It is obvious that the Chinese smartphone market is crowded with lots of cheap devices and a lot of small companies that include Umi. They have produced quite a lot of devices already but the last reviewed phone (Umi Iron) had quite a few bugs, which was a let down (they may have been fixed by now as much time has passed). This time around we are looking at another budget phone – Umi Hammer S. Is it any good? This is what we are going to find out.
Umi Hammer S Review: VIDEO
