Ulefone Armor Mini 20 Pro rugged phone review

30-second review

The Ulefone Armor Mini 20 Pro is a long name for a much smaller rugged phone than I typically cover on Tech Radar Pro, and one that might make our best rugged phone collection because of the ease of carry.

A brother phone to Ulefone’s Mini 20T Pro, this is the more cost-effective option that dispenses with the FLIR thermal camera and instead includes a basic night vision system.

In all other respects, the Mini 20 Pro’s hardware is identical to the Mini 20T Pro, including the punchy Mediatek Dimensity 6300 processor, 8GB of DDR5 memory, and 256GB of inbuilt storage.

Those features elevate the Mini 20 Pro’s performance above that of an entry-level design. In this context, the platform has been placed inside a go-anywhere chassis that can withstand being dropped or wet without failing.

It also demonstrates Ulefone’s quality with its rugged designs that now include many specialist features that were exclusively premium options only a couple of years ago.

The Mini 20 Pro is a 5G mobile with global band support, its WiFi 6 dual-band, and can wirelessly charge.

Overall, this is a high-quality device, and the only issues are that the camera sensors are somewhat dated, and the 4.7-inch screen seems painfully tiny for those with large hands.

Ulefone Armor Mini 20 Pro: price and availability

• How much does it cost? $370/£205
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? You can get it in most regions directly from AliExpress, or from many online retailers.

Purchasing from Ulefone, the Ulefone Armor Mini 20 Pro costs $369.99 at the time of writing, and the maker bundles it with a case for $399.99 and a wireless charging pad for $409.99.

Buying through Amazon.com, the price is $389.99, making the joy of getting it faster adding about $20.

For those that want the best price, Ulefone sells the Global model through AliExpress for a much more acceptable $269.99, and adding the case adds only $18.50 to the total cost.

AliExpress is probably the best place for Europeans to get this phone, where it sells to UK customers for only £227.59 or €272.54.

Be careful not to mix up this phone with its pricier sibling, the 20T Pro, equipped with a FLIR thermal camera. Aside from the thermal imaging feature, the two models are nearly identical, and that added functionality raises the price by roughly $100 or more.

The band coverage for this model was designed for use in the USA, supporting nine out of the fifteen commonly used 5G bands, along with nearly all of the 4G frequencies, except for one. It’s certified for T-Mobile, but doesn’t appear on Verizon’s list of compatible devices, even though it supports almost all of Verizon’s 5G and 4G frequencies.

 Based solely on the supported bands, it should work with providers such as Cricket Wireless, C Spire, GCI Wireless, Google Fi, AT&T, U.S. Cellular, H20, Lycamobile, Boost Mobile, and Ting. However, it’s best to verify with your carrier to ensure the device is certified before making a purchase, as it’s relatively new hardware, and US carriers are often fickle about Chinese phones.

European customers should be fine for both 4G and 5G connectivity.

• Value score: 4/5

Ulefone Armor Mini 20 Pro:Specs

Ulefone Armor Mini 20 Pro: design

• Sturdy bar of soap
• By-the-number layout
• Weird case kit

Soap was generally sold in different shapes before the 1970s, and the 20 Pro strongly reminds me of those thick, stubby bars.

At just 133.5mm long, this rugged design is much smaller than you might expect, and at 24.9mm deep, it is substantially thicker.

The sides are metal, and this design appears to be massively abuse-resistant even by this sector’s standards.

But the other beauty of this compact form is that the phone is relatively easy to pocket, and that’s not something that I can say about all of these devices.

The phone has a distinctive chamfer on the lower portion, making it easy to hold and operate with a single hand. The layout is typical for rugged Chinese designs, with a power button that doubles as a fingerprint reader on the right and volume controls. The left has a user-definable button and the SIM tray that can hold two Nano SIMs or a single MicroSD card.

The underside is flat, convenient for wireless charging, and the camera array doesn’t protrude from the case line. A nice touch is that along with wired and wireless charging, the 20 Pro can also reverse wireless charge another phone. However, if you have a USB-C cable, I’d connect the phones directly for reverse charging as a greater percentage of the power will be transferred than over wireless.

Other interesting options this phone offers include a 3.5mm headphone jack at the top and an IR blaster that enables it to operate as a remote control. The jack, like the USB-C port on the bottom end, is protected by a rubber bung that needs to be in position for the promises of water and dust resistance to be realised.

One caveat to this design’s compactness is that the 4.7-inch screen might seem on the small side for those with big fingers, like your reviewer. It is possible to operate this phone, but screen typing requires some concentration, and it’s not ideal when apps come with touch controls, especially games. Because of this, the 20 Pro might be more suitable for those with smaller hands.

A feature that I’ve never seen before is offered through the Case kit that Ulefone offers for the 20 Pro and its 20T Pro brother. Typically, cases offer even more protection and maybe a means to hang the phone from a belt, and the Case kit does the latter.

But where the phone normally goes into a case screen up, here it goes face down so that the hook on the rear of the case can use the camping light illumination around the rear cameras. What’s utterly weird about this is that if you are recording video in this mode, you can’t see what is being captured due to the case, and you can’t select the camping light without using the screen.

The only way around the camping light controls is to launch a body camera mode from the custom button and set the camping light to activate automatically. But I could find no way to bring the camping light on exclusively without using the screen.

This creates an odd scenario, and Ulefone needs to make it possible to turn the camping light on using the custom button.

Overall, this is a good design for a rugged phone and singularly practical for those who work outdoors or want a modern device for a wilderness adventure.

Design score: 4/5

Ulefone Armor Mini 20 Pro: hardware

• New generation Dimensity
• Reasonable battery capacity
• Camping light

The 20 T’s SoC is one of the newer generation Dimensity 6300 series, a 5G platform with decent performance for those who like to occasionally game.

Looking back at previous Ulefone designs, the Mini 20 Pro is much more powerful than the Ulefone Armor 24 and its Helio G96 SoC, but not on the same level as the Armor 26 and its monster Dimensity 8020 chip.

The Dimesnity 6300 SoC was fabricated on 6nm silicon, making it power-efficient and also supporting 5G connectivity in most regions (if provider-supported).

The battery capacity is 6200 mAh, which is modest by the standards of some rugged phone designs but also more than most regular phones get. The battery isn’t removable, but the power subsystems does support wireless charging and reverse charging.

I’ll talk more about the cameras below, but the associated camping light is rated to output 500 lumens, enough to temporarily blind someone close in a dark environment. The app that controls this light has options for flashing SOS and also setting the light to only come on for a set time. That timing feature is presumably to prevent the phone from getting overheated and to prevent it from exhausting the battery.

For those who don’t need the camping light levels of illumination, the camera flash can also be used, and this can be bound to the custom button.

With the stock 8GB memory and 256GB of storage, the Mini 20 Pro is more than adequately resourced, but Ulefone didn’t implement the option to map storage as RAM on this device.

Given its price and purpose, the Mini 20 Pro’s hardware is better than I’d expected and superior to some mainstream rugged phones from other brands.

• Hardware score: 4/5

Ulefone Armor Mini 20 Pro: cameras

• 50MP and 64MP sensors on the rear
• 32MP on the front
• three cameras in total

The Phonemax M10 has four cameras:

• Rear camera: 50MP Samsung GN1 primary camera, Omnivision 64b40 night vision
• Front camera: 32MP Samsung GD1

The Samsung GN1 sensor is a 2020-era design that has migrated to entry-level phones and tablets, but with sufficient light, it can still take a decent image using its Dual Tetrapixel RGB Bayer Pattern filter to extract the most from the 10bit image data it captures

Without autofocus active, in theory, it can capture 400fps @1080p resolution. However, as with most Chinese-made phones, Ulefone is unwilling to spend the time required to develop software to exploit camera hardware effectively.

Therefore, the best video capture available is 2K, and there is no framerate selectable other than 30fps. There is a slow-motion mode that reduces the resolution to 720p but boosts the framerate to 120fps.

Still image capture is decent if you’ve sufficient light, and the GN1 can take some good pictures. What’s slightly odd about the camera on this phone is that the night vision mode, handled by the Omnivision 64b40 is at a higher resolution, 64MP, than the primary camera.

It provides, as you might expect, good results. But Ulefone missed an opportunity by using it to combine the input of both sensors and achieve better low-light performance for colour captures.

The Samsung sensors that came after the GN1 all focused on better low-light performance, and that’s the weakness of this phone.

While it has plenty of special capture modes, and the results can be more than acceptable, it’s the one place on the Mini 20 Pro where the hardware looks distinctly budget-constrained.

Ulefone Armor Mini 20 Pro Camera samples

• Camera score: 3/5

Ulefone Armor Mini 20 Pro: performance

• Lacklustre SoC
• Great battery life

Other than the 20T Pro, I’ve yet to see another phone using the Dimensity 6300, and the benchmarks for that device and this one are identical.

Therefore, I chose the Phonemax M10 as a point of reference since it’s an average rugged design and uses the popular Mediatek Helio G85 chip.

As you can see, the performance of the newer MediaTek Dimensity 6300 is dramatically better in almost every test, and the only winning result for the M10 is battery life.

Admittedly, the M10 is less than $200 and a cheaper option for those who want a simple (4G) phone to get into the wilderness or a construction site.

While the M10 will last longer on a charge than the Mini 20 Pro, the battery is 61% bigger than the one in the Ulefone design and manages a 39% longer battery life.

That hints that the Dimensity 6300 is a more power-efficient SoC, and its performance overall is double the speed of the Helio G85 at most tasks.

Also, the smaller battery on the Mini 20 Pro charges faster, with 60% of a complete charge being possible in only 30 minutes.

For daily use, the Mini 20 Pro should get you into a third operating day at a minimum, though it probably won’t take you through a whole week like some rugged designs.

The battery capacity can be used to charge other devices, either wired or wirelessly, and a wireless charger can charge it. Although, with only 6200mAh to distribute, I’d recommend a dedicated power pack if your budget can stretch to it.

• Performance score: 4/5

Ulefone Armor Mini 20 Pro: verdict

I’ve tested some monster phones that are so heavy and awkward that they’re borderline impractical, but the Ulefone Armor Mini 20 Pro isn’t one of those.

That makes it a handy device without the caveats of needing a large pocket or being excessively heavy. The phone performance is decent, while the cameras are workable but not cutting-edge.

A bigger issue for this reviewer is that the relatively small screen can be challenging for those with chorizo-sized fingers, especially if they have a lot of text to input by hand.

Most people will not expect the case kit, as once placed in this device, the screen isn’t accessible. Unfortunately, because the Mini 20 Pro doesn’t have a symmetrical shape around the sides, it isn’t possible to reverse the phone in the case to make the screen visible. I don’t know what the designer of this accessory was thinking.

Overall, the Armor Mini 20 Pro is an affordable rugged design that works well for many scenarios, and the reduction in price over the 20T is significant.

Should I buy a Ulefone Armor Mini 20 Pro?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

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