Ulefone Armor 7 review

Introduction

This is our first ever Ulefone review and that's why we are starting with the company's best specimen yet - the rugged Armor 7. It's one of the most durable phones on the planet with shock, water, and dust resistance. But it also offers an attractive specs sheet with a large screen and battery, a triple-camera on the back, and a capable MediaTek chip.

The Ulefone Armor 7 is a rock-solid smartphone with a thick metal frame on its longer sides and chunky rubber casings on the shorter ones. Those are essential for its shock endurance, which in the case of the Armor 7, is rated at 1.2m drop on flat concrete.

The Armor 7 is also the first smartphone we meet with IP69K rating for dust and water resistance. This means it is dust-tight and water-resistant for both 1.5m deep dives and high-temperature high-pressure jets.

Beneath the Armor 7's... armored body... we find mid-range Android-ready specs - a 6.3" IPS LCD 1080p screen, Helio P90 chip with 8GB of RAM, and an odd triple camera with wide, zoom, and night snappers. The battery inside, however, is quite impressive with 5,500 mAh capacity and it should last the phone for quite some time.

Ulefone Armor 7 specs

• Body: 165.9 x 81 x 13.6 mm, 290g; reinforced metal frame with rubber top and bottom, reinforced plastic back, shock-proof up to 1.2m height, IP69K for dust and pressurized water endurance, MIL-STD-810G compliance. PTT button.
• Display: 6.3" IPS LCD, 1080 x 2340px resolution, 19.5:9 aspect ratio, 409ppi.
• Rear camera: Primary: 48MP, f/1.7 aperture, 1/2.0" sensor size, 0.8µm pixel size, PDAF. Telephoto: 8MP, f/2.4. Night camera: 16MP, f/2.0, PDAF. 5-LED flash. Video: 2160p@30fps.
• Front camera: 16MP, f/2.0 aperture, 1.0µm pixels. 1080p/30fps video recording.
• OS: Android 9 Pie
• Chipset: Mediatek Helio P90 (12nm): Octa-core (2x2.2 GHz Cortex-A75 & 6x2.0 GHz Cortex-A55), PowerVR GM9446 GPU.
• Memory: 8GB of RAM; 128GB storage; shared microSD slot.
• Battery: 5,500mAh; 15W fast charging.
• Connectivity: Dual-SIM; LTE-A, 4-Band carrier aggregation, LTE Cat-12/ Cat-13; USB-C; Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac; dual-band GPS; Bluetooth 5.0;
• Misc: Side-mounted fingerprint reader; single down-firing speaker; NFC; FM radio.

The Ulefone Armor 7 omits a 3.5mm jack but makes up for it with the inclusion of FM radio, NFC, heart-rate sensor, baroceptor, coulombmeter, and not of least importance - properly large and expandable storage.

Unboxing the Ulefone Armor 7

The Ulefone Armor 7 arrives in a very nice paper box - it's printed in industrial metal plate pattern with some yellow paint splashes. The box is of regular size, though it hides more than meets the eye.

For starts, inside you will find the Ulefone Armor 7 itself. Beyond that a 15W charger and a red USB-C cable await. But there is more!

Ulefone ships the Armor 7 bundled with a USB-C-to-3.5mm adapter, microUSB-to-USB-C connector, USB OTG cable, there is even a wrist sling ready to be attached to the Armor 7's hook. And there is even more!

The Armor 7 screen is rated at 7H of hardness on the Mohs Scale, but Ulefone bundles the phone with a tempered glass screen protector with a hardness rated at 9+! It's no factory-applied, so it's up to you whether you will use it right away, or later when necessary.

Finally, there is a SIM needle, which is more like a miniature crowbar as the SIM tray is not on a mechanical release. It has a pointy end though - we guess that's for removing the SIM card from your old phone.

And that's a wrap-up on the Armor 7 unboxing, which was an experience we haven't had for a long time.

Special thanks to GearBest for providing the review unit.