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Ulefone Armor 29 Pro: 30-second review
The now familiar style and design of the Armor series of phones is reflected once again with the Armor 29 Pro. It features the rugged characteristics, rubberised corners, large 6.67‑inch screen and an array of cameras on the back, along with a very decent camping light, plus a few additional extras. This is the mid-range Armor phone and, as such, has the best balance of huge-capacity battery, cameras, processing power and AI integration. However, with all that’s on offer here, once again it comes in at a hefty size and weight.
When it comes to use, that size and bulk do make it slightly uncomfortable to hold and carry. But as long as you’re only making the odd call here and there or using it in emergencies, it’s not too much of an issue. Likewise, if you’re thinking about popping this into a trouser or jacket pocket, really do think again. It’s well worth buying the additional holster to carry this oversized phone, as having 688g of weight in your pocket is quite sizable.
However, if you’re looking to buy this phone, it’s for a reason, and that is probably the extended battery life, in which case that size and bulk come in balance with a decent-sized screen that’s bright enough to be seen in most conditions, an excellent camping light on the back, and thankfully the processing power to enable you to navigate most applications with absolute ease.
It’s also great to see that the triple camera array on the back and the selfie camera on the front are all decent quality. It seems the 50 MP mark for these types of cameras strikes an excellent balance of resolution and image quality. When you couple that with some of the AI enhancement features, you can have some great fun with those cameras as well. It’s very handy if you do need to take site images or document work.
While for the most part the processing and graphics abilities of the phone are good, it’s worth also noting that the resolution is only 1080p, so not as sharp as you’d find with some of the flagship phones. Although it is 120Hz, so if you are playing a game or two, they do look pretty good in motion. It’s very smooth, and that display is great if you are using it to view backside images or using it alongside some of the accessories that you can plug in.
Those accessories can be added using one of the great features about the Armor phones the USmart expansion connector that enables you to bolt in a variety of accessories including endoscopes and microscopes.
So if you’re working in trade, engineering or automotive mechanics, the ability to utilise the phone with these accessories is extremely handy.
The Armor 29 Pro may not be the best rugged phone I’ve reviewed, but it’s reasonably well-balanced. It is large and bulky, and you do need to factor that in, as it won’t be suitable for the most general users. However, if you’re working in a trade, you’re an engineer working on site, you need a phone that’s going to last a week between charges, is able to take pretty decent site images, has the ability to connect endoscopes and microscopes, and also features a pretty decent camping light whilst also being able to withstand the elements, then this is a great choice.
Ulefone Armor 29 Pro: Price & availability
- How much does it cost? $649 / £494
- When is it out? Now
- Where can you get it? Widely available
The Ulefone Armor 29 Pro is available directly through the Ulefone website for $649 / £494. It is also widely available from several online retailers, including Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
Ulefone Armor 29 Pro: Design
Specifications
CPU: MediaTek Dimensity 7400
Graphics: Mali-G615 MC2
RAM: 16 GB (with virtual expansion)
Storage: 512 GB
Ports: USB-C 2.0, headphone jack
Connectivity: 5G (dual SIM), Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.4, NFC
Audio: 3.5mm headphone jack
Camera: 50 MP main, 50 MP ultra-wide/macro, 64 MP night vision (IR), 50 MP front
Size: 85.6 × 177.4 × 33.8 mm
Weight: 688 g
OS Installed: Android 15
Accessories: 120W charger, USB-C cable
There’s no mistaking the Ulefone Armor 29 Pro, once again, one of the larger rugged smartphones from the company. It features a chunky frame with rubber bumpers on the corners and visible screws that give it an industrial and slightly futuristic design. It also features two displays, one on the front and a small circular display on the back, that can show you everything from notifications through to a standard clock.
When it comes to the size and weight, there’s nothing small about the Armor 29 Pro, measuring 177.35 x 85.6 x 33.8 mm. That size is matched by an equally substantial weight of 688g. This size enables a large screen and a huge-capacity battery.
The display, as we’ve seen on previous models, is a 6.67-inch punch-hole display with a resolution of 1080 x 2400, then on the back of the phone there’s that secondary 1.04-inch AMOLED screen with a resolution of 340 x 340 pixels.
The rugged design isn’t just pure aesthetics. It comes with IP68 and IP69K standards. It also comes with MIL-STD-810H certification, which essentially means that it will not only stand up to water and dust as well as being dropped, but you can also submerge it to a depth of 2m for up to 30 minutes, and the phone will be absolutely fine, as was proven in this test.
