Ulefone Armor 26 Ultra in the test: outdoor cell phone with telephoto lens, 200 MP and 120 watts

Outdoor smartphones are particularly robust cell phones. This category is characterized by particularly powerful batteries and often offers exotic features such as thermal imaging or night vision cameras. The devices are very large and bulky. When it comes to technology, slow processors, weak cameras and moderately bright LCD displays are often used.

The Ulefone Armor 26 Ultra seems to be a positive exception in terms of hardware. Although this outdoor cell phone is also a large, heavy device, it offers technical features that we have not seen in this category before: a fast processor, a 200 megapixel camera and a telephoto lens. How good is the Ulefone Armor 26 Ultra, code wala BGREUPUFA4 (Valid only till June 30, 2024). 372 Euros Cost, our test shows.

The Ulefone Armor 26 Ultra is a big, heavy block, more like an outdoor smartphone. It doesn’t fit easily in your pocket. At a hefty 600 grams, it’s as heavy as a tablet, thanks to the large battery. At 2.5 cm, it’s almost three times thicker than a standard smartphone and at 8.3 cm in length, it’s quite long too.

It is waterproof to the highest protection class IP69K and extremely rugged with US Army certification according to MIL-STD-810H. It can survive up to 2 meters of water for up to 30 minutes. It can also survive a fall from a height of 1.5 meters onto concrete, and its housing is also dustproof. We dropped the Ulefone Armor 26 Ultra several times and it suffered no damage.

The metal housing is also covered with a layer of rubber in several places. This makes the smartphone look quite martial. The connections at the bottom have rubber caps. The main feature on the back is the speaker, which is framed by four camera lenses. In addition to the power button and volume rocker, there is an additional SOS button on the right and a distinctive orange programmable button on the left.

The diagonal of the large display with IPS panel is 6.78 inches. The resolution is 2460 × 1080 pixels (Full HD+) and the pixel density is 396 ppi. Pixels can no longer be seen with the eyes. The display flickers up to 120 Hz, which ensures better imaging while playing games or scrolling.

Measuring 750 cd/m², the display is relatively bright, so thanks to good lighting, the screen is always easy to read, even outdoors. Many outdoor smartphones skimp on the screen and therefore offer very low brightness.

Image quality and viewing angle consistency are very good on the Armor 26 Ultra. The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 5, and it also has a reinforcing disc that can be glued on, which provides additional protection.

The Ulefone Armor 26 Ultra has a camera setup that is unusual for this category: the main lens offers 200 megapixels, there is also a wide-angle and macro lens with 50 megapixels, a telephoto lens with 3.3x optical zoom with 8 megapixels and a night vision lens with infrared in black and white with 64 megapixels. The front camera is also 50 megapixels.

200 megapixels for an outdoor smartphone is a big announcement; we haven’t tested anything like it before. The lens usually combines several pixels into one, this is called pixel binning. Usually 16 pixels are combined into one, so that images correspond to 12.5 megapixels. There is also an option for a higher resolution for the main camera. The same applies to the wide-angle and front lenses, in a ratio of one to four.

The result is largely impressive; photos taken with the main lens are adequately sharp, rich in contrast and detail and offer a consistent dynamic range. Only it takes a little more time to adjust the focus. Otherwise you get great photos.

We don’t like the wide-angle lens, which also works as a macro lens. Images appear washed out and differ significantly in color from the main lens. When used as a macro lens, it is sometimes difficult as the focus rarely brings the desired area into focus.

We were happy with the telephoto lens with 3.3x optical zoom, but we are not always satisfied with the results. Image details are very poor, which is due to the low resolution of the telephoto lens. We liked the shots from the main camera with digital zoom a little better.

However, we liked the selfies with the front camera. Typical for outdoor smartphones: There is also a night vision camera on board, which uses infrared to create black and white images in complete darkness. Videos are possible at up to 4K resolution with the main lens, but the recordings appear very blurry as there is no optical image stabilization.

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The MediaTek Dimensity 8020 uses a really powerful processor. Many outdoor smartphones are otherwise satisfied with ordinary low-mid-range chips. On the other hand, the Dimensity 8020 also comes with Motorola Edge 40 (Test Report) is used and offers very high performance.

We scored around 13,300 points in PCMark and 4200 points in 3DMark Wild Life, making the Armor 26 Ultimate the fastest outdoor smartphone in our tests. It doesn’t come close to the performance of flagship smartphones, but it offers more than enough reserves for everyday use. This makes the operating system smooth and the model is also suitable for games.

The memory equipment is very generous, with 512 GB of internal memory and 12 GB of RAM. If that’s not enough for you: expansion via microSD card is also possible. The Armor 26 Ultra also supports Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.1 and NFC for home networks in addition to 5G networks. The Type-C port offers USB 3.1. Location is detected via Galileo, GLONASS, GPS and Beidou, as well as QZSS. Accuracy is about 2 meters.

The fingerprint sensor is in the power button, unlocking via face recognition is also possible, but due to the 2D technology it is not protected against attempts to cheat with photos. Another special feature of the Armor 26 Ultimate is the built-in speaker on the back. According to the manufacturer, it should reach 120 dB. It is really loud and delivers a fairly full sound. Overall, the sound quality is poor. A better option would be here Compact Bluetooth Speaker (Guide),

The operating system is Android 13 with its own user interface. Fortunately, Ulefone holds back when it comes to bloatware; the app with a small collection of tools is practical. The security patch dates back to April and is no longer fully up to date. Regular and frequent updates are unlikely with Ulefone.

The Armor 26 Ultimate has a massive battery of over 15,600 mAh. In the battery test we achieved a simulated value of 22 hours of continuous activity. This means that the outdoor cell phone can last well over three to four days on a single battery charge – depending on the usage scenario. The smartphone is also a power bank, so it also lets you charge other devices. What’s even better is that it can charge very fast at 120 watts. There is also an optional charging cradle with a Pogo pin connection, which charges not so fast at 33 watts.

Usually it costs Ulefone Armor 26 Ultra nearby 560 Euros From European dealers, the RRP is around 700 euros. You can currently get the outdoor cell phone especially cheap at Banggood, where it comes with the code BGREUPUFA4 (Valid only till June 30, 2024). 372 Euros Cost. It’s even cheaper than Aliexpress 404 Euro. However, buyers from Chinese suppliers do not benefit from European consumer protection.

The Ulefone Armor 26 Ultra offers some positive surprises for an outdoor smartphone. The performance is strong and more than adequate for most purposes. The LCD is relatively bright and can still be used outdoors in sunlight. The smartphone has a large battery and lasts a good three to four days on a single charge. It can also be recharged quickly thanks to the 120-watt charging power. The main camera takes good pictures, but the wide-angle and telephoto lenses let us down a bit. Also, the Armor 26 Ultra is really thick and heavy and weighs three times more than a normal smartphone.