Ulefone Armor 17 Pro Review – Budget Rugged Smartphone With Helio G99 SoC, 120Hz Display, 108MP Camera

Ulefone pace of technological innovation has never stopped with the introduction of the Ulefone Armor 17 Pro the rugged budget phone. This phone combines providing extreme use conditions with a very durable body, and a regular device like any Android phone, so the Armor 17 Pro has a number of outstanding specifications represented by a 120Hz display, a 108MP main rear camera, and 66W fast charging With magnetic wireless charging. On the other hand, it also rocks a MediaTek Helio G99 SoC and runs Android 12.

The Armor 17 Pro, like every rugged phone, is IP68 and IP69K rated, it’s also MIL-STD-819G certified and corning gorilla glass 5. This makes it one of the few rugged smartphones with such specs in the budget segment. So, Let’s head over to our Armor 17 Pro review to know more details about this phone.

Ulefone Armor 17 Pro Features

• Rugged Design & Premium Build
• Android 12 OS
• MediaTek Helio G99 Octa-Core
• 8GB+Up to 5GB Extended + 256GB ROM
• 6.58″ FHD+ 120Hz Display, Corning Gorilla Glass 5
• AI Triple camera (108MP+8MP+8MP)
• Samsung S5K4H7 8MP Night vision camera
• 5380mAh Battery, 66W Fast Charging
• IP68, IP69K & MIL-STD-810G
• Magnetic Ecosystem
• Dual 4G Network, GPS, NFC, BT5.2

Design & Build Quality

Ulefone has improved the overall design aspect of the Ulefone Armor 17 Pro, it’s a durable smartphone that is built to survive no matter what you use or work, it’s extremely durable and not easy to break as tests have proven. The smartphone has a practical design with an interesting texture like carbon fiber that fits comfortably in the hand and does not try to slip out, and the finish is extremely thorough. All of the parts have been superbly put together but, you are not getting any additional shade options, apart from the classic black.

As a result, the phone appears tough. All the elements fit perfectly, the materials feel reliable, and everything is fine in this regard. Despite its Metal and rubber frame, it feels super solid when you hold it in your hands. The edges, ports, buttons, and all the other exterior components have a precise finish, which further boosts the feel-good factor.

The design of the Armor 17 Pro is beautiful with some touches that make it look more eye-catching and more premium. it features a large screen on the front of 6.58 inches and a high-quality synthetic rubber body on the back, Although the 17 Pro is a rugged phone, has a 12.5mm thin frame that gives a kind of wonderful feeling when held in your hand, despite its weight of 290g. If you ask me about the quality of the manufacturing, there is nothing to complain about it, because Ulefone is always working to provide high-quality products to users all over the world at affordable prices. So, The design and build of the 17 Pro are very satisfying.

On The Front

As we mentioned earlier, in front of the device, you have a full screen of 6.58 inches that takes 95% of the body, according to the company, it has Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection. The bezels around the screen are neat, but with prominent edges. The notch for the front camera is classic Dot Drop with a 16MP camera on the middle of the top for taking selfies and video chats, which we will talk more about soon.

On The Back

But the back is radically different from any phone I’ve seen before with a premier look and came in two colors Black or Orange and is made of a high-quality synthetic rubber layer, and reinforced with four thick cushions in the corners to handle the toughest collisions and for comfort when carried and also to prevent the screen from scratching. In the middle of the top, what catches your attention is an island with a bump and three cameras and flashlights, and has a sensor for infrared night vision. Also embossed the Ulefone logo at the bottom.

Ports And Buttons

The volume button and power button are integrated with a fingerprint scanner which is surprisingly good at this price, and there is a SIM card slot that holds two nano-SIM cards and a MicroSD card and has a customizable button, you can make a trigger to activate certain functions in the system settings. All buttons are made of durable metal, which gives them more solidity. In terms of ports, the Armor 17 Pro is equipped with a USB Type-C port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. but it doesn’t have any dust plugs for its ports, which shows its dustproof capability.