The main reason for the size of the phone is due to the huge battery, this almost doubles the size compared with the Armor 28 Pro, with a capacity of 21,200mAh.
On the back of the phone, there’s a triple camera array with a 50MP, 64MP, and a secondary 50MP camera.
On the front there’s a selfie camera. This is once again a 50MP camera, and it’s closely tied in with the functions and features of the camera app, enabling all sorts of different effects. What’s interesting here is that the resolution is very well balanced at 50MP. The quality of the camera is especially good for anyone looking for a way to capture site images, so in a way, even though the camera is very large and bulky, it is still lighter weight than a dedicated camera and, for that matter, a power bank.
Another feature of the phone closely related to the camera is the direct access camera button, so you can essentially use this as you would a compact camera. And while the phone is large, when used as a camera, it once again feels very nicely balanced.
Ulefone Armor 29 Pro: Features
A run-through of the features shows what a step up the Armor 29 Pro is from the previous generation, now with 5G AI, a Dimensity 7400 CPU, and this is matched by Mali-G615 MC2 GPU. The offering is great performance for both apps, games, multimedia and processing the latest AI-enhanced features.
Supporting the processing power is 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage. This can be expanded with a 2TB TF card.
One of the big features of the new chipset is that it features MediaTek NPU 655 to enhance AI performance. As you use the phone with third-party AI applications such as Gemini, you can see the speed enhancement over standard non-AI-enhanced hardware.
The big feature of this phone is, of course, the battery capacity, which comes at 21,200mAh and will enable you to use the phone for well over a week between charges, which is great if you’re working off-grid. This battery supports 120W fast charging. This ultimately gives you a standby time, as quoted by the company, of 1,140 hours and a talk time of over 114 hours. Essentially, this test enabled at least a week of continuous use between charges.
Supporting the hardware is Android 15, and this is a relatively light version, although due to the Ulefone toolkit and a few other apps, it is nicely streamlined and not overly bloated.
The camera array is also a really decent feature, with a triple camera selection on the back offering main, wide, and night vision. Compared with many rugged smartphones, the quality of these cameras is far superior, and that was instantly apparent as soon as I started the performance section of the test. This is a series of cameras that you can use out in the field and will provide decent quality and detail.
The primary camera is a 50MP main camera with the Samsung GN1 CMOS sensor, fronted by a seven-piece lens and 85° field of view. The next camera along is a 64MP night vision camera. This one features an OV64B CMOS sensor with a 79.4° field of view. Finally, there’s an ultra-wide 50MP camera, this time with a Samsung JN1 CMOS sensor and 117.3° field of view, essentially giving you a really good set of cameras for capturing scenes as well as closer-up work and the occasional night shot.
One of the big features of the latest phone is the dual AMOLED display, with the 6.67-inch screen on the front and the circular screen on the back. The main screen is a 120Hz, 1080p-resolution display that offers up to 900 nits and peaks at 2200 nits, making it easy to read even in bright conditions. However, as we found, the screen is quite reflective. The resolution is also mediocre at 1080 x 2400 with a pixel density of 395ppi, but interestingly, supporting the quality of the cameras is 10-bit colour depth, DCI-P3 colour gamut and a contrast ratio of 5,000,000:1.
The secondary display is far smaller at 1.04 inches on the diagonal and has a 340 x 340 resolution. This small screen essentially acts as a digital watch face on the back of the phone, but it also has other functions. You can show notifications, and if you swipe left, you can bring up the calendar and a very handy compass navigation device. This is slightly dimmer at 600 nits, but for its function and use, that’s more than adequate.
The battery is the big feature of this particular rugged smartphone. Its capacity of 21,200mAh will essentially keep the phone running for up to 7 days with standard use and sit on standby for 1,140 hours. Call time is 114 hours, and it can do constant video playback for an astounding 27 hours. It also offers 120W fast charging and PD reverse charging, so if you do have a lightweight phone, such as an iPhone, then you can 10W reverse charge that with the capacity of the battery on the Armor 29 Pro.
As is now common with all of these rugged smartphones, they also have built-in light selection. There’s the slightly gimmicky red/blue emergency light, which you can use if you need to attract attention. There’s also a large camping light, which is really well diffused and fully adjustable, so you can have it as a bright light to illuminate a campsite or work area, or you can reduce it just to add a bit of ambient light in the evening. And considering the size and capacity of the battery, it gives you a good amount of longevity for use.
Finally, taking a look at the rugged credentials, the phone comes with IP68 and IP69K ratings and MIL-STD-810H certification, which means it can essentially survive pretty much anything, including being submerged in water for a short period of time. So whether you’re out on site, hiking off in the wild or caught in a torrential downpour, this phone should be absolutely fine.
