Ulefone Armor 9 review

30 September 2020


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I have owned an armor 9 flir for 3 years with the optional case.
Bought from no so express Aliexpress for half the price of a flir cat63 ( not as good )
No problems ever in an industrial environment.
Phone will not charge now because the type c connectors have worn out ( S95 GQ3086 )
Hopefully I can find a new connector at a cell repair store or I will buy the latest version.

    • W
    • Woody
    • s9f
    • 13 Jul 2023

    I have had this phone in the US for 18 months.

    It is not only the worst-quality software and overall quality of any cell phone I have used since 1997, it is the worst tech product I have ever purchased.

    It comes close to giving me a heart attack EVERY DAY! I am not kidding. It has negatively impacted my career and introduced stress into my marriage as my wife witnesses my frequent Ulefone tantrums. I truly believe it has shortened my life by a year. Really.

    The GPS doesn't work and there is no way to alter it in settings. It doesn't even come up in a search. I am a backpacker and the GPS has led me into trouble countless times. I nearly got stuck in the woods overnight on a recent day hike. The GPS was off by 4 miles. In urban Rhode Island, no less.

    The GPS often doesn't work in Providence, which has more people living within 100 miles' radius than just about anywhere in the U.S., including Boston, yet the GPS constantly drops in this city.

    Typing doesn't work. It constantly changes words with the "ing" suffix to "ed Ng" and changes "an", "on" and "in" to "; n".

    It constantly inserts emojis despite "suggested emojis" being turned off.

    The "suggested words" software constantly changes correct words to completely incorrect words. If I type "smart phone" it might change it to "small homes" or some such. Again, this feature is turned off.

    The camera focus is horrid. It is slow. Likewise, the lenses have poor resolution. You can feature massive megapixels on photos, but if the lens is of poor quality, the picture will always look like it has 4 megapixels. Such is this case.

    I had a nightmare getting a T-Mobile store that could figure out how to get this allegedly open phone to work on the network. I had to try five different stores. During this trouble, Ulefone and Ebay refused to accept my return. (I haven't used Ebay since.)

    Lately, the battery is taking exceptionally long to charge after another defective system update. (All updates will be defective.)

    I will never, never, never again buy a Chinese-designed product above $200. I would rather buy nothing from China, but that is currently impossible. Thankfully, quality issues like these are driving brands to move their manufacturing out of China, often back to the U.S.. It cannot happen soon enough.

    Buy a Ulefone at your peril. Trust none of the positive reviews.

      • ?
      • Anonymous
      • IbG
      • 09 Apr 2023

      Pathy, 13 Jan 2023Having initial reservations about buying from a name I neve... moreI too initially felt the same way about buying a brand from overseas that I have never heard of. After reading several reviews on many different makes and models, I decided buying the thermal version. Just cause I thought it was cool (and only $30 more for thermal camera version at the time I purchased it). At first the phone felt heavy as the specs had advertised. It was to be expected. But you get used to it if youre not some crybaby. Within minutes you could definitely feel the durability and quality and understand why it was labeled as one of the most durable phones of the year by many websites. After 1 year of abuse, and I do mean abuse. It falling off the table onto the floor on the charge port while plugged in. Falling asleep tossing and turning while plugged in. Being dropped out of a vest pocket while exiting a loader hitting concrete rubble below. Even falling off the balcony of a 3rd floor apartment building. Being submerged for at least 1 hour in clean and slimy water on more than one occasion. Only problem I have had thus far, the charger port wore down and became difficult to charge, just like any phone would. Except this repair only cost me $3 and waiting for the part to arrive, I fixed the phone in less than 5 minutes. Try fixing ANY major brand name phone charge port for $3 (not going to happen) And its been charging perfect for a year since the fix.
      Whenever this phone finally bites the dust, I will definitely be buying a ulefone again.

