When you load the screen up, it looks like you took a trip back to 1998. The green screen and black pixels are old school. Boot up time wasn't bad but that's about the best thing in this lineup. We did try the external antennas, but coverage was still spotty at best. The speakers were terrible too but we later found out our rental units had bad speakers in them. At $1,800 these things need to sound like pure gold IMHO.
We tried these on the trails, valleys, highway, etc. Sometimes they worked, other times they didn't. I liked the push to talk feature, that was cool, but overall this is a way overpriced type of communication that just didn't fit.
The website https://www.iridium.com/products/iridium-extreme-ptt/ make them look like the best thing since sliced bread, props to the marketing team, but overall... these were a fail.
Now, that doesn't mean satellite is dead? No. It means this company doesn't really stand a chance against what's on the horizon. Why do I say this? Because SpaceX is entering the game with their Starlink system. The FCC approved some 7500 of their satellites to hit orbit soonish.
Here's Elon explaining how that is going to change global comms.
So overall, right now sat phones are not the answer, but that may change in 10 years.