In 2019, Avenir Telecom, a manufacturer of Energizer-branded phones, appeared at MWC with a number of phones that promised weeks of battery life. Those same phones also had all the style and aerodynamic capabilities of a brick and were more baked than a king-sized bag of peanuts. Unsurprisingly, the company's subsequent crowdfunding campaign failed completely.

Five years later, Energizer phones still exist, and at MWC 2024, Aventir introduced a phone with a very long battery life, upgraded from 18,000 mAh to 28,000 mAh. Thankfully, the design of this latest model, the Energizer Hard Case P28K, will not be confused with construction materials. But that doesn't mean it looks particularly good.

To put it bluntly, this is a very chunky phone, measuring 1.09 inches thick and weighing 20 ounces. For reference, the Google Pixel Fold is half the weight and thickness of the P28K. This is with the phone folded, by the way, and the weight is quite remarkable.

Needless to say, throwing this phone at it would do some damage. I don't have much expertise on whether it can break a glass window as easily as a brick. Local dissident revolutionary groups may have more valuable information than I do, unless the FBI has already shut them down.

Okay, so aside from the huge size, what else is noteworthy about the Energizer Hardcase P28K: According to The Verge, the phone will last about a week under normal use. That breaks down to 122 hours of talk time (almost five days) and 2,252 hours of standby power. If the phone is not actually used, it can be used for 94 days, or more than three months.

Even if the battery should run out, it can be restored to 100% in about 90 minutes, thanks to its 33W fast charging capability. Thankfully, a 36W charging brick is included.

It is also a sturdy phone with features such as an extra casing, reinforced corners, and a protective cover over the USB-C port, which my colleague Josh Render would be very pleased with. This protective cover also hides the 3.5mm headphone jack, which is really rare in modern smartphones. On top of that, it is IP69 water and dust resistant. So while the P28K's bulky design may be ridiculed, it may be the kind of phone you'll want to take out into the great outdoors for extended periods of time.

Other features include a 64MP main camera, plus a 20MP ultrawide and a third 2MP shooter. The front camera is 16MP, with 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and a MediaTek MT6789 chipset. We don't know how impressive this camera is, but this chipset definitely won't win the performance race; there is no 5G chip on board, so you'll be stuck with 4G connectivity.

Of course, the price of 250 euros (about $271) means that the P28K is cheap enough to serve as a secondary phone, for when iPhones and Samsung Galaxies are too expensive to risk breakage. While improvements in durability may have been underway for years, they have not reached the same level as dedicated rugged phones. In addition, the battery life of these devices certainly cannot compete with normal use of more than five days.

Apparently the Energizer Hard Case P28K will not be coming to the US, but it will be coming to Europe this October.