It's a phone! It's a walkie-talkie! It's the Unihertz Atom XL!

We know – it’s all the flashy stuff coming out from Apple that normally gets the phone coverage, and for good reason – the phones are just plain popular. But what if you don’t want an iOS device? Well, the world of Android opens up a lot of other options – with one of the more interesting (and unique) ones being the Unihertz Atom XL.

In terms of the hard specs (which are all listed below), the Unihertz Atom XL seems to be offering things that you’d expect in a modern smartphone – a decent amount of storage, global LTE coverage (no 5G though, I don’t believe), and a reasonably-sized screen. Then you get into things like a dual SIM card slot that allow you to use two SIM cards at the same time (work and personal lines, anyone?), or a SIM plus storage card. Now you’re talking differentiation!

If you stopped there, you’d actually have the Unihertz Atom L. So, what takes it to XL status? That’s where the walkie-talkie comes in. This is more than that push-to-talk stuff that we had in the 90s, or even the walkie-talkie apps you can get now. This is a literal, honest-to-goodness, two-way radio (separate from the cell radios) that you can use to talk on the radio. If the phones could just talk to each other, that would be a gimmick.

However, reading through, it seems like the Unihertz Atom XL can actually communicate with any two-way handset (ie, a regular digital walkie-talkie) that relies on DMR technology (400-480MHZ). Combine that with the IP68-level protections, and it really seems like a phone that’s well-suited for outdoors adventures.

The Unihertz Atom XL (and L) originally funded on Kickstarter (to get things, well, kickstarted), but you can actually still pre-order yourself one. You don’t get those sweet Kickstarter discounts, but such is the way of things. You can get the Unihertz Atom L for $280 or the Atom XL for $330 directly from unihertz.com