With summer just around the corner (at the time of writing) there's every chance that you may be planning a trip to the great outdoors, and chances is are you're probably lucky enough to have some friends to take along with you.

Queue our hands-on with the Binatone Terrain 750 walkie talkies, a pair of sturdy looking devices which might prove handy when trying to contact chums and a mobile signal is hard to come by.

The handsets themselves are reassuringly chunky and certainly won't grumble too much if dropped, however its worth pointing out that these aren't waterproof, for that you'll need to invest in the Marina 900 IPX, and so raises the question regarding their use as an outdoor gadget.

On the front of the device is a small, square LCD which was clear enough in bright sunlight and all the buttons had a decent action when pushed. Around the back is a substantial clip for wearing outside your clothing. One issue however, was with the cover for the audio jack which seemed a little light-weight; casting a shadow over its a ability to keep out grime.

Very easy to use, the Terrain 750 offers up to 968 channels, 10 call tones and stop watch function, there's also an extra-long range of up to 8km on offer. We have to admit that in our tests we didn't manage the full 8km, but we reckon we managed 3km, and sound was clear as a whistle. Saying this, as you can see from the shots, it wasn't in a built-up area and the space between radios was free from obstacles.

We say it was clear as a whistle, but we did find that the handsets tended to pick up an awful lot of background noise - in our case wind - so positioning ourselves to reduce the effects was essential for clear ssound; this could be a problem in built-up areas with car noise and the like.

One standout feature is the VOX function that will turn the radio off when not in use and automatically switch back on when receiving sound; dab handy if your hands are otherwise occupied.

Priced at a reasonable £39.99, the Binatone Terrain 750 could be a nice little investment for an extended camping trip and at a push skiing. Due to the lack of waterproofing anything more might be asking a bit much, but as they stand it's a well made product which does exactly what is asked of it.