Ulefone Note 18 Ultra Smartphone Review – It’s been a long time since we have seen a decent Ulefone Note smartphone. But, recently, the smartphone makers introduced the Note 18 Ultra phone in their standard segment. The phone is a successor of the Ulefone Note 17 Pro, which brings a fabulous design layout. Yet, it looks like a completely different thing when you look at the new Ulefone device. However, we all know that the company releases average mid-range phones.
The same goes for the Ulefone Note 18 Ultra since the company offered nothing outstanding. But still, we won’t recommend you judge a phone by the initial specs and hardware configuration. The company is trying hard to provide a beautiful layout with a sturdy material on the back panel. Now, let’s look at the following highlights before diving into the Ulefone Note 18 Ultra review.
Table of Contents
Ulefone Note 18 Ultra Smartphone Review
Highlights
- The device equips a standard 6.78-inch IPS LCD panel with a 90Hz refresh rate.
- As for the software interface, you are getting the Android 13 customization support.
- The hardware configuration of the Mediatek Dimensity 720 chipset brings decent performance.
- A 50MP dual camera setup with a 32MP selfie camera will be featured on the Ulefone Note 18 Ultra.
- Lastly, the device is powered by a 5450 mAh battery with a regular 18W wired charging support.
Design and Display
The Ulefone Note 18 Ultra comes with an amazing layout with three distinctive color variations. It includes Lustrous Black, Moonlit White, and Titanium Gray paint job. All of them look pretty good and beautiful. But if you are looking for something out of the box, you should consider getting the Moonlite White. It comes with a matte finish with a premium design. There’s no doubt that other colors aren’t that bad, and you can choose any option according to your needs.
On the other hand, the phone’s built quality is pretty good as you get a thick side panel and curved body. With this, the holding experience will improve to some level, while it doesn’t feel that heavy. The reason is the massive battery capacity under the hood. Anyway, the company added a fingerprint scanner on the power button, which increases security and user privacy.
However, the bezels are noticeable on the front 6.78-inch IPS LCD panel. Like most of the average phone, you will obtain the standard 90Hz refresh rate that can enhance the touch response, while the corning glass increases protection. Through this display, you can easily watch FHD+ content with vibrant colors and contrast control. Yet, the Ulefone lacks appropriate brightness support.
Memory and Internal
Under the hood, the phone houses a Dimensity 720 chipset with average processing speed. To be more precise, the device will only provide up to 2×2.0 GHz cloaking speed. It’s considerably low if you want to enjoy day-to-day activities on this phone. Typically, this hardware can perform well if you aren’t playing games. The reason behind this would be the slow-performing GPU.
Although, the users can do a little bit of gaming through this phone. But the phone will struggle to maintain the same level of performance throughout your gameplay. As far as customization is concerned, the software interface is based on the Android 13 skin, which will bring the standard apps, tools, widgets, and wallpapers. Yes, you can modify the layouts and install preferred apps and tools from Playstore.
But you can’t freely change the UI appearance since there are lots of bloatware apps and software that hinder the customization. At the same time, it’s not clear whether the phone covered major Android updates. Still, smartphone makers have provided constant security patches for almost three years. Aside from this, the device brings 256GB UFS 2.2 storage with a 6GB RAM configuration. Besides this, you can also rely on the shared storage unit to increase the limits.
Camera
The camera aspect defines whether the users like the phone or not. That’s why, many smartphone makers introduce new modes, custom filters, and improved software to appeal to new users. With the Ulefone Note 18 Ultra, you are getting an interesting 50MP dual camera setup. Both the primary and ultra-wide lenses feature two different 50MP lenses. The primary lens photo results are good as you will notice accurate colors and contrast.
Following this, the ultra-wide lens offers a dynamic range of colors and brings beautiful photos each time. The daylight pictures are great with decent color management, while the lowlight photos do have noise in the backgrounds. The portraits aren’t that bad, but they could have improved a bit more. Yet, the video recording is disappointing, especially according to mid-range phone standards.
