I’ve been using a Xcover Pro until recently but it shut down and never rebooted so I’m looking for a new rugged phone.
Anyone has any recommendations? Looking online is a jungle of tier lists with dubious recommendations but it seems many recommend a brand called Ulefone, is it a good brand or something to stay away from?
Would prefer to use the distro that comes with the phone.
Thanks in advance
I really appreciate your write-up! I’m based in the north of Sweden, camera isn’t much of a priority but humidity, temperature, impact resistance and battery are the important parts. I think I’ll go for Ule for now and if that won’t fit my use case I’ll take your advice on the AGM. Which specific models of those brands would you recommend?
AGM’s current flagship is the G2 Guardian, and it really does feel like a flagship.
Ulefone have a huge variety of options over the last 18 months. They release phones every 5 minutes. There’s big differences between them though, especially in battery capacity and device size, which are obviously directly related. It’s impossible for me to know what will suit you. They have models like the Armor 12 5G which are closer to standard sized phones but with only 5180mAh battery, right up to devices with 13,000+mAh for some of their larger offerings.
I had the Power Armor 13 and it was way too big and heavy. 13200mAh battery. I could go almost 2 weeks without charging! Entirely too big though, it pulled my pants down.
If I were buying a new phone tomorrow the Power Armor 18T (with FLIR sensor), or the Power Armor 18 look like the best combination of features recently. Remember what I said about their release cycles! The Dimensity 900 is a better chip all round than the G99. The fact that the older PA 18 costs more than the PA19, 20 and 21 tells me what I need to know. Power Armor 18 looks like it was their most recent flagship and specs confirm this.
Power Armor 18 or 18T both weigh about the same as my G2 Guardian. I don’t find this to be too much. They fit in my normal pants pockets but they ARE going to be significantly larger and heavier than you are used to. Anything more than that is just getting ridiculous but even 400g is a major adjustment and not for everyone.
That battery will change your whole user experience. You just don’t need to think about charging. Camera should be good, great refresh rate, super fast charging and even on the standard version it has a built in laser thermometer. You decide if the thermal cam is worth the extra 170 dollars to you. Anything with a FLIR brand sensor has a premium on it. Very cool feature for me, but maybe not for you.
The G99 chipset in some of their non-flagship models is still ok and would save you a lot of money. It is still significantly faster for most tasks than what you had in the Xcover pro, but it would annoy me in daily use. I’d prefer the Dimensity 900 any day, or a snapdragon.
Stay away from their “X series” line. Same cases, shitty hardware.