There are smart phones and there is the Ulefone Armor series. But is it really that much better?

Introductory

Strap phones are quite special pieces among mobiles. They are bigger, heavier, usually much slower, weaker, yet have plenty of room in the market. This is because these devices, as shown by the strapa indicator, can withstand wrinkling. There are certainly situations where this is needed. Extreme sports, physical work, very hot or very cold environment. This is the world for which a good strapatphone is being prepared.

Then there’s another world where the phone maker asked, Okay, endure everything. Don’t break if you drop it, don’t go into the sand and dust, don’t get soaked when you put it under water, it’s obvious, but from these, why it has to be slow or why it needs to be small, the bad the resolution? There was an answer to the question, it doesn't have to be this way, so then Armor 6 was born, and then the subject of our present test, Armor 6E. As you will see, in addition to plenty of durability - these are also outstanding - the Armor 6E is a full-fledged mobile with a strong, fast, normal-sized display that can be our faithful companion not only in dangerous situations but also in everyday life.

In this article, I do not want to deal with packaging and similar trifles, just as the data on accessories can only be found in the specification table. The reason for this is that there is a good big stack of skills, knowledge that could be used to fill even more articles, so I’m trying to keep it short, but be prepared for the fact that you’ll still have to chew through a lot of technical data. If you don’t care about these, scroll quickly to the camera and conclusion at the end of the article, and I recommend the others to prepare the cold food and drink, then fall for it to read!

Processor, GPU and artificial intelligence

We always start the presentation of the phones with the central unit, and in this case this is of particular importance. The Ulefone Armor 6E features a chip, the MediaTek P70 (MT6771T), which is extremely fresh, extremely modern and of course quite fast. The manufacturer MediaTek introduced its predecessor, the Helio P60, this spring, and then the successor, the P70, arrived in early summer, which changed not in its capabilities but in its clock speed and energy efficiency. The Helio P70 targets the upper third of the mid-range and as such is one of MediaTek’s most powerful solutions. According to the manufacturer, it can outperform the Helio P80 by up to 30 percent in terms of speed, and its consumption is even lower than the P23, which is among the stronger inserts in the lower category. The strength of the MediaTek P70 is well illustrated by the fact that the manufacturer says it is a worthy competitor to the Snapdragon 670 chip, which is not an underestimated capability.

The chip uses a processor based on “traditional” ARM cores. The eight cores are, as we are accustomed to, divided into two clusters, one sharpened for low power consumption and the other for high power. The interesting thing about the processor is that, unlike usual, each of the cores can scale up to 2,1 GHz as a function of performance. However, these seeds arranged in clusters are not the same. Cortex-A53 cores work in the lower, ie energy-saving section, while Cortex-A73 cores work in the upper part tuned for performance. The latter is a special feature, because in the case of Chinese phones, we usually only encounter its predecessor, the Cortex-A72 cores.

Of course, the proci also comes with a graphics accelerator, or GPU. This is one of the most modern units of ARM, the ARM Mali-G72 MP3, which works on three cores based on the Bifrost architecture. with a clock speed of 900 Mhz. As usual, a memory controller has been integrated into the central unit, in this case one that can handle both LPDD3 and LPDDR4 modules, as well as up to 8 GB.

However, the most interesting part of the system for them at the moment is not the CPU or the GPU, but the neural accelerator already mentioned in the chapter title. A neural accelerator is nothing more than a dedicated solution for artificial intelligence, like a GPU, only responsible for graphics, while it accelerates artificial intelligence operations. A dedicated solution is usually much more powerful, much faster than entrusting these special operations to a processor or graphics accelerator. Although the Helio P70 has a neural accelerator, it would be a shame to hide that its performance is not in line with the performance of the Kirin 970 used by Huawei, for example, so to speak, it is weak. True, it should not be forgotten that the Helio P70 has also accelerated in this area compared to the P60. Due to more efficient voltage scaling, the manufacturer said an increase of 10 to 30 percent was achieved. It is likely that MediaTek experts also knew that despite the acceleration, chip performance was not always sufficient, so they implemented a technology called NeuroPilot, which can distribute some computational tasks between the neural accelerator, GPU and CPU if necessary.

