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Blackview Oscal TANK 1: 30-second review
Most of the Blackview rugged phones I’ve covered here have been lightweight 300-350g devices, but the new Oscal Tank 1 is much more like the larger devices we’ve seen from Doogee and Ulefone.
The downside of having a 6.78-inch screen and a 20000 mAh battery is that this phone weighs 640g and is 29.5mm thick, so it won’t easily fit in a pocket. And, if you’re the person in an expedition chosen to carry the phone, you won’t be thrilled to see this added to your backpack.
The strengths of this design are that the Dimensity 7050 SoC was chosen for battery life rather than raw performance, giving it a long operational life, the cameras are decent, and it supports 5G and WiFi 6 networking.
And, unusually for a rugged phone, the front and rear sensors are well supported by the app, allowing 4K video recording in either direction.
Other than the bulk of this device, the downsides of the TANK 1 are that the performance of this phone isn’t on par with the latest Dimensity SoCs, the SIM card slot makes you choose a TF card or a second SIM, and the rear-facing display is something of a gimmick.
However, these would be more significant issues if this were a premium-priced phone, but it’s remarkably affordable at around $285 is bought from a Chinese online retailer.
That’s low enough to be purchased for a single-use exercise, to avoid taking a full-price phone into a harsh environment.
Despite some virtues, there’s nothing special about this design that makes it likely to be considered one of the best rugged phones in our guide.
Blackview Oscal TANK 1: price and availability
- How much does it cost? $285/£247/€284
- When is it out? Available now
- Where can you get it? You can get it directly from Blackview or via many online retailers such as Amazon.
From what I’ve noticed, there are two versions of the Oscal Tank 1 in circulation, one with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and another with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.
Don’t be confused by retailers who claim 36GB or 48GB of RAM, because that’s not accurate, as it just conflates mapping storage to RAM, as is common on modern Android.
Direct from Blackview, the 12GB+256GB option is only £247 for UK customers, and the 16GB+512GB is £ 269, in both orange and black colour schemes. The US prices appear to include tariffs, bringing those prices to $428.99 and $467.99.
For those in the USA, using AliExpress can reduce the price to around $285, but I’m unsure whether you might be hit with import tariffs on top of that. For those who want to use Amazon, the US price is $469.99, and a $100 coupon brings it to $369.99.
European prices direct from Blackview are €283.95 and €309.95, with free shipping, being much closer to the UK costs.
Blackview also sells the 55W charging dock for the TANK 1 for $38.99, £23, or €25.95, depending on your currency.
Based purely on specifications, the nearest competitor phone I’ve tested is the Oukitel WP300, a phone that, according to the makers, is close in price to the Oscal Tank 1. However, the WP300 does have a 108MP camera sensor and a modular detachable earbud, but less battery capacity.
Overall, the Blackview Oscal Tank 1 is reasonably priced for its specifications and is in line with what other Chinese brands charge for similar phones.
Blackview Oscal TANK 1: Specs
|
Item |
Spec |
|---|---|
|
CPU: |
MediaTek Dimensity 7050 (6nm) |
|
GPU: |
Mali-G68 MC4 |
|
NPU: |
MediaTek NPU 550 |
|
RAM: |
12GB |
|
Storage: |
256GB |
|
Screen: |
6.78-inch IPS Screen + 2.01-inch secondary |
|
Resolution: |
1080 x 2460 pixels 700nits |
|
SIM: |
2x Nano SIM + TF (one shared position) |
|
Weight: |
640 grams |
|
Dimensions: |
184 x 83 x 29.5 mm |
|
Rugged Spec: |
IP68 IP69K dust/water resistant (up to 2m for 30 minutes), MIL-STD-810H Certification |
|
Rear cameras: |
64MP Camera + 20MP Nightvision, 2MP macro |
|
Front camera: |
50MP |
|
Networking: |
5G bands, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 |
|
Audio: |
100dB speaker |
|
OS: |
Doke 4.2 (based on Android 15) |
|
Battery: |
20000 mAh (55W wired, 5W reverse charge) |
|
Colours: |
Black. Orange |
Blackview Oscal TANK 1: design
- A blunt instrument
- No wireless charging
- Rear display
As you’ve probably already determined, if you glanced at the specifications, this is a chunky, heavy phone that would classify it as a device capable of blunt force trauma if used to hit someone.
Blackview went with the classic boat-hull profile, making it easier to handle, but the smartphone’s sheer mass makes it completely unsuitable for those with weak wrists, such as children and the elderly.
The construction is a combination of milled aluminium and reinforced ABS that delivers great results if the phone is dropped onto a hard surface or struck by a small-calibre bullet (possibly).
There is an element here of cookie-cutter styling, and the button layout is as generic as it gets.
