: performance

• Powerful SoC
• GPU is game-friendly
• Big battery
• Three days on battery

Testing the Oukitel WP200 Pro was more challenging than I’d anticipated, mostly because two of the critical applications used it refused to install from Google. Neither PCMark nor 3Dmark were available through the app store for this device.

Eventually, I managed to force both apps on the phone by sideloading.

However, even with the limited testing available, it became obvious that this phone and its Dimensity 8200 SoC are substantially more powerful than most chips in rugged designs. The exception is the Samsung A56 that I recently reviewed and its Exynos 1580 CPU, which you can see is even more punchy as a computing platform.

Where the WP200 Pro leads the Samsung phone in graphical tests, as the Mali-G610 MP6 can truly shine. The 3Dmark application must be updated, as it can’t test phones this powerful.

The PCMark results were interesting since the score is slightly lower than the A56. A deeper dive revealed that while the processing power of the WP200 Pro is great, the UFS4.x memory model isn’t as fast as that in the Samsung phone. But, it is still a close result.

Considering how much more battery capacity the Oukitel has, I’d have expected it to last longer on 8,800mAh. That’s 76% more battery, but only 49% of extra running time.

Despite this, the 21 hours and 27 minutes result strongly suggests that this device should be capable of at least three working days of use, if not breaking into a fourth day.

Another performance-related subject to mention is that the 24GB of memory quoted isn’t the amount when some storage is mapped into the RAM space, but the actual memory. You can still use mapping if you wish, and then the RAM capacity displayed is more than 70GB!

Having 1TB of storage seems overkill, but you can use a MicroSD card in one of the SIM card slots and boost that by another 1.5TB. Unless you capture excessive amounts of 4K video, or wish to carry all the Star Trek episodes ever made with you, 2.5TB does seem like enough for the typical business user.

The only caveat of having a battery this big, which isn’t the largest that I’ve seen on a rugged phone, is how long it takes to recharge. Oukitel does include a 45w charger in the box, and it can recharge from empty to full in about 4.5 hours, but it’s not a design that can recover much capacity quickly.

• Performance score: 4/5

Oukitel WP200 Pro: Final verdict

There are aspects of this design that are excellent and that people will love. These include the unfussed Android 15 distro, the massive amounts of memory and storage, the decent camera and the performance of the Dimensity 8200.

Opinions might be more divided around the smartwatch module, which, without proper documentation and management tools, seems a hurried afterthought.

That mine arrived set to Chinese, something that didn’t change when it was connected to the phone with another language set, which points to a lack of circular thinking in its inception.

I won’t complain too much about the watch strap not fitting me, since it would probably work with more people than not.

The biggest issue with the WP200 Pro is undoubtedly the price, since this asking amount is way beyond what people might pay for an adventure holiday phone. If the smartwatch part had been better considered and less of a work-in-progress, it might have been worth it, but only if you don’t want to pick your own accessories.

Ironically, without the smartphone part, this exact phone might be an excellent device if it were priced below $500.

Should I buy a Oukitel WP200 Pro?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

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