Water and dust: How much can your smartphone handle?

Is a smartphone, tablet or e-reader protected against water and dust? And if so, to what extent?

That’s what your device's IP rating will tell you.

Many manufacturers have their products tested and certified according to a specific standard that defines protection levels. That standard is the ingress protection or IP rating. The code always has the same IPXX format — the letters IP followed by two digits.

The first digit that follows the letters indicates the device’s protection against the ingress of foreign bodies such as dust.