One thing I didn’t care for was that the SIM tray only takes two SIMs, and one of those must be sacrificed if you want to use a TF card. I’ve seen so many designs over the past year that support both dual SIMs and TF (and also an eSIM), so this choice seems like a retrograde step from Blackview.
At the top of the phone are two LEDs that form a camping light, and alongside them is an IR reader sensor for using the phone as a remote control.
Another bugbear of mine is rubber-plugged USB-C ports, and this design doesn’t avoid that. But at least it offers an alternative to using the port with six contact patches, which can be used with the dock accessory to recharge without removing the port cover.
The back of TANK 1 is so flat that I was slightly confused when it didn’t offer wireless charging. But given the size of the battery, it probably wouldn’t be that useful if it had wireless charging.
The final external feature I want to mention is the rear touch display, a 2.01-inch secondary display that, by default, shows a clock but has myriad uses. As nice as this looks, and some of the clock displays are terrific, how lazy do you need to be to want to avoid turning over your phone to control it?
There are options for playing media, interacting with a pre-installed health app, and even activating the camera, but I didn’t find myself wanting to use this feature regularly.
If I were to characterise the Tank 1 design, it would be underwhelming, though I appreciate that not everyone is looking for something radical when buying a rugged phone.
Design score: 3.5/5
Blackview Oscal TANK 1: hardware
- MediaTek Dimensity 7050
- 20000 mAh battery
The MediaTek Dimensity 7050 is a design I’ve seen before in the Oukitel WP300, and I commented then that this chip had previously existed as the Dimensity 1080.
First released in Q4 2022, it transitioned to the Dimensity 7050 branding in Q2 2023, making it a relatively recent design.
The insurmountable problem for this chip is that it was fabricated at 6nm, where the newer MediaTek options are now on 4nm or even smaller 3nm nodes.
That said , it supports WiFi 6E (2×2) and Bluetooth 5.2, along with 5G NR Sub-6 GHz and mmWave. For AI work, the MediaTek NPU 550 offers modest capabilities, but it is the lowest-specified NPU used by this SoC maker.
The Mali‑G68 MC4 isn’t awful, but again, graphics performance isn’t a feature that this phone is being sold on, and it’s not ideal for demanding gaming or VR simulations.
The flip side of having a modest CPU and GPU combination, as in the Dimensity 7050, is that this chip can’t consume much power, giving this system an excellent battery runtime.
Wired charging using the 55W provided charger, enabling the phone to be fully refreshed in around 4 hours. There is no wireless charging, but the phone can reverse charge at 5W if you must.
On paper, the 20,000 mAh “ExploVolt” battery sounds wonderful, but in reality, I had some issues with it, which I’ll discuss in the benchmarking section. What it can do is provide 3 to 7 days of heavy use without a recharge. Not sure about Blackview’s marketing department’s logic in using half of the word “explosive” in marketing this feature, but that’s their choice.
While the amount of RAM and storage in the review hardware, which was the 12GB+256GB option, seemed more than enough, the 16GB+512GB isn’t substantially more expensive. And, if going with the larger storage means that you don’t need to sacrifice a SIM slot for a TF card, then it would be the best choice.
Overall, the hardware in this phone is serviceable, or in the case of battery life, exceptional.
Blackview Oscal TANK 1: cameras
- 64MP, 20MP on the rear
- 50MP on the front
- Three cameras in total
The Rugking has three cameras:
Rear camera: 50MP Samsung JN1 CMOS Sensor, 2 MP Omnivision OV02A10 Macro
Front camera: 8MP Samsung 4H8
The sensor selection on this phone is a prime example of how resolution and capability have spiralled out of control, with sensors now being dusted like confetti onto the latest designs, almost without any consideration to use or software support.
A classic example of this is the appearance of the JN1 sensor, a stalwart for many mobile phones as the primary sensor, relegated here to the selfie role. But, amazingly, this also enables 4K video capture, making this one of the few phones that can do 4K front and back.
On the rear is the solid but uninspiring 64MP Omnivision OV64b Sensor, a sensor that can provide crisp and accurately saturated images with relatively little effort.
My only issue with that camera is that it doesn’t have any form of optical zoom. In the examples, there is a picture of a flower at two zoom settings, and as the zoom is digital, the closer in shot suffers terribly from being a cropped version of the long shot. After a few pictures like this annoy you, you’ll probably never use the zoom again.
Conversely, there is relatively little bad about the 20MP Sony IMX376 Night vision IR sensor to say, as it delivers excellent close-range results in complete darkness.
With this collection of sensors in place, I probably wouldn’t make this my first choice for digital photography, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t take some exceptionally nice shots with it. Although given how heavy this phone is, I probably wouldn’t disable stabilisation when capturing video.
