Telstra Tough Max 3 review

Where to buy

There's not a lot of competition in the rugged phone space. There are feature phones like the Nokia 800 Tough, for example, but if you want an actual smartphone, the general advice is to buy something nice and then cover it with a chunky protective case. However, this can add considerable bulk and often affect key features.

It's been years since Telstra last updated its line of "Tough Max" phones, no doubt hindered by the fact that its primary supplier of phones ZTE was almost shut down by a US embargo.

The Telstra Tough Max 3 is another ZTE-produced phone, albeit at a slightly higher price point than you'd normally expect out of the bargain phone builder. If you want to get technical, it's the ZTE T86, although it doesn't appear that ZTE sells it in too many other markets internationally under other names.

Its promise lies naturally in its durable nature, and there's plenty to like here if you're a tradie or just terminally clumsy with your phone. However, at this price point, if you're even slightly more careful, there are better options to consider.

Design

Design

• 5.65-inch display
• Included glass screen protector
• Rear fingerprint sensor

• Read our full review of the Telstra Tough Max 3's design

  One thing I didn't expect to see in the Telstra Tough Max 3's box was a screen protector. Typically, tough phones get by on the durability of their inbuilt components, not with something that you add on to them to help.

  It's a nice inclusion, especially as it's a full glass protector, although if you're anything like me, it may take you more than one go to get it to sit flush with the Telstra Tough Max's 5.65-inch screen.

  The actual display feels quite retro because there's no camera notch at all. Instead, it's bordered with very thick bezels, especially for a 2020 handset. The sides are rubberised, in keeping with its tough mantra, although the back is just plastic – and a little cheap feeling at that. In further nods to the phones of yesteryear, the inbuilt fingerprint sensor is on the rear. It's certainly easy to reach with one hand, unless your digits are tiny.

  There's a slight nod to style with a blue accent across much of the back of the phone, which I rather like, and not just because I have an admitted preference for dark blue handsets. The entire build looks rather like the top of a toolbox, and that's entirely appropriate for a "tradie" phone. There's no choice of colour styles, but that's not unusual for a mid-range phone.

Camera

Camera

• Dual lens
• Camera shots are average

• See sample photos and read our full review of the Telstra Tough Max 3's camera

  There was a time when mid-range or budget phones had seriously compromised cameras, because if you wanted nice photos, you were expected to pay top dollar. That's no longer the case, with phones from the likes of realme, Oppo, Huawei and Google bringing some serious photography power to the mid-range.

  ZTE has never particularly been in that upper tier of camera makers, and it's quite evident in the Telstra Tough Max 3. At the rear there's a 16MP primary and 5MP secondary sensor, but that second sensor is only used for portrait effects and nothing else. At the front, there's a simple single 8MP sensor for selfie purposes.

  If you're a tradie looking to take daylight shots of your work for tracking, measurement or promotional purposes, the Telstra Tough Max is fair but in no way at all good when it comes to taking photos.

  Try it in low light, or with movement or any other more complex shooting environment, and it'll quickly struggle to find focus or produce workable output.

  In many ways, it feels like ZTE might have had the camera module for the Tough Max 3 ready to go well before it was able to provide the rest of the phone, because it's seriously outclassed by most other phones in this price bracket.

  Telstra Tough Max 3 sample photos

  

  

  

  

  

  

Performance

Performance

• Snapdragon 665 is as mid-range as it gets
• Older Android version
• Nicely durable

• View test results and read our full review of the Telstra Tough Max 3's performance

  The Telstra Tough Max 3 hides a Snapdragon 665 with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage behind its display, which is pretty much on point for what you'd expect from a mid-range device. It's only running on Android 9, however, with a few Telstra apps pre-installed as you might expect. That's about it for customisation of the Telstra Tough Max 3, though, and there's no evident timeline for when (or if) it'll ever see Android 10 down the track.

  In benchmark terms, the Tough Max 3 is arguably going to be capable enough for most tradie needs, but it's decidedly a mid-range device with mid-range performance at best. Here's how it compares against a number of similarly priced phones using Geekbench 5's CPU test:

  Here's how it compares to those same phones using 3DMark's Slingshot Extreme test:

  While those benchmarks suggest that the Tough Max 3 should be right up there in performance terms with the rest of its class, real-world usage is a little bit slower again. Compared to phones like the Realme XT or Google Pixel 3a, the Tough Max 3 often felt sluggish.

  The real boon of the Telstra Tough Max 3 remains its durability, along with IP68 water resistance. Yes, I've dunked it deliberately a few times in the sink just to see if it would explode. It didn't.

  It's equally rugged for accidental drops, or in my case, the "chuck it down the stairs and see what happens" test, which isn't terribly scientific, but then Telstra didn't supply me with a quantity of Tough Max 3 phones to test to destruction, so I had to adopt a rather more ad-hoc testing scheme.

  It's also worth noting that the Tough Max 3 is Blue Tick rated for regional reception, and it's equipped with an external antenna point if you really do need to stretch out its reception capabilities.

Battery life

Battery life

• 3,920mAh battery gives good performance for a mid-range phone

• View test results and read our full review of the Telstra Tough Max 3's battery life

  It's no surprise at all that a phone so obsessed with durability features a sealed battery. You can't replace the Telstra Tough Max 3's 3,920mAh inbuilt battery in any way.

  In terms of battery life, I ran the Telstra Tough Max 3 through our standard YouTube streaming test – and this was before YouTube's recent shift to cut down on streaming quality as a result of COVID-19 – for an hour at maximum brightness and moderate volume to gauge how it compares against other similarly priced handsets:

  All phone use is relative, but at that level of power draw, you can typically expect at least a day's usage, and that's certainly been my experience with the Tough Max 3. Recharging is via USB C, which is a nice nod to more modern connection standards.

Verdict

Verdict

• Rugged – but that's about it

Should you buy it?

The Telstra Tough Max 3 is very much a niche product, especially within its price category. You just don't see much in the way of heavy-duty water resistance at this kind of price point, or particularly rugged builds either.

However, what you're paying for is just that rugged nature, and the reality is that the highly competitive mid-range segment has moved on a touch in recent times. For the same money, you could get the same level of performance with a much better camera, for a start, or better performance, or more guaranteed software updates. That's quite the tradeoff for most regular consumers.

If you want a tough phone, you don't have a lot of other choices. Nokia's excellent Nokia 800 Tough is considerably cheaper, but that's just a simple feature phone with an even worse camera than the Telstra Tough Max 3.

At this kind of price point, however, you do have other alternative choices that trade camera quality and performance for rugged build quality. Consider phones such as the Realme XT, Realme 5 Pro, Huawei P30 Lite or Google Pixel 3a in this price bracket.

Pricing and availability

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Specifications