One of the features that will appeal to many people working in the trades is that it’s part of the U-Smart ecosystem. That means if you want to attach an endoscope or microscope, then they can be bolted onto the side. This does require a small screwdriver in order to secure the connector to the side of the phone, but what that enables you to do significantly enhances the usability for certain users.
Finally, when it comes to connectivity, it features Wi-Fi 6E, NFC, is Widevine L1 certified and includes Bluetooth 5.4.
Ulefone Armor 29 Pro: Performance
There’s no doubt that this phone is rugged, but its oversized form and weight do make it slightly more cumbersome than most. So, the people who would really focus on this are those who need a rugged smartphone that can be used out in the field without the need to charge for a week or more, or need a phone that can reliably sit in a backpack on standby until needed.
The fact that it is so large doesn’t really make it a great option for day-to-day use, and having carried it around for a week, the close to 700g weight does become a little overbearing. When you try to answer calls, whilst the speaker and mic pick up reception exceptionally well, the fact that it is essentially a brick does make it relatively difficult to handle on long calls.
However, weight and size aside, I have to say that whilst the screen resolution is relatively low compared with most other modern phones, it’s still bright and clear. In bright sunlight, it was easy enough to navigate, although I will say that the protective cover on the phone was extremely reflective, so whilst you could see the icons and content of the phone, you still needed to shade it to stop the harsh reflections.
In use, there were instantly several features that I really liked that actually surprised me. The first was that secondary screen on the back, the fact that it has a small watch on display, so you can quickly check it out even if it’s on your desk or whilst you’re out in the field, it’s just handy to have available. It just seemed like a great option. But the feature I really liked was the built-in compass, so when I was out in the forest, I was able to pinpoint exactly where I was and the direction back to the van.
What I liked about this smartphone was that the camera selection they’ve included in that triple array on the back is decent. The quality of the images that are captured is sharp and vibrant, with plenty of tone and detail, and it doesn’t suffer from the glare or over-processing that many of these rugged smartphones tend to show. The 50MP resolution is a really fine balance. What I’ve found is that phones with 100MP+ cameras are rarely anywhere near the quality of these lower-resolution options.
I also like the way they’ve thought out how those cameras will be used. For many people working in engineering and trade, having a phone that can take decent pictures is essential for on-site records, and here this phone, with its standard and wide-angle, gives you plenty of flexibility.
Then, when you use USmart options so you can attach endoscopes and microscopes digitally, this phone suddenly becomes a very handy tool.
The other point, going back to its size and weight, is that it is heavy and bulky, so whilst it might not be the best option for a day-to-day phone, the fact that it also has such a large-capacity battery inside means you can reverse-charge other devices. So if you do have a lightweight phone, then you can use the Armor 29 Pro to charge it. Likewise, any earbuds or other devices that need charging could all pull on the capacity of the phone.
The more you carry the Armor 29 Pro, the more you can see why it’s useful. Essentially, if you’re unable to get to a power point for a period of time, then it’s a great option. But when you start to look at the processing and graphics performance of the phone, you realise that it’s a huge step up from many of the smartphones that came before. They’re no longer rugged and sluggish, this actually packs in a decent amount of power.
As I started out with Google Docs and Microsoft Word, I found that the 6.67-inch screen was clear and bright, and the processing was fast enough to keep up with the changes and edits I was making to documents. I will say the resolution did feel just a little bit lower than I’m used to with an iPhone, but it was still good and responsive.
Likewise, switching over to CapCut to edit video shot on the phone, and once again, whilst I was running a quick test, it seemed good and responsive, able to make quick cuts, edits, and apply templates without any issue at all. I was mainly editing in HD, but when I tried 4K, this too seemed swift enough on the edit.
Switching over to Lightroom, which can sometimes be a little laggy, especially with these styles of phones, and again, the performance was excellent. Able to open the images shot on the phone, make some simple adjustments and save them without too many issues. There was the occasional lag as adjustments were made, but nothing too serious, and for the most part, it ran exceptionally smoothly. Likewise, Photoshop was exactly the same. Again, with both Lightroom and Photoshop, the lack of resolution on the screen, despite its large size, and the reflection from the coating did sometimes make it a little tricky to see the adjustments that were being made.
Switching over to gaming, and again, it seems that everything ran really nicely and smoothly. Just checking over the 3DMark scores, with Wild Life Overall at 8643 and Solar Bay at 7775, showed decent all-round performance, and it was able to handle Call of Duty Mobile, PUBG and Asphalt without too many issues at medium to high settings.
