I don’t know if it rains more consistently in damp Britannia than in any other country of the world, but it certainly feels like it.
Rain clouds seem to be constantly lurking on the periphery of the sky, ready to pounce with a change in the wind and dowse us with their soddening goodness, even during the sunniest of summer days; or maybe that’s just how I picture it having been born and raised in the never-ending monsoon that is Manchester.
But downpours don’t just drench us, they saturate our smart devices too, along with creating whopping great puddles of certain smartphone death if they accidentally enter them. Which is why, back in 2013, Sony got sick of people having to pay out for new phones after they dropped them in the sink, put them in the washing machine and, yes, fumbled them into the lavatory bowl while doing, well, let’s not speculate on that horror, and went ahead and released the Xperia Z, the world’s first water-resistant smartphone.
After that rain-beating revelation, many other manufacturers got on-board with the idea and we started to see ever more smartblowers coming IP67 and IP68 rated.
What are IP ratings?
So, what does that mean? Well, in a nutshell, an IP code is how well a device can resist dust and water. In the case of IP67, a smartphone can survive being dunked at up to one metre deep for up to half an hour. In the case of IP68, that increases to a depth of up to 1.5-metres for half an hour.
Obviously, then, if you’re the kind of person forever letting your smartphone slip into particularly damp patches, you’re going to want to look for an IP68 rating, especially if your day-to-day adventures involve swimming pools and/or rivers.
As such, I’ve gathered together a veritable A-Team of IP68 options to keep your smartphone-contained stuff safe from a soaking.
Best water-resistant smartphones at a glance:
- Best for water-resistance without eye-watering cost: Motorola Edge 40 - £530, Amazon
- Best for ultimate Apple action underwater: iPhone 14 Pro - £1,034.99, Amazon
- Best for water-withstanding and elephantine images: Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra - £1,159, Samsung
- Best for sub-£1000 submersible: Google Pixel 7 Pro - £849, John Lewis
- Best for overall indestructibility: Nokia XR21 - £460, Amazon
- Best for going deeper for (a bit) longer: CAT S75 - £539.99, Clove Technology
Best travel cameras to upgrade your holiday snaps
Best trustworthy sites to buy refurbished tech online in the UK
Best rugged smartphones for 2023: Tough tech to tackle anything
Best gaming phones 2022: The top mobiles for games tried and tested
Best budget smartphones that don’t miss out on functionality
Best mobile phones for elderly people that keep things simple
Motorola Edge 40
Best for: Water-resistance without eye-watering cost
Launched in the UK back in April, Motorola’s latest addition to its Edge range is a particularly slick looking number with a very vibrant 6.55-inch display coated in glorious Corning Gorilla Glass and an IP68 rating which means it can survive up to 30-minutes at a depth of 1.5-metres beneath the waves.
Running on the most recent iteration of Android, the Edge 40 features a powerful MediaTek Dimensity 8020 chipset giving flawless fast action, backed by a nicely spacious 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM.
Camera-wise, you get a 50-megapixel snapper round the back and a generous 32GB selfie-taker up front, so all your captured images will be stunningly sharp and, yes, you can take pics underwater too, while its dual stereo speakers come tuned by Dolby Atmos, so you can be assured of superior sound when back on dry land.
A beefy 4400mAh battery gives around a day’s life, depending on how you use it, obviously, but with a 144Hz refresh rate and HDR playback at your disposal, you’re probably going to use it quite heavily.
A decidedly sexy smartphone that comes with a sandblasted aluminium frame and in ‘Eclipse Black’, ‘Nebula Green’, ‘Lunar Blue’ or ‘Viva Magenta’ colour finishes, watching this drown before your teary eyes would be devastating, but thanks to that IP68 rating, that’s not something you need to worry about.
OS: Android 13
Display: 6.55-inch FHD+, 2400 x 1080-pixels
Glass: Corning Gorilla Glass V5
Chipset: MediaTek Dimensity 8020
Memory: 256GB
RAM: 8GB
Main camera: 50MP (main) and 32MP (front)
Protection rating: IP68
Weight: 171g
Buy now £530.00, Amazon
iPhone 14 Pro
Best for: Ultimate Apple action underwater
There are a variety of iPhones to choose from, all of which features some form of water-resistance rating, but the big gun in Apple’s arsenal is the iPhone 14 Pro.
Available with a 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR display (or 6.7-inches in the case of the 14 Pro Max) covered in Corning-made glass, this iPhone takes the brightness, colour and contrast of images and video to a whole new height, and the120Hz refresh rate makes it great for gaming.
