Out and about types often find their mobile phone just isn't up to the job. Drop your phone in the mud, cycle over it, get it wet and it just might decide to give up working under the stresses and strains.

There are some mobiles designed for this kind of treatment, though, and the Samsung B2700 is one. It isn't lavish in the features department, but it does have a solid range of basics such as mobile email, calendar, task manager, calculator, unit converter, timer, stopwatch, alarms, music playback and FM radio. In addition there's a couple of things specifically for outdoors types in the shape of an altimeter, compass and pedometer. There is also a torch on the top edge of the phone.

The pedometer gives you an estimate of calories burned as well as guessing distance travelled by step-counting. The compass and altimeter seemed accurate but obviously they do rely on the phone being switched on. A normal pocket compass is probably going to be a necessary addition to your kitbag for serious outdoors activities.

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Designed to be water and dust resistant to the IP54 standard, the B2700 isn't much of a looker. Its casing is rubber and it has a flat keyboard made from a single sheet of rubber so that there are no cracks and crevices for dust and water to seep inside.

Battery life is very good indeed, and it should see you through a long weekend without access to mains power. This is vital on a phone designed for the outdoors life and partly enabled by the small screen. This measures just 1.9 inches across diagonal corners and offers 176 x 220 pixels. Don't think about extensive Web browsing as the small screen makes this a painful experience.

Which isn't to say you couldn't browse at a reasonable speed: this is a 3G handset, although without HSDPA, and it supports quad-band GSM. A front camera means you can make two-way video calls. It'll play music and the proprietary headset connector is shared with mains power.

The main camera is a basic 2-megapixel shooter with no flash or self portrait mirror. Annoyingly the viewfinder is either cramped into just part of the screen and able to show exactly what you'll get in a shot, or consumes all of the screen but only shows part of what you get in your final shot. Whichever way you go it is an unsatisfactory compromise. You'll need to add a separate camera to your travel bag if you want to take quality photos.

The B2700 offers a fair range of rugged features that might endear it to outdoors types. Its biggest lures are the long battery life and tough casing, though there are significant compromises in other areas.