        • P
        • Pathy
        • dUA
        • 13 Jan 2023

        Having initial reservations about buying from a name I never heard of before, now after owning it for 2 years.. I will buy from Ulefone next time I want to upgrade.
        Just the other day I was clearing a blocked, flooding stream. My phone had dropped in the water from an unzipped pocket! When I realised, I looked and searched and nothing found. Next day after water levels dropped, the phone was found, washed downstream over 5m, and over 20 hours in the water. My morning alarm had lit up the screen and it was looking up at me from the water. After a rinse and a wipe, the phone is back in use and fully functioning!!

          • C
          • Capt Automotive
          • N$I
          • 13 Feb 2022

          I have had my armour 9 for over a year now. Work In a very tough environment and it has performed admirably. It's been in the snow, dropped from ladders, covered in almost every building material you can think of..stepped on, i may have driven something over it a few times even suffered a few welding spatter occasions.. I use it for everything and everything always works for me. Maybe twice in a year I have shut it off ... Just a very solid great option for someone that needs a rugged phone. I love mine.

            • N
            • Newphone
            • IvW
            • 04 Jan 2022

            I absolutely hate this phone.
            I have been using Google Nexus 5 and Nexus 5x for the past 7 years whenever one breaks or has an issue I replace it with another one because it is a fantastic phone with fantastic camera fantastic video capability simple user interface, everything has been great. Except that now because it is such an old model certain features aren't working anymore so I decided to get a new phone. This one sounded like it might be good and I am regretting my purchase every single day.

            Specifications on paper don't mean much until you have it in your hand, this phone is clumsy, heavy, difficult to hang on to. I've nearly dropped it dozens of times before the case I ordered for it arrived. Putting it in the case, this phone is now the size of a small clutch purse. It is absolutely ludicrous.
            Instead of being easier to hang on to because it's big and tough and rugged and all those other words, it's actually way more difficult to hang on to, if you don't use two hands it's likely to slip from your grasp.
            Despite extreme caution, after 2 weeks of having a brand new phone I dropped it and despite gorilla Glass despite how tough and rough it's supposed to be and despite a special screen covering that I put on, the screen is now cracked.

            Worse than the physical problems are all of the other problems. I cannot believe how often this phone won't do something. It won't log on to ebay. It won't send messages in various email accounts. Just won't. Error: couldn't send message. Pick up my good old Google Nexus 5, rewrite the message and send and it sent in 2 seconds.

            I hate the camera on this thing. It takes absolutely forever to take a photo, if you hold down the shutter button it either won't take a photo so you keep clicking it, or it takes 20 photos literally. I've tried changing the settings and it still keeps doing this the photographs are absolutely garbage. I've won contests for smartphone photography in the past open only to photographers using phones with no extra features added, so I'm pretty used to using the camera on a smartphone and I wouldn't use this camera for anything more than an utter emergency with no other options available

            Oddly enough the voice dictation makes way more mistakes than on my 8-year-old phones. Just to test this I have opened up the same program on the old Google Nexus 5 and on the ulefone and started speaking. Dictated about two paragraphs, and then looked back to see any mistakes. The ratio is about one mistake on the ancient phones to eight mistakes on the brand new phone. It is constantly making errors.

            Ever since I received the phone the time has been off. I know how to change both the network time and local time and other time settings in settings, as well as in various other programs but no matter how many times I try to change it, it is constantly telling me that an email that I have just received will be received in 13 hours. So I'm getting future email notifications? It is absolutely useless to me because I can't see when an email came in. I need to respond quickly. I have no idea when the notifications are so incorrect.

            The screen is both too sensitive and not sensitive enough. This may seem like a joke but when you're scrolling through a long newsfeed for stories, and you actually try to click on a story it won't open, but when you're scrolling through to get to the next one the only thing it opens up on our ads. How is it so sensitive to opening on ads but not sensitive to opening on content? I can tap and tap something to open five or six times before it will respond. And barely brush over the screen with with my palm not even touching the screen and an ad will open.