Powered by Apple’s mighty A16 Bionic chip, the 14Pro is lightning fast without ever becoming over keen and opening apps you only finger-glanced by accident. With a 48-megapixel rear camera and 12MP front-facer and blessed with an entire array of photo and video backing technologies, whatever you shoot with this will come out clear, sharp and densely detailed.
It is great for anyone with a penchant for the pool or a love of lakes as, rated at IP68, according to Apple and IEC Standard 60529, the 14 Pro can actually survive a rather remarkable 30-minutes underwater at depth of up to – wait for it – a staggering six-metres! What’s more, some of that taking piccies tech I alluded to mere moments ago is particularly geared towards helping you get the best sub-aqua snaps, which will make for far more interesting images to, ahem, splash on social media.
I’m an Android man, myself, and I have been for the past 12 or 13 years, but if anything could tempt me over to Apple instead, it’d be this.
OS: iOS
Display: 6.1- or 6.7-inch Super Retina XDR display
Glass: Corning-made
Chipset: A16 Bionic
Memory: 128GB to 1TB
RAM: 6GB
Camera: 48MP (main) and 12MP (front)
Protection rating: IP68
Weight: 206g
Buy now £1034.99, Amazon
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra
Best for: Water-withstanding and elephantine images
I’m an Android man and, more specifically, I’m a Samsung Galaxy S Android man, having had nothing but since the original S was released back in 2010. Of course, much has changed in the 12 years and the 14 S model since, and the colossal S23 Ultra is the culmination of everything Samsung has learnt in that time.
As such, what we have here is pretty damn special – a beautifully bold and bright 6.8-inch FHD+ Dynamic AMOLED screen with ‘Infinity-O Display’ (it wraps around a bit) that comes protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 to help make it tougher than a concrete Chuck Norris in a fall. Plus, with a 120Hz refresh rate, games and video look nothing less than super-smooth and stunning.
At its heart sits a Qualcomm SM8550-AC Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip and options on storage run from 256GB up to 1TB and RAM from 8GB up to 12GB; then it all gets a bit silly…
At the front, you’ll find a perfectly sensible 12GB selfie snapper. Meanwhile, round the back lurks a 12-megapixel Ultra Wide camera, a 10-megapixel Telephoto camera and – brace yourself – a 200MP Wide-angle camera. Yep, whopping great 200-megapixel pictures can be taken with this colossus of the smartphone camera world, which is simply ludicrous.
But I’m getting distracted from the real reason we’re here, which is to discuss the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s abilities in the aqua. With an IP68 rating, the S23 Ultra can sink to the standard depth of up to 1.5-metres underwater for up to 30-minutes, meaning that you can take all those megapixels into the pool for holiday photos that won’t be the boring bane of your friends’ lives (for about five-minutes, anyway).
The S23 Ultra might be a bit on the large size for many people’s mitts, but it really is a magnificent phone that, tempted as I may have been by the ample charms of the iPhone for a moment, reminds me why I’m an Android man and, more specifically, a Samsung Galaxy S Android man.
OS: Android 13, One UI 5.1
Display: 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED
Glass: Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2
Chipset: Qualcomm SM8550-AC Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
Memory: 256GB to 1TB
RAM: 8GB or 12GB
Camera: 200MP (main) and 12MP (front)
Protection rating: IP68
Weight: 234g
Buy now £1159.00, Samsung
Google Pixel 7 Pro
Best for: Sub-£1000 submersible
If you’re in the market for something akin to the Motorola Edge 40, but want a bit more physical size and a lot more optional internal storage, may I suggest the Google Pixel 7 Pro?
First up, it looks and feels stunning available in ‘Hazel’, ‘Snow’ or ‘Obsidian’ coloured polished, 100 per cent recycled aluminium. Secondly, it features a nicely sized 6.7-inch QHD+ display, coated in Corning Gorilla Glass Victus, with a 120Hz refresh rate for images and video that’s simply dazzling. Thirdly, it comes running on Google’s own custom-built Tensor G2 chip complete with Google AI for an experience that is ultra fast and super smooth.
Running on the Android 13 OS, the Pixel 7 Pro comes packing a 50-megapixel main lens, a 48-megapixel telephoto lens and a 12-megapixel ultra wide lens to take care of any and all photo needs, a 10.8-megapixel front lens for snapping selfies, and an absolute embarrassment of wealth when it comes to photo features and image options. Storage options, meanwhile, run from 128GB to 512GB, so up to double that of the Motorola, so plenty of space to stick your stuff in.
Now, like all other models here, the Pixel 7 Pro is IP68 rated, and also like all other models here save for the freakish deep-diving iPhone 14 Pro, can take on up to 30-minutes underwater at down to 1.5-metres, so you can have plenty of Aquaman/woman style fun sous-marin/marine (as they say in that France) without worrying about water damage.
