I'm going to chime in here to plug the ulefone power armor 18t I just got. I was pretty nervous to get a chinese phone as I've only had samsung and lg phones before, but this thing legit blows me away. Not only does it fully support every band that my carrier uses (rare even for phones made for the US market), but it has:
Replaceable battery that lasts 3+ days between recharges
Extremely rugged, IP69 waterproof and designed for underwater photography (physical shutter button and diving camera app)
3.5mm jack, sd card slot, FM radio (with built in antenna - no headphones need to be plugged in), and an RGB notification led
Dimensity 900 chipset that beats a lot of the snapdragon chips on the market.
12 fucking GB of RAM… yes, 12…
Wifi 6(ax)
Wireless charging and reverse charging
A fucking 60x magnification microscope? (Why???)
A FLIR thermal camera (Just because, why the fuck not)
Runs mostly bloat free stock android
All that for under $600 (on aliexpress)
The only thing it's missing is an IR blaster, otherwise this is the best phone I've ever had, bar none. It is a chonky beast though, be warned.
This has really changed my view on Chinese electronics, especially at a time when phones for the western world are losing features and functionality all the time (including stuff from South Korean). Turns out capitalism isn't that great for innovation!
They're great as long as they work, but I already had two ulefones where something broke internally physically and the IR-blaster blasted non-stop, even after the phone was off.
Never had other significant problems, tho.
I'm going to chime in here to plug the ulefone power armor 18t I just got. I was pretty nervous to get a chinese phone as I've only had samsung and lg phones before, but this thing legit blows me away. Not only does it fully support every band that my carrier uses (rare even for phones made for the US market), but it has:
Replaceable battery that lasts 3+ days between recharges
Extremely rugged, IP69 waterproof and designed for underwater photography (physical shutter button and diving camera app)
3.5mm jack, sd card slot, FM radio (with built in antenna - no headphones need to be plugged in), and an RGB notification led
Dimensity 900 chipset that beats a lot of the snapdragon chips on the market.
12 fucking GB of RAM… yes, 12…
Wifi 6(ax)
Wireless charging and reverse charging
A fucking 60x magnification microscope? (Why???)
A FLIR thermal camera (Just because, why the fuck not)
Runs mostly bloat free stock android
All that for under $600 (on aliexpress)
The only thing it's missing is an IR blaster, otherwise this is the best phone I've ever had, bar none. It is a chonky beast though, be warned.
This has really changed my view on Chinese electronics, especially at a time when phones for the western world are losing features and functionality all the time (including stuff from South Korean). Turns out capitalism isn't that great for innovation!
As a former fan of ulefones:
They're great as long as they work, but I already had two ulefones where something broke internally physically and the IR-blaster blasted non-stop, even after the phone was off. Never had other significant problems, tho.
Damn, this seems like exactly what I've been looking for… Shame I'm finding it a year late.
One last really important point you didn't mention is how long do they serve security updates for?
Yeah I'm not looking for Chinese spyware on my phone's from a company that will no longer exist in 3 months.
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Honestly this is amazing. If only it wasn't so big…