Waterproof

The Ulefone Armor 17 Pro is covered by high-quality synthetic rubber and the screen is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5, And more than that rated with IP68 and IP69K, which means it is dust-resistant scratch-resistant shock and drop-resistant, and water-resistant up to 1.5 meters for up to 30 minutes. Moreover, it can withstand high pressure and high-temperature washing test, and withstand 100 bar (1450 psi) high water pressure and 80°C high water temperature. In addition, it also has MIL-STD-810G certification, a military standard certification that ensures the integrity of the device is maintained in almost any situation.

Ulefone Armor 17 Pro – Display Quality

Now, let’s move on to why I fell in love with this phone. The display on the Ulefone Armor 17 Pro is one of the best that you get with almost every other budget rugged phone nowadays, with a 6.58-inch IPS with FHD+ resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate with a quick response speed of the 240Hz touch sampling rate and an aspect ratio of 20:9, and a modest screen resolution of 1080*2408. Despite the high resolution and 401PPI, There was a time when these specs were only found on flagship phones and it’s exciting to see them trickle down to the mid-range segment. The display is definitely one of the strongest suits of the phone. It comes with excellent viewing angles, crisp content, and accurate color reproduction. The display’s contrast makes for an immersive viewing experience with deep blacks and vivid colors.  

The first thing that caught my eye was the colors on this display, which look more vibrant than you’d expect from a rugged phone. Even the black levels are pretty good for the price, and that very well explains why the screen has a good contrast ratio and vibrant colors, the content on the screen doesn’t look very sharp and the brightness levels are slightly lower. But that’s what you get for the price.

What is more noteworthy is the 120Hz high refresh function. The high refresh rate can make you feel smooth at any moment when you move the screen, open SNS like Twitter and Facebook, and even play games at a high frame rate. Of course, you don’t have to worry about the power consumption of this high refresh rate monitor. If you want it to be smooth and power efficient, you can also choose 90Hz.

While on a sunny day, the screen does not fade and remains readable, Of course, this does not apply to direct sunlight. This type of screen is the best you can get on a budget phone and provides good color reproduction with no picture distortion and blue light protection for comfortable reading. Yes, this screen is not better than an AMOLED screen, but it remains better than other LCD screens and is suitable for this price range. In short, It has by far the best display I’ve seen in a budget phone, and I find it perfectly adequate for web browsing and content consumption, you will get the best value for what you pay, a large and high-quality screen suitable for media consumption, whether you are watching the video, playing games or browsing the social media.

Ulefone Armor 17 Pro – Cameras

So far, the overall rating of the Ulefone Armor 17 Pro rugged phone is more than great, And this work continues through a triple camera system with a 108MP Samsung HM2 CMOS sensor, 0.7µm, 6 piece lens, FOV 82.3°, ƒ/1.89 large aperture. Also, an 8MP Samsung S5K4H7 CMOS sensor, FOV 77° Night Vision Camera with 2x infrared LEDs; Finally, has an 8MP GC08A3 CMOS sensor for Ultra-Wide Angle with FOV 118.8°, ƒ/2.2 aperture. To be capable of capturing the details, colors, or ranges to produce high-quality images.

This is with some great features most notably, the Night Vision mode, which takes night photography to the next level compared to its competitors, allowing you to take great pictures even in extremely low light. With this camera setup, the Armor 17 Pro manages to capture pictures with decent image quality, at least in daylight. The images look bright, vibrant, and quite detailed for the price. Speaking of low light, photos from the primary lens taken at night appear to be pretty soft and grainy. There’s a lot of noise in the pictures and the colors appear quite washed out as well.

The 17 Pro will manage to capture pictures with decent image quality, at least in daylight. But, Low-light environments bring out the limitations of this camera. Plus, the main camera sensor helps you capture gorgeous memory for any moment with clear and sharp images. Also, offer plenty of Photo Modes including Night Vision, 108MP Mode, Pro Mode, Night Mode, Portrait, Gif, Panorama mode, Slow Motion, Time Lapse, and Intelligent Scanning.

Moving on to the ultrawide lens, the colors of the photos taken via this lens closely match the colors from the primary lens, which is a good thing. The dynamic range is decent enough, There is also minimal barrel distortion in ultrawide images, and in daylight, you can get some pretty social-media-worthy shots from this lens, however, the low-light performance is less than ideal.

