Almost too much of a good thing

Review: Ulefone Armor 28 Ultra - Rugged monster phone with everything extra

Just in time for its ten-year anniversary, Ulefone has made a phone that has it all. It offers many advantages and one disadvantage.

Published 2 May 2025 - 10:53

Ulefone doesn't just make rugged phones, but it is the extra waterproof and durable phones they are best known for. Rugged phones of this kind are generally a bit larger and bulkier, but in that zone, Ulefone has created a product range with some variation. Compact, cheap, relatively handy, and phones with extra-long battery life are some of the variants. But the Ulefone Armor 28 Ultra is a phone that, according to them, has it all. Excellent screen, good performance, good cameras, and fantastic battery life, and for good measure, they've thrown in an extra screen as well.

As soon as I take the phone out of the packaging, the downside of building a phone this way becomes apparent. At 450 grams, it is the heaviest mobile phone I have ever tested. It weighs more than two regular phones, more like a tablet than a mobile. When I use it, I notice that it affects which pockets I'm willing to carry it in, but less than I expect when I have it in hand, then I think less about it. But the first question you have to ask yourself is if you are willing to have a mobile phone that weighs almost half a kilo.

The main reason for the weight is, of course, the rugged construction. The phone is water-protected according to IP68 and IP69K, which means it can withstand being submerged in water and high-pressure washing. You can therefore swim with the phone and take underwater pictures, something that regular waterproof phones cannot withstand. The ports for USB and headset (of course, a phone that has everything has a headset jack) have protective rubber covers. The Ulefone Armor 28 Ultra is also supposed to withstand falls onto concrete floors from up to 2 meters in height.

The second reason why the Ulefone Armor 28 Ultra is so heavy is probably the battery. With a capacity of 10,600 mAh, it is more than twice the size of a normal mobile battery and more like the battery in a tablet. I don't know if I think the mobile lasts twice as long on a charge as a regular mobile, in our battery test where we stream video it doesn't, but it lasts significantly longer than a regular mobile in any case. Quite often I feel it's nice to have a phone with me where I don't have to worry about the battery running out before I get home.

A large battery takes longer to charge, but fortunately, it comes with a 120-watt charger that can charge the battery to a third in 10 minutes and to 80 percent in 30 minutes.

Around the phone's (thick) edges, we find a lot of unique ideas. There are two extra buttons, one to wake the camera and take pictures and one you can program a function to yourself, and also an expansion port that can be used for an endoscope, that is, cameras on a rigid line that can be used to examine tight spaces.

OLED screen

A good screen is not something you're used to in rugged mobiles and I don't think I've encountered an OLED screen in any before. The screen also has good responsiveness with a 120 Hz refresh rate. The maximum brightness makes the screen okay to read in daylight but it doesn't quite hold top class here. Since it is an OLED screen, you can choose to light only a few pixels and thus display the clock and notifications in a so-called always-on display, and that function is available on the phone.

There is actually a screen on the back as well. It is small and round and can display a watch face and notifications, among other things. I find it hard to see what it adds compared to the phone's always-on display, and it feels like a gimmick, a feature that only exists to be listed among the phone's extra features.

The camera setup also has the character of extra everything. There are four cameras on the back, but none of them is a telephoto camera. Besides the main camera, we have a wide-angle camera, a night vision camera, and (at least on the edition we are testing, which has the Thermal Edition addition) a thermal camera. The latter two are, of course, niche features that suit the rugged phone profile and that Ulefone has repeatedly used in their phones. The difference between a night vision camera and a thermal camera is that the night vision camera has an infrared photo lamp that illuminates the surroundings and provides a black-and-white image even if it is otherwise completely dark. The thermal camera, on the other hand, reproduces thermal radiation in different colours in a low-resolution image. The latter can be useful if, for example, you are looking for leaks in the insulation of a house. The night vision camera has gained longer range thanks to four strong IR lamps, but I still find it hard to figure out what I would use it for.

Ulefone highlights the main camera as their most ambitious, with an extra-large one-inch type sensor. It has good sharpness and light sensitivity, but it also shows that Ulefone is not on the same level in terms of post-processing as the major mobile manufacturers. The colours do not feel as natural, and the images feel a bit too sharply enhanced. For a rugged mobile, the camera is significantly better than what we are used to, and the same goes for the wide-angle camera, which is above average in quality.

Excellent performance

Rugged mobile phones are usually a bit sluggish, but not the Ulefone Armor 28 Ultra. The Mediatek Dimensity 9300+ chipset may not quite reach the same performance as this year's top models from Samsung and Xiaomi, but close enough that the phone never feels slow. 16 gigabytes of RAM certainly contribute here, and one terabyte of storage feels ridiculously generous, but if that's not enough, there is also a memory card slot.

Ulefone's interface to Android is a bit unique, and the translation to Swedish is not always the best, but there are many interesting features to look for, especially in the settings where you can, for example, choose settings for the extra button and the rear screen. The phone comes with Android 14, and we have no information on how many system updates are promised other than that Android 15 will be coming to the mobile shortly.

It is not a cheap mobile, it costs 13,500 kronor, but if you can manage without the thermal camera, it costs 12,000 kronor. If you want a durable mobile with all the extras, it might be worth it.

Questions and Answers

How is the speaker sound? Loud, but there is only one speaker on one side. So, not stereo.

What accessories are included? A 120-watt charger, a tempered glass screen protector (a plastic screen protector is pre-installed), and a carrying strap that can be attached to a loop.

Wireless charging? Yes, and fast too, but it can be tricky to fit such a large phone on the charging pad.

An Alternative

Ulefone itself offers a variant without a thermal camera for 1,500 kronor less. If it is still too expensive, the Armor 28 Pro will be available soon for 7,500 kronor with slightly reduced features.