As far as the front camera is concerned, you are getting a 32MP selfie lens. It will provide above-average photo quality with accurate colors, contrast, and vibrant photos. You can also use the native camera app to capture immersive photos and directly share them on your social media accounts. But, when it comes to video recording, the Ulefone Note 18 Ultra can record up to 1080p videos. Still, it’s far better than entry-level quality.
Battery and Others
You are getting a Li-Po 5450 mAh battery configuration with an 18W wired charger support. There aren’t many phones that cross the 5000 mAh battery benchmarks. Hopefully, the phone does and offers up to 6+ hours of screen time for normal activities. Yes, the screen time will be low when you are playing games, especially during online games. Moreover, you don’t have to wait that long since the battery will be refilled within an hour and a half.
The device offers average sensors, mediocre sound output, and comms. Yet, it’s good to see that the company has added a 3.5 mm jack port. However, it doesn’t mean you are getting decent Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support. Despite this, the communication ends will be slightly downgraded. Still, the phone supports 5G connectivity to a certain extent. Last but not least, the Ulefone Note 18 Ultra is priced at $180 (Rs 15,090 in India) approx.
Ulefone Note 18 Ultra Pros and Cons
Ulefone Note 18 Ultra Specifications Detail
Down below you can see the full specifications of the Ulefone Note 18 Ultra smartphone.
| Specifications | Ulefone Note 18 Ultra |
| Network | 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G |
| Announced | May 2024 |
| SIM | Hybrid Dual SIM |
| Dimensions | 6.65 x 3.02 x 0.35 inches |
| Weight | 211.6 g |
| Size | 6.78 inches |
| Display | IPS LCD 90Hz ~396 PPI density |
| Protection | Corning Gorilla Glass |
| Resolution | 1080 x 2460 pixels |
| OS | Android 13 |
| Chipset | 7nm – Mediatek Dimensity 720 |
| CPU | Octa-core 2×2.0 GHz Cortex-A76 6×2.0 GHz Cortex-A55 |
| GPU | Mali-G57 MC3 |
| Card slot | microSDXC (uses shared SIM slot) |
| RAM | 6GB |
| Internal | 256GB UFS 2.2 |
| Camera | 50 MP (wide), PDAF 50 MP (117Ëšultrawide) LED flash, HDR, panorama Max – 1080p@30fps |
| Selfie | 32 MP (wide) HDR Max – 1080p@30fps |
| Loudspeaker | Yes |
| 3.5mm jack | Yes |
| WLAN | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band |
| Bluetooth | 5.2, A2DP, LE |
| GPS | GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS |
| NFC | Yes |
| Infrared port | Yes |
| Radio | No |
| USB | USB Type-C 2.0 |
| Sensors | Side-mounted fingerprint, accelerometer, proximity, compass |
| Battery | Li-Po 5450 mAh 18W wired |
| Colors | Lustrous Black, Moonlit White, Titanium Gray |
| Expected Price | $180 (Rs 15,090 in India) approx |
Conclusion
After going through all of the aspects, I found that the phone didn’t sound like “Ultra” for prospective buyers. Ulefone Note 18 Ultra is undoubtedly a great choice as an affordable 5G phone. But, the phone didn’t have anything special to offer. The device didn’t excel in photography, hardware, or gaming. But, the core strong points would be the display, battery life, and 5G connectivity. Apart from this, there are only a handful of things that make this phone appealing.
There are tons of options available in the market, you aren’t limited to checking this phone. For instance, the Xiaomi Poco M5 and Realmie C65 are some entry-level smartphones worth looking forward to. Still, if you are thinking of purchasing the Ulefone Note 18 Ultra phone, we won’t stop you. We always want you to choose a decent phone according to your needs, and if the Note 18 Ultra meets your requirements, go with it.
