SPOT X Review

We’ve been watching, reviewing, and using products in this category for decades now. Improvements are slow and incremental, and the SPOT X is an important step along that path. This fills a narrow niche as a device that will send texts independently, using a real keyboard, without a linked smartphone. In this sub-category, the X indeed delivers. However, what it offers was eclipsed by the nearly simultaneous release of other company’s improved offerings. SPOT scrambled to play catch-up by adding Bluetooth and smartphone compatibility just a little over a year after the initial release of the X. Nonetheless, in most ways, close competitors still edge ahead. Despite this, the SPOT’s unique on-device keyboard earns it a specialized award for Standalone Use. One reviewer, the spouse of a backcountry ranger, noted that the X is likely, “a better choice for the person in my life who prefers to ski tour and packraft alone and will never give up the flip phone.”
REASONS TO BUY