Video Recording

The Ulefone Armor 17 Pro can record videos at up to 1440p resolution at 30fps with the rear and 1080P at 30fps for the front. The quality of the videos is good at this resolution, and there is no stabilization but still, the results are not looking underwhelming according to the price range. If you want to reduce some of the shakes, you will have to shoot in Full HD with lower quality.

Front Camera

Thankfully, the Ulefone Armor 17 Pro adopted a 16MP SONY IMX481 CMOS sensor, 1.0µm, 5-piece lens, FOV 76.3°, ƒ/2.2 aperture for the front camera to make decent selfies with enhanced AI software support. The skin tone and details are good, just the exaggerated contrast and excessive noise in darker points compromise the quality a little. Night selfies lose sharpness but are still good enough to share on social media. Portrait mode separates the planes well and has few errors in a blur.

Infrared Night Vision Camera

The night vision mode of this phone is one of its main strengths. It features an 8MP Samsung S5K4H7 CMOS sensor, which can help you see everything at night. You just need to click on the icon to enter night vision mode and you will see all the differences. When taking pictures in the dark, and in extremely dimly lit environments, the image quality is very good. And in the deepest darkness, it seems to pick up some kind of lens flare-type effect. Also, distances play an important role to get accurate details. I am amazed that the camera worked so well, one of the most useful features. If you’ve got this camera for hunting, camping, or general wildlife spotting, it might be the best pick.

Ulefone Armor 17 Pro – Overall Performance

Performance is sort of the main focal point for the Ulefone Armor 17 Pro. For this, it’s powered by Mediatek Helio G99 which is the latest 4G chipset from Mediatek with great performance, making it one of the best chipsets in the market in 2022 and also very cost-effective. And with 6nm advanced TSMC Technology and ARM architecture offering a total of 8 cores and a maximum frequency of 2.2Ghz, this CPU is a huge upgrade from the previous generation by up to 25% increase in performance and power efficiency, which makes it achieve the Antutu Benchmark performance test platform is 280,000 points, in Geekbench 5’s single-core and multi-core tests, it scored 367 and 1339 points respectively. So the processor is expected to give an excellent, fast, and smooth performance in various daily tasks, whether simple or hard. It is also widely used in mid-range smartphones such as Oppo Reno 8T, Realme 10, Poco M5, Infinix Note 12 Pro, and many others.

The Mali-G57 MC2 GPU is also high performing, it provides a high frame rate and smooth gaming experience, these new chips have a lot of issues from previous generations such as overheating and battery consumption, and provide an overall better experience. Surprisingly, the smartphone can handle gaming very well. For instance, games like Asphalt 9: Legends and Call of Duty Mobile run pretty smoothly and didn’t have any stutters as such. In PUBG we had good performance with graphics in high with some of the extra features activated. The Armor 17 Pro can run any Android game well. The lighter ones take advantage of the 120Hz screen to reach 120fps, while more demanding games run well with less fluidity.

Fact that it has 8 GB RAM and supports up to 5GB of virtual RAM for improved speed and performance, the Armor 17 Pro manages to hold many apps open in the background. It also consumes less power, thereby offering more mileage in terms of device usage. Also has 256GB of storage but if that’s not enough then the company has included a MicroSD slot for up to 2TB. This combination is a powerhouse when we talk about mid-range smartphones, particularly for system responsiveness.

So this device will come as a solution for those who are looking for a phone that is ideal for daily use of various applications and regarding gaming performance, stating that it can run on “medium to high” graphics even for big games like FreeFire and PUBG.

Software

One of the standout features of the Ulefone Armor 17 Pro is that it will be an early adopter of Android 12 with a custom user interface for a better privacy dashboard, and some interesting customization additions with UI that has better gesture navigation controls, a dark theme, and contains most of the features that come with the system, the most important of which is the presence of all Google services, Making the smartphone experience smoother and more personalized. Also, I like the large icons, animations, and overall responsiveness of the GUI.

As I always say, the stock Android system is best for these devices, with a simple and smooth launcher for better performance, especially since it does not contain pre-installed apps or games. However, it has a toolkit app which is the height meter, compass, gradienter, protractor, and more but does not burden the device and is without pop-up ads, bloatware, or third-party apps.