The Helio P70 also stands out quite well in the field of multimedia. A maximum of 32 megapixels can be transferred from a camera to a phone built on the P60, and if the manufacturer wants a dual camera, the upper limit is 20 + 16 megapixels. Also noteworthy is support for hardware vibration damping as well as HDR and zero shutter lag function. The chip, of course, supports the new display sizes, including 18: 9 and 19: 9 aspect ratio displays.

In the case of the Helio P70, it’s also important to note that the chip doesn’t differ in its physical size and foot layout from its predecessor, so manufacturers can essentially release a newer, faster version of their phones without major design or redesign.

Durability

It’s important to have strong hardware in an impact-resistant cell phone, but perhaps more importantly, to be able to withstand all kinds of physical impact as much as possible. Members of the Ulefone Armor family, including the Armor 6E, are the pinnacle in this regard. Their water and dust resistance, the ratings obtained go far beyond the usual IP68 rating, they meet conditions that are sufficient even for military use.

In order to understand exactly which standard means what protection, I tried to summarize the point!

After the IP marking, the first number is for protection against dust and the second for protection against water, and the marking K is for a special, enhanced protection against water, which is only available for devices with IP69 protection only.

Dust protection is described by a six-point scale, where 6 is the peak, ie total dust protection

The scale of protection against water is 9 divisions, by definition the ninth is the best. This specifically means that IP69 mobiles are able to stay functional at a depth of 1-3 meters for a minimum of 30 minutes, but for some phones, such as the Armor 6E, the manufacturer can specify even better values. In our case, this means two hours of operation at a depth of two meters and 24 hours of operation at a depth of one meter.

The K mark means additional protection against water, precisely that the phone must also withstand high-pressure water. This is numerically 14-16 liters per minute of 80-degree water from a distance of 10-15 centimeters at 30 bar cycles in 100-second cycles.

However, these conformations are nothing compared to the resistance required by the MIL-STD-810 military requirement. The device must be able to withstand extremely low and extremely high pressures, very high and very low temperatures, solar radiation, prolonged rain, salt, fog, sand and dust, rapid diving, high acceleration, vibration, icing and the ballistic blow as well.

• Ulefone Armor 6E tests included the low pressure test, in which the device remained operational for 57 hours at a pressure of 25 kPa and a temperature of 4 degrees.
• An acid atmosphere test was also performed, in which the mobile was sprayed with a pH of 35 at 4,17 degrees, so an acidic liquid was sprayed. The phone remained operational for two hours and the data storage was not damaged for another 22 hours.
• Testing in a humid environment was performed in an environment between 23 and 60 degrees, while humidity ranged from 50 to 90 percent. The Armor 6E lasts 6-8 hours in such an extreme environment.
• According to the standard, the phone must also be able to withstand direct sunlight. During the test, the phone received 49 W / m1120 of radiation energy at an outside temperature of 2 degrees and remained operational under these conditions for nearly 20 hours.
• According to the military standard, impact resistance must also be good. Quantitatively, this means that the device must withstand when dropped from a height of 1,2 meters onto concrete, for softer floors such as wood, 2 meters is the expected height.

As you can see, the endurance court also has degrees, but the Armor 6E offers something quite special in this regard, in every environment, it has to have and can have all kinds of physical effects.

Ulefone Armor 6E - the work phone

Ulefone has built a lot of sensors into the Armor 6E, including quite special pieces. In addition, we see the benefits of these sensors here, because pre-installed on the phone we get a pleasant program package, which makes it a real work phone.

Among the sensors there is the proximity sensor, the light sensor, the accelerometer, the compass, the gyroscope, the barometer, the pedometer, the fingerprint sensor, and last but not least, the most special, the UV meter. Well, we almost never meet the latter on the phone, but the barometer, for example the air pressure gauge, is not a common piece either.