With stereo speakers adding to your annoying-everyone-around-you experience, plus Google’s certified Titan M2 chip providing security tighter than a duck’s derrière, the Pixel 7 Pro is the complete package and comes in considerably cheaper than all other than the Motorola.
OS: Android 13
Display: 6.7-inch QHD+ AMOLED
Glass: Corning Gorilla Glass Victus
Chipset: Google Tensor G2
Memory: 128GB to 512GB
RAM: 12GB
Camera: 50MP (main) and 12MP (front)
Protection rating: IP68
Weight: 212g
Buy now £699.00, Google
Nokia XR21
Best for: Overall indestructibility
I’m cheating now as I’ve recently reviewed this new Nokia for a review-round rugged smartphones, so we’re stepping well beyond the realms of just water-resistance here.
Built like a pocket-totable tank, the XR21 is, first and foremost, a remarkably capable phone, with a 6.5-inch FHD+ LCD display, with a 120HZ refresh rate, reasonable brightness, and Corning Gorilla Glass Victus protecting it.
Inside, meanwhile, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 sits powering away along with 128GB of memory and 6GB of RAM, so, okay, maybe not as well-specced as other options here on that front, but it’s certainly responsive and I wouldn’t be recommending it if I hadn’t been as impressed by its performance as I was by its features and absolute taking-no-nonsense approach to water.
Firstly, though, with a 64-megapixel wide and an 8-megapixel ultrawide camera array on the back and a 12-megapixel lens on the front, your camera cares are seen to, plus you also get Flash shot mode, Night mode 2.0, AI Portrait, UW Capture fusion, SpeedWarp, Action cam, and OZO Spatial Audio capture with wind-noise cancellation to play around with, so plenty to keep you entertained.
But you can read all that and more in the main review I linked to earlier. What you need to know is how it handles in the wet. And the answer to that is: like a Siamese fighting fish. Why a Siamese fighting fish? Because IP68-rated, the Nokia can handle the same 1.5-metres of water as all the others, but it can do it for twice the time at 60-minutes. What’s more, it’s also IP69K rated, which means it can withstand washdown at pressures of 80- to 100-bar – the same as being blasted by a firefighter’s hose, so this is a phone that fights back.
Finally, also Mil-Spec-810H-rated, the XR21 can withstand drops from 1.8-metres high, dust storms and utter extremes of temperature, so if your demands of a smartphone extend beyond just being a bit waterproof and your budget won’t quite stretch to what East End types might call the ‘full-monkey’, then the Nokia XR21 has your name all over it.
OS: Android 12
Display: 6.5-inch FHD+
Glass: Corning Gorilla Glass Victus
Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 695
Memory: 128GB
RAM: 6GB
Camera: 64MP (main) and 16MP (front)
Protection rating: IP68 and IP69K, Mil-Spec-810H
Weight: 231g
Buy now £460.00, Amazon
CAT S75
Best for: Going deeper for (a bit) longer
Cheating yet again, I also reviewed this phone for the same piece as the Nokia XR21, but no review round-up claiming to call itself the ‘Best water-resistant smartphones’ could possibly be complete without including this CAT.
Why is that? Well, featuring a 6.6-inch FHD+ display, covered in Corning Gorilla Glass Victus, the, frankly, enormous CAT 75 could well be the ultimate adventurer’s smartblower thanks to the fact that it too comes IP68-rated but can manage a full-on five-metres deep for up to around 35-minutes - so those looking to dive a little deeper and take detailed photos and footage while down there have met their match.
Speaking of cameras, there’s a 50-megapixel main shooter, 8-megapixel super wide and a 2-megapixel macro lens on the back, while an 8-megapixel front-facer sees to your selfies. Throw in an actual ‘underwater mode’ to allow for the general lack of light and snorkellers can claim some classic under-sea snaps.
Running on a Mediatek Dimensity D930 chipset, the CAT 75 is nicely responsive, and 128GB of storage and 6GM of RAM put it on a level footing with the Nokia XR21, just with a slightly bigger display, greater depth handling ability, and for £50 more.
Also IP69K, Mil-Spec-810H-rated too and capable of bouncing back without damage from heights of up to 1.8-metres, the CAT 75 is hard as diamond-decorated nails and incredibly water-resistant.
OS: Android 12 (upgradeable to 13 and 14)
Display: 6.6-inch FHD+
Glass: Corning Gorilla Glass Victus
Chipset: Mediatek Dimensity D930
Memory: 128GB
RAM: 6GB
Camera: 50MP (main) and 8MP (front)
Protection rating: IP68 and IP69K, Mil-Spec-810H
Weight: 268g
Buy now £539.99, Clove Technology