Playing Content

Playing the content on YouTube, was very smooth. You can play videos at a maximum of 1080p at 60 FPS without any problems or lag, And this is the highest quality you can get. Next, let’s take a look at the DMR information and Widevine security. I can tell you I’m a little disappointed with this because it’s only Level 3, so you won’t be able to get HD on Netflix or other streaming services. and this level maybe not be found on all Chinese smartphones without exaggeration. However, you can still enjoy Netflix and all other streaming services in 480p resolution.

Connectivity & Call Quality

Ulefone Armor 17 Pro is a dual-SIM smartphone equipped with a SIM slot that accommodates two 4G nano-sim cards and a MicroSD card that support all bandwidth offerings of 4G and 3G and so on, so its expected that you will get wide coverage and good signal quality for making the phone calls and accessing the Internet easily.

To connect to WiFi networks, It supports dual bandwidths of 2.4GHz & 5GHz providing low latency and faster transmission speed, resulting in greater efficiency, reliability, and security. Of course, there is Bluetooth 5.2. That’s not all, there are also some basic sensors for a smartphone, including a gyroscope, accelerometers, and even an electronic compass. Also, has NFC so you can make mobile payments (Supports Google Pay).

Battery And Charging Time

As a rugged phone, the battery in the Ulefone Armor 17 Pro is no less important than the rest of the requirements. Thanks to the 5380mAh battery it is enough to handle the daily demands and it will easily last for at least one day. This means you can go on the weekend on a camping or fishing trip without having to worry about charging your phone each period. Of course, the time is less when playing games or using 4G and with moderate use, it will stay with you for a whole day on one charge it mostly takes about 35 minutes to fully charge 5380mAh using Type-C with 66W fast charging. However, I can say that the battery was satisfying.

For a regular user, the battery will easily last for a whole working day, depending on your usage such as the times you open the screen, and the type of applications you run, also it suffices for more than 7 hours of content streaming. And it supports 15W Max wireless charging and MagSafe accessories, meaning it can be used like an iPhone with a magnetic wallet, phone stand, and even speakers, which is not expected in a rugged phone.

In addition to wireless charging and magnetic wireless charging. Armor 17 Pro supports reverse charging which comes in handy when another device is short of power such as a smartphone, smartwatch, earphones, etc, So you can make it as a power bank at any time.

Final verdict

If I had to choose one of the best-rugged phones in 2022, Armor 17 Pro would be one of the candidates, makes a good impression, and has got a rendition of the rugged phone design. And there is no doubt that the Ulefone Armor 17 Pro holds all the ingredients to be a leading rugged smartphone in this price category.

And what really distinguishes it from any other phone is its large 6.58-inch FHD 120Hz Display ensures an enjoyable viewing and good use of the latest Android 12 features and long-lasting battery with speedy charging support that you will not need to charge while you are on a safari or camping with friends, or just finding a gadget for your daily work, it will be a reliable companion, especially with the build quality and durability, and the best protection certificates for a smartphone against water, dust, and even shocks, And the most important in my opinion the 108MP cameras, with good performance making it to perform for all tasks. in addition to the quality infrared night vision camera that will be a great help for those who work or deal in dark environments. And there are many attractive features, and most importantly, it is affordable.

Despite the many features that we mentioned, the Ulefone Armor 17 Pro looks like a fairly balanced device and positioned itself as one of the top contenders for the title of the best affordable rugged phone on the market, with features perfect for anyone who needs a rugged phone at this time.

Ulefone Armor 17 Pro Price And Where To Buy

Usually, better performance means a higher price, but not in the case of Ulefone Armor 17 Pro. The smartphone is now only priced at $245 on Aliexpress Store. So, if you are an armored phone fan, none is stopping you to purchase this phone. And to view its price or buy it, you can access the offer by clicking on the store icon.

What’s in the Box?

• Ulefone Armor 17 Pro Rugged Smartphone
• Tempered Glass Screen Protector (Gift)
• Phone Stand Wallet(Gift)
• AC Power Charger
• Data Cable (100cm)
• Protective Film (Pre-installed)
• SIM Pick
• Lanyard
• Multi-language User Manual
• Multi-Function Instruction Card
• Charging Instruction Card
• Safety Prompt Card
• Warranty Card