Blackview Oscal TANK 1 Camera samples
Blackview Oscal TANK 1: performance
- Old SoC technology
- GPU supports OpenGL 3.1 and Vulkan 1.3
- Not power efficient
|
Phone |
Blackview Oscal Tank 1 |
AGM G3 Pro |
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
SoC |
MediaTek Dimensity 7050 |
MediaTek Dimensity 7300 |
|
|
GPU |
Mali‑G68 MC4 |
Mali-G615 MC3 |
|
|
NPU |
MediaTek NPU 550 |
MediaTek NPU 656 |
|
|
Memory |
12GB/256GB |
12GB/512GB |
|
|
Weight |
640g |
375g |
|
|
Battery |
20000 |
10000 |
|
|
Geekbench |
Single |
920 |
1026 |
|
Multi |
2466 |
3003 |
|
|
OpenCL |
2471 |
2560 |
|
|
Vulkan |
3036 |
2509 |
|
|
PCMark |
3.0 Score |
11684 |
16286 |
|
Battery |
33h 57m* |
34h 4m |
|
|
Charge 30 |
% |
13 |
25 |
|
Passmark |
Score |
6861 |
13665 |
|
CPU |
5285 |
6927 |
|
|
3DMark |
Slingshot OGL |
5293 |
6612 |
|
Slingshot Ex. OGL |
4150 |
5123 |
|
|
Slingshot Ex. Vulkan |
3940 |
4822 |
|
|
Wildlife |
2232 |
3123 |
|
| Row 19 – Cell 0 |
Nomad Lite |
266 |
347 |
For my comparison in this review, I chose the AGM G3 Pro, a phone that costs around $600, which is nearly twice what Blackview is asking for the Oscal Tank 1. And, in a few of the benchmark scores, you do get twice the numbers, but not all.
There is one area where the Tank 1 also seems to have failed to exceed the G3 Pro, but behind the added asterisk, there is a story.
For my battery life benchmarks, I use the mobile version of PCMark, and the best result I got on the Tank 1 was 7 minutes shorter than the G3 Pro, which has half the battery capacity.
But the twist here is that only half the battery was used on the Tank 1, because every time I tried to run this benchmark, it crashed PCMark after using 50% of the capacity.
I determined that Tank 1 has an interesting battery layout: there are effectively two batteries, and it drains one, then the other. And, when it switches over, PCMark glitches and goes black, unfortunately.
Therefore, the actual battery life of the TANK 1 is double the amount I quoted, or over 67 hours, which is wonderful. But, you might find, as I did, that some of your apps need to be restarted after the 50% point is reached.
Overall, ignoring battery life, the TANK 1’s performance is middle of the road, but it’s quick enough for most uses, even if it’s not something I’d pick for games or VR.
Blackview Oscal TANK 1: Final verdict
The biggest hurdle to anyone considering the Tank 1 is the sheer physical size of the device, because humans don’t generally have pockets this big in any garments.
If it’s attached to a vehicle, then that’s a different matter, but it fails the practicality test for most people without being mounted to something.
What it does offer is plenty of battery capacity, and with curation, this phone could easily last longer than a week away from charging. But, as I mentioned before, do check that your apps are still running when it goes below 50% capacity.
It can take good-quality pictures and video, but the only zoom function you should use is the one where you walk towards the subject if you want a closer look.
One area I haven’t mentioned is that technically this phone isn’t running pure Android 15, but a derivative called DokeOS 4.2. Things like DokeOS became a thing a few years ago when Chinese phone makers were trying to get Google to make Android more suitable for the Chinese market. Why it’s still a thing, I’m unsure, because plenty of Chinese phones come with vanilla Android these days.
But what I don’t like about DokeOS is the sheer number of junk apps pre-loaded onto it, including games. And, considering this phone has some AI capabilities, it was disturbing to see that it already has an AI chatbot, AI video, AI music, and AI Photo apps in place. And, all of these functions are subscription, with a free 30-day trial or similar to get you hooked. Whatever you do, don’t sign up for these, since the amounts are greater than the best-paid AI services, and you can use them on any phone or computer. There are also plenty of free AI, if you don’t mind checking any information they give you.
If you can ignore these things, the Blackview Oscal Tank 1 could be useful to you, but only if you don’t mind its tenacious relationship with gravity.
Should I buy a Blackview Oscal TANK 1?
|
Attributes |
Notes |
Rating |
|---|---|---|
|
Value |
Reasonable cost for a well-made device |
4/5 |
|
Design |
Heavy and thick, this isn’t an elegant design |
3.5/5 |
|
Hardware |
Older SoC combined with plenty of battery capacity for long running |
3/5 |
|
Camera |
4K front and back, but no optical zoom |
3.5/5 |
|
Performance |
Odd battery arrangement but extended operation |
3/5 |
|
Overall |
Good price, excellent battery life, but borderline practical |
3.5/5 |
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
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