            So many more examples of how poor this phone and its software and it's weird quirks are and there's no point of even writing them because I would be here forever. If I could go back in time as my phone seems to be indicating that I can, I would have never made this purchase and I would have bought another Google Nexus 5 even though it's from 2013, it is way better than this piece of garbage

              • m
              • marques.ala
              • 8@4
              • 21 Oct 2021

              I had problems with armor 9. The celular stop to run, tilt, and now dont turns on. When i conect the energy, the red light is on, but the Cell dont run.
              Did you know the tecnical assistance in Brazil?

                • n
                • neo
                • p@s
                • 31 Aug 2021

                Ulefone Armor 9 is just a shame. Battery was incredible when new but degraded very quickly even with sane usage. But worst point is camera, both picture or video modes are truly shameful. On picture mode, autofocus is so slow that even slow moving human will be blurred. Video mode is even worst. I take my old smartphone 5y older to take pictures now. GPS is also weak, with frequent drop in signal. As far as I am concerned, two words: never again. I'm considering buying a new phone before 1 year usage.

                  • S
                  • Spart Bragmire
                  • 3ZW
                  • 21 Aug 2021

                  I do see the need for PWM measurements or forced release of PWM data from manufactures. It should have been a priority a long time ago.

                  PWM is used to dim the screen below a certain threshold.

                  Regards
                  Spart Bragmire

                    19Hunter68, 03 Jan 2021Specs are off the chart.... Just want it to live up to expe... moreI know all Samsung flagships since the S8 support Dex if that's what you're looking for.

                      joe nodden, 01 Dec 2020Then tell me what you want if you people want suggestions. Specs are off the chart.... Just want it to live up to expectations and also is HDMI work thru the USB-C?

                        Imma get me one of these...... Holding my breath that is worth it albeit from the specs I should be ecstatic!

                          • J
                          • Jimbo
                          • xyR
                          • 03 Jan 2021

                          blackslide, 26 Dec 2020I hope they've designed this better than the earlier &... moreI've dropped mine a few times seem to work just fine. Outside built like a tank idk about the inside. Haven't gotten to tearing it apart it's my main phone right now. Replaced my King Kong 3 admirably.

                            • b
                            • blackslide
                            • L2W
                            • 26 Dec 2020

                            I hope they've designed this better than the earlier "Power" -models. They used to have a mainboard flexicable running underneath the battery and had a flimsy rear cover. Good phone, until you dropped it, the battery ever so slightly moved, the rear cover gave up from a corner and the flexi was broken = broken phone... nothing needed that flexi there, maybe it was slightly easier to assemble. Still have a few broken ones lying around because parts availability is poor.

                            Is Corning Gorilla glass really so expensive, or why isn't it listed on most "cheap" brand devices? The included screen protector and available rugged case do make it a tempting offer.

                              Bob, 22 Nov 2020Because it’s Not what we wantThen tell me what you want if you people want suggestions.

                                • B
                                • Bob
                                • M8q
                                • 22 Nov 2020

                                joe nodden, 04 Nov 2020Why not just get a Galaxy S7 Active. Because it’s
                                Not what we want

                                  Minu, 10 Nov 2020Sadly no brand new phones available now it seemsWell there's the S8 Active. Idk how the durability is on that but it's available new and better than this in basically every way.

                                    • M
                                    • Minu
                                    • w9L
                                    • 10 Nov 2020

                                    joe nodden, 04 Nov 2020Why not just get a Galaxy S7 Active. Sadly no brand new phones available now it seems

                                      SBR, 29 Oct 2020Please help me by your right direction . I want to but a ru... moreWhy not just get a Galaxy S7 Active.

                                        • S
                                        • SBR
                                        • XND
                                        • 29 Oct 2020

                                        joe nodden, 13 Oct 2020Too bad they lack interior durability as the result of Ulef... morePlease help me by your right direction . I want to but a rugged smartphone . Now can you please tell me which rugged smartphone truly realistic at a present likely doogee or blackview either ulefone ???

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