The installed programs are packaged under the Instruments program group on a mobile phone that also speaks Hungarian, and contains the following programs:

• Compass
• Noise meter
• Pic dependent - deviation from vertical and water level in degrees
• Gradient Builder - The value of the deviation from the horizontal measured on the x and y axes in degrees
• Height measurement - measure the height of distant objects
• Magnifying glass
• Protractor
• Pendulum - deflection measured relative to vertical
• barometer
• UV radiation meter
• odometer

I think these things don’t need to be very over-explained, where the function isn’t clear, there I commented on what can be used for what. Obviously, the capabilities of the phone and sensors are fully utilized, not only are they an ornament in the phone, but we can take real measurements with us or help with a construction site, for example.

The screenshots below show the interface of the programs, probably everyone will know which one will be which.

Other hardware capabilities

In the first paragraph, we dropped the processor, in the former we talked about sensors, but iron, more commonly known as hardware, consists of many other components. As I already pointed out, these components have been quite good with the Armor 6E, although there are a couple of little things you can attach to them, such as the lack of a dedicated camera button, which would be very good for underwater photography, and unfortunately slowly as usual there is no jack either, so we need to use the USB Type-C jack converter.

The display of the phone is an IPS panel, which, like all IPS, has great colors, a wonderful viewing angle, a very good contrast ratio, and no one will complain about its color fidelity. The panel would have a diagonal of 6,2 inches and a resolution of FHD +, or 2246 x 1080 pixels…, if the top of the screen did not protrude from the notch, or camera island, that contains the front panel sensors and camera. We were the first to see this nonsense on iPhone phones, some like it, others don’t, so I don’t rate it because it doesn’t deduct anything from the value of the phone after all. Above the display panel is Gorilla Glass 5 bottles, which, although a basic requirement for a rugged phone, is omitted from many low-cost models.

Regarding the display, it is important to note that although the Armor 6E is a rugged phone, meaning the frames are thicker than usual, the display front ratio is not bad. Seen from the front, the useful area, i.e. where the image appears is 70,53 per cent on the front panel, which is a very commendable value.

The test device has 4 GB of LPDDR4X memory, which is powered by a dual-channel memory controller integrated in the central unit. The storage capacity is 64 GB, this can be expanded with a memory card with a maximum capacity of 256 GB if this proves to be low and if only one SIM card is used.

We get a lot of radios to communicate with the outside world. Wireless networks can use a two-channel WIFI module that also supports the ac standard, which can be used for standard services such as WIFI Hotspot and WIFI Direct. Other devices are supported by the Bluetooth 4.2 version of the interface, and navigation is supported by a system that knows GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou satellites. It is a special pleasure that the Ulefone Armor 6E has also received NFC, so it is suitable for payment with a mobile phone, among other things.

I haven’t written about the battery yet, which is pretty human. The Lithium-Polymer-based energy storage capacity is 5000 mAh, which provides roughly 24 hours of continuous talk even with 2- and 3G connections, and a standby time of roughly 18 days. The battery can also be charged with a quick charge (9 V, 2 A) via the USB Type-C connector, but again we are also pleased to have the option of wireless charging, via the usual Qi interface, also with the standard 10 watt charge.

Hardware tests

Of course, the usual tests could not be missed either. I don’t want to over-explain these either, the numbers in the table below reveal everything we’re curious about. It is clear from the fact that the Helio P70 chip is really not small track, its performance will be enough for many more years, and since I am testing a strapatphone, I suspect that the device will not give up quickly either.

Looking at the tests, it looks like there's still a lot to bring in terms of 3D capabilities compared to Snapdragon's more powerful mid-range units, especially OpenGL performance, but also that the Snapdragon 636 at the top of the lower category is swallowed crosswise by the Helio P70. What’s particularly interesting is how significant the Helio P70’s advantage over the Snapdragon 660 is in PC Mark tests. Although the Storage test may explain this, we did not expect such a difference.

Szoftver

I’ll be honest, I have no idea what version of Ulefone Armor 6E came to me with Android, because the rain turned on right away when I turned it on. Android 9 is currently running, based on the version number, it was released on July 13th. I don't know what to write about Android itself. Completely basic software, spiced up with Ulefone's software package, but this does not affect basic software such as the camera, they only serve to take advantage of the capabilities of the sensors.

