This year’s IFA featured some promising new technology, including Anker’s laptop accessories and a local-first home hub. Just when we thought smartphones had plateaued in design, an interesting new Android phone proved innovation is not dead yet: enter the RugOne Xsnap 7 Pro, a bulky, outdoor-ready phone with a detachable GoPro-like camera on the back.

RugOne is Ulefone’s new sub-brand that, as the name suggests, focuses on rugged devices. Xsnap 7 Pro’s modular camera can pop out of the phone, record independently, and reconnect when it needs to transfer footage or juice up from the enormous 9,300 mAh battery inside the phone itself.

A rugged phone that doesn’t look like every other rugged phone

The action camera is useful, but there’s more to the Xsnap 7 Pro

Right off the bat, the warm beige body and bright orange accents bring the Apple Watch Ultra’s design language to mind. RugOne also offers a darker, stealthier-looking version if you’d rather not be reminded of that resemblance, although the orange accents stay.

That appearance is backed up by serious protection. The phone is 19.1mm thick and carries IP68, IP69K, and MIL-STD-810H certifications, along with a drop-resistant body that should eliminate the need for a phone case. RugOne says the Xsnap 7 Pro won an IFA 2026 Innovation Award for creating what it calls the first rugged smartphone with a detachable modular action camera.

The thumb-sized camera captures 2.7K video at 30 fps through a 133-degree ultra-wide lens. The phone itself can display a live preview from up to 50 meters away. Similar to GoPro cameras, the module relies on electronic rather than mechanical stabilization. Its software stabilization and Horizon Lock should keep footage watchable while you are cycling, hiking, skiing, or otherwise giving the camera the sort of abuse it was built for.

It connects magnetically to the back of the phone, and has a mini battery of its own, which allows for up to 40 minutes of video recording. Moreover, it includes 64GB of storage, enough for storing as much as eight hours of 1080p video. Once docked back, it can offload recorded footage to the phone’s 512GB of storage and recharge. The modular camera itself is waterproof down to five meters.

The detachable camera is nice, but the rest of the hardware is also noticeably capable. You get a 6.67-inch 120Hz AMOLED display protected by Gorilla Glass Victus, a MediaTek Dimensity 8400 processor, 12GB of RAM, a 50MP main camera, a 64MP infrared night-vision camera, and a 32MP selfie camera. It ships with Android 16, and RugOne promises updates through Android 20.

The Xsnap 7 Pro will launch on Kickstarter on September 7 before reaching the US in October with a $999 price tag. This is certainly not an affordable phone, but if you see it as a capable phone-and-action-camera bundle, one that needs neither a screen protector nor a phone case, it may be easier to justify spending a thousand bucks on one.