When it came to outright performance, the battery life had to be the thing that really stood out. It’s absolutely exceptional. I must admit that whilst I did take the phone to use for the week to give it a good test out, because of its size and bulk, I ended up keeping it in my backpack. It was just too heavy to carry in a jacket pocket, so I also ended up using it to charge up my iPhone and use the two in combination, and even then, at the end of the week, I still hadn’t needed to charge it. However, it was, by that time, down to its last few per cent.
For all processing, absolutely spot-on, really well balanced in performance, and once again, I like the fact you can expand the storage with a microSD or TF card. There’s also the ability to put in your SIMs. Through the test, I had Vodafone and EE SIM cards placed into the slots. I will point out that, in order to switch from one to the other, you need to go through the settings and opt for this manually, it’s not auto-switching.
By the end of the test, I liked this phone. It just seems like a really good, balanced option. Although the size and bulk of it really do cancel it out for most people, if you know that you’re going to be away from civilisation and unable to charge your mobile device, then this is a great solution. It is a phone, power bank, and decent camera, and I have to say, the camping light is also superb. So that’s a good, all-round rugged smartphone that will withstand the elements and even be submerged in water. It’s a good choice, but that size and weight do make it a specialist choice.
Benchmarks
Disk Speed Read: 602 MB/s
Disk Speed Write: 4545 MB/s
Geekbench CPU Multi-Core: 7862
Geekbench CPU Single-Core: 1475
Geekbench GPU: 4773
Solar Bay (GPU test): 7775
Slingshot (Graphics): Maxed Out
Slingshot Extreme: 3020
Wild Life Extreme Overall: 1192
Wild Life Overall: 8643
Steel Nomad Overall: 439
Ulefone Armor 29 Pro: Final verdict
The appeal of the phone is going to be limited, essentially, anyone working outdoors and unable to plug in to charge their phones for a period of days. The fact that it can last for seven days with pretty standard use without a charge is impressive, but then there’s the fact that it can last over a month on standby, which could be handy in all sorts of situations.
Through this test, I took it with me for a whole week with the aim of using it as my main phone, but very quickly found it was just too heavy and bulky to keep in a jacket or pocket. I relegated it to the confines of a backpack, picking up my iPhone as a secondary phone for making calls and using the Armor 29 Pro when out and about, and also to give my iPhone a top-up charge when required.
Side-by-side against the iPhone, the connectivity speed was actually very impressive and seemed to outperform the iPhone in several situations, especially when it came to download speed. The robustness of the 5G connection was definitely one up on that of the iPhone. Likewise, the larger screen made it easier to navigate Google Docs, and that experience was once again slightly better than the iPhone, with the only downside being the lower resolution, which meant everything was just larger on screen, giving you less real estate to make edits.
For content creation, it was also exceptionally good, handling videos shot on the very capable cameras without any real trouble, and CapCut and Lightroom ran very smoothly, enabling me to edit video and image content to upload to social media.
I also liked the camping light. It’s just very well diffused and with plenty of adjustment. If you are out and about camping and need a light, or, in the case of this test, I needed to illuminate underneath the car to check on a leak, the brightness of that illumination is exceptionally good, and it’s also well diffused, which gives a softer light that is actually slightly more usable than a flashlight-style lamp.
There’s also the fact that, like the other Armor rugged smartphones, if you do work in trade and you use endoscopes to see behind walls or you’re a motor mechanic who needs to see behind sumps, then the fact that you can attach the U-Smart accessories is a major advantage. So really, when it comes down to it, the Armor 29 Pro is an exceptionally good rugged smartphone. Although, because of its size and weight, you might not be able to use it for standard day-to-day use, as a work tool, it definitely has its place in the market.
Should I buy a Ulefone Armor 29 Pro?
|
Value |
It feels a little bit expensive for what it is, but then it has exceptional cameras, is very rugged, and has decent processing power |
4 |
|
Design |
It’s built to withstand pretty much everything, but its bulk and size make it difficult to use day to day |
3 |
|
Features |
The features are really well balanced, designed for those working rather than for recreation. The camera and battery capacity are standout features |
4 |
|
Performance |
It packs in more processing power than most rugged smartphones, and the cameras and battery capacity make this phone stand out |
4 |
|
Overall |
This is a very well-balanced rugged smartphone. If you can cope with the size, and with the U-Smart additions, it’s a great option for trade, motor mechanics and many other professions |
4 |
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
For more durable devices, we’ve tested and reviewed the best rugged laptops and best rugged tablets.
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