Perhaps it is also responsible to describe that the hardware power is ample enough under the ninth Android. The image does not flicker while scrolling, it clearly shows the required number of frames during the animations as well. Everything runs perfectly, loads quickly, and with 4GB of memory, we don’t even have to constantly pay attention to closing programs running in the background.

Camera

Interestingly, although the Ulefone Armor 6E can be considered the successor to the plain 6 due to the proci, the camera’s capabilities are worse than the predecessor model. The self-timer camera is 8 megapixels, and at the back, while its predecessor is a 21-megapixel camera, only a 16-megapixel main camera works in this device. The resolution of the auxiliary camera is only 2 megapixels, which predates that it has no role other than depth blur (this camera is also a depth sensor). Luckily, this 16-megapixel unit isn’t bad at all, and as the attached test photos prove, we don’t need 48 megapixels to take acceptable photos, just a good sensor and a good lens system. The former, i.e. the sensor one Samsung S5K3P9SP, which is not a bad piece at all. The quality of the lens system is proven by the aperture value of f / 1.8, which promises that we can take usable photos even in relatively low light conditions.

What I don’t suggest, however, is to entrust this phone to shoot the film of your life. The quality of the videos is quite poor, and the built-in anti-shake protection isn’t worth much either. So stay tuned instead!

Here are the test images:

Ulefone Armor 6E in everyday life

The field of use of long-distance phones is special, I also use such a phone when hiking with a motorbike. My device is a relatively weak mobile with a quad-core proc, low memory and storage, which doesn’t have a big ace to display, and it’s better to forget the camera. For me, however, it suits me except for one thing, because it can withstand shaking and pounding for up to 12 hours a day, no problem if the sun is shining, not even if the now more frequent flood-like rain is pouring down my neck. The only, but all the more inconvenient thing, is that a primary phone is a little little. It runs without problems with offline navigation, GPS is more or less important, so it is very necessary, it is good to use the Internet, but it is unsuitable for many other things. Because of this, I am also forced to take a phone with me to take photos with, which is no problem if I have to open a larger PDF file or a large Excel spreadsheet.

However, the Armor 6E is a completely different world. I’ve only been using it for a few days, but even during that time, it turned out to be plenty enough for a primary phone as well. Its power, its display, but even its camera is one that makes me dare to go on longer journeys, and I know it won’t let me down in important moments.

However, the Armor 6E is much more than that, because it’s okay to be a good companion for things like motorcycling or extreme sports, but as you’ve read above, it’s also a perfect choice for those working in places like construction sites where the phone is heavily exposed to injuries. risk. Moreover, it will be valuable to them not only as a phone, but also because of the built-in work package. I’m not saying that in many cases a traditional spirit level isn’t better, it’s not more accurate on a completely ordinary pendant, but for quick measurements, what Armor 6E can really do is really enough.

And how to use it? Mostly impeccable. The brightness of the display is enough to stay usable even on a hot day, although at that time, of course, we won’t be able to admire the colors of the panel anymore, we’re simply glad to see what’s on the display. It’s also important to mention that because of the very good display-to-front ratio described above, the phone doesn’t look bumford, though let’s be honest about it. The thick cover, which protects against shocks and environmental influences, also greatly increases in size and weight, at least compared to a traditional phone. If we have to compare it to the competition, then, although I wouldn’t dare say filigree, I think it’s minimal, but smaller, or at least it feels like that.

And the exterior is very fine. Really quality is all the way it is. For me, as you can see in the pictures, there is a version with gray inserts, but there is also a red insert with it, which is much sportier, while mine is more of a conservative line. The construction and shape of the side metal braces are first-class, and the back looks good. The buttons don’t flutter, and I really like that they’ve paid attention to such little things that by opening the protective cap of the USB connector, the stem of the cap can be rotated 90 degrees for easy access to the connector.

Since I use it as my primary phone now, I’ve made quite a few calls with it. In the meantime, I didn’t experience a problem with the quality of either the speakers or the speech microphone. Well, understandably hearing the other party, and no one complained to me that he wouldn’t hear. When hands-free, listening to music, sounds come from the speaker slot on the bottom of the back cover. Although not in the usual place, at the bottom of the frame is the speaker grille is not a disturbing thing, its placement is such that it is not covered even when held in hand. Perhaps there is a problem with putting it on the table alone, the volume weakens a bit. The sound quality is surprisingly good anyway, quite full of sounds come from behind the cover, so we can even listen to music on speakerphone, no one will want to report us due to noise pollution.

Of course, I also navigated with the phone, one of the first tests was to snap on the engine. Although there is a possibility of charging on the phone holder, I did not use this, because I used the 5000 mAh battery for hours without any problems, the phone didn't really dive in the meantime. The accuracy of the GPS is absolutely good, at least I didn’t notice that it would have taken me on a completely different route than where I was. Bluetooth and wifi also work well, more specifically I didn’t notice a problem here that would have stuck in my head. Connected, the data traffic went, so nothing worth mentioning happened.

Apart from motorcycling and sunshine, I didn’t put the Armor 6E to tougher tests, but when I came across a strong garden sprinkler, I couldn’t stop myself from soaking it from all sides with a strong jet of water. I considered it important to do this just because if you let the engine down during the first rain, I would definitely let it down under the wheel of a truck. However, the rehearsal gave the result that can be expected, ie the strong jet of water did not cause any soaking, although many of the tourists probably thought I was stupid as I beat the phone with the sprinkler in Buda Castle. Even as a policeman posting in front of Alexander Palace, I became suspicious, stood over me, and didn’t even leave me until I finished washing. He must have thought that whatever came out of such an idiot would be good to take care of.

So the phone is good, but really very good. I’m not saying there’s been a lack of a Xiaomi MIX 3 camera in recent days, and it’s not to be denied that the Ulefone Armor’s fingerprint sensor isn’t a quarrelsome speed champion compared to Xiaomi’s phone, sometimes a little insecure. In return, the face-based resolution is impeccable, fast and accurate. I couldn't fool you with a photo.

Summary

I’ve tried to describe everything in the article, but if you have any questions, ask me, I’ll try to answer. I think from what I’ve described so far, I’ve been pretty much 99 percent happy with the phone. He fulfilled all his promises. I’ve never had an Armor phone before, I’ve been able to hold one at most, but it has always been noticed that they really represent a different category than the average. Thanks to this, the goods are also slightly higher, but you will be surprised, the price tag is almost rough, in fact. Phones with similar capabilities or capabilities close to Armor are not available for under $ 160-170, and the Ulefone Armor 6E is currently $ 200. Despite this slyly crappy dollar-forint exchange rate, it is still under sixty thousand forints, which is very worthwhile for this mobile, it is beyond discussion.

Honestly, I’m also a little worried right now because I bought the Armor 6E specifically for this article, planning to sell it so I can then buy the next test device. However, I was unsure. I try to listen to my common sense that in addition to the Xiaomi MIX 3, it is completely unnecessary to keep this as well, because although I sit on the engine a lot, I spend most of my life behind the monitor and in different offices. But only there is the little devil squirming inside me, whispering in my ear, not letting me rest. He tells me not to sell it because it’s true I won’t take advantage of it, but I’m also sure that if I keep it, my motor navigation will be solved for the next 5-6 or even more years, and after all, that’s the logic in that too. . If I divide the number of years, even more by the number of kilometers in front of me, by the price of the phone, it immediately becomes clear that the investment is really good, especially that I can sell my used phone for about 30 thousand forints. So I think hard…

But don't think much! If you’re bothering to buy a rugged phone, consider buying the Armor 6E as well, because I claim you’ll find much better than that, at most much more expensive.

If you liked Armor 6E based on this article, you can also purchase it by clicking the link below:

Ulefone Armor 6E laptop, 4/64 GB

Don't forget to choose the duty-free EU Express mode of transport!

Advantages:

• Stick everything
• We get good software for it
• Strong hardware
• Large and usable display
• There is also a UV sensor and an air pressure gauge
• The price is very competitive
• SOS call can be set

Disadvantages:

• There is no dedicated camera button
• No jack connector
• The fingerprint sensor is sometimes insecure

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Specification table: