Rugged smartphone puts a second screen and a 4W loudspeaker on its back

When it comes to durability and reliability, rugged smartphones used to be the go-to solution in the mobile market. But with many phones today now boasting high resistance to accidents and the elements, the territory of these tank-like devices gets increasingly smaller every year. Sure, they’re still built like tanks and can survive a beating much longer than the most durable premium smartphone, but the trade-offs sometimes become too much for their cost.

That’s why we’re now seeing these chunky smartphones bearing features that are not always related to their original purpose. Whether it’s a built-in projector or a detachable wireless earbud, rugged smartphones are starting to experiment with designs that, truth be told, sometimes look and sound bizarre. This latest addition to that roster, for example, sounds like a playground for a variety of disparate features, some of which have been tried before and ultimately faded into the background.

Designer: Ulefone

While the cameras on the back of our smartphones are evolving by leaps and bounds, the ones on the front continue to be shackled by a lack of space. Once upon a time, some designers had the bright idea to put a second but smaller screen on the back of the phone, allowing you to use any of the more powerful rear cameras for selfies, live streams, video calls, and more. That feature proved to be an unnecessary added expense that didn’t gain much traction, and it quietly disappeared from the scene.

The Ulefone Armor 30 Pro is trying to revive that with a 3.4-inch 960×412 screen on its back, providing those same benefits but with an added layer of Gorilla Glass protection. It can mirror the main screen so that you can use it for those aforementioned purposes, though it seems you can only operate one screen at a time even if both screens are displaying the same thing. Still, it’s pretty unexpected for a rugged phone to put a potentially breakable component on what would normally be a “safe” side.

Another odd feature is the 4W 118dB loudspeaker in the middle of the hexagonal camera bump, a feature that only makes sense if you’re playing music or watching videos for a lot of people. Not exactly the primary use case of traditional rugged smartphones that were primarily targeted at industrial or field workers. Then again, these smartphones are also starting to break away from that image and aim for more “normal” applications.

To that end, the Ulefone Armor 30 Pro is really a smorgasbord of features, making it feel more like a mosaic than a well-composed painting. It has a triple camera system with 50MP main and ultra-wide cameras joined by a 64MP “Night Vision” camera that’s assisted by four IR LED blasters. The 12,800mAh battery easily excuses the bulkiness of the phone, especially when you consider that it can be used as a rather slow 10W power bank. There’s a dedicated camera shutter button, as well as pogo pin contacts for attaching Ulefone endoscopes and microscopes.

Considering all these features, plus actually decent mid-range hardware, at least on paper, it’s rather shocking that the Ulefone Armor 30 Pro costs only $379.99. Then again, you are paying not only for features you might not use but also for a phone that will not comfortably fit in your pocket. It does seem that the rugged smartphone market has turned a bit into a Wild West of the mobile industry, throwing any and all features on a wall to see which ones stick.

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