Samsung B2700 Bound rugged mobile phone

Around the sides, the power/headphone socket is covered by a sturdier than usual grommet, and there's a volume rocker, camera shutter button and a dedicated flashlight key. This isn't a camera flash – the bulb is in the top of the phone so you can use it like a torch. It's surprisingly bright, and more than enough for reading a map on a windswept moor at midnight. Also at the top is a strap loop that you can attach to your backpack or belt.

Has a handy backpack attachment

Battery security is tighter than normal, and we found the back impossible to remove with our fingernails alone, resorting to a coin to spring the back from its extremely tight clip.

The camera is perhaps a little less than we'd expect from a mid-range phone these days, with just two megapixels – though that's still much better than its 0.3Mp predecessors. Access speed is reasonable, taking about three seconds to launch with a prolonged press on the camera shutter button. The maximum resolution is 1600 x 1200 pixels, and there's a multi-shot mode that can take six, nine or even 15 shots. There's also timer - up to ten seconds - and mosaic effects.

Picture quality certainly isn't disgraceful but obviously limited by the low pixel count and a lack of autofocus. Good light is essential, especially since there's no flash, but even then, shots never seem to look particularly sharp, though it's fine for basic snaps.

Video, as usual, takes a step down from still picture quality, with the B2700 offering just 176 x 144 pixels at 15f/s – basic stuff, in other words. There's also a 640 x 480 (0.3Mp) camera on the front for video calling.

Well sealed against dust and water

The music player is the standard Samsung model and decent enough it is too, with options for podcasts as well as your most frequently played and most recently played tracks. It can handle all the major compressed formats, including MP3, AAC and WMA but with just 26MB of on-board memory it won't hold much, though you can add up to 8GB via Micro SD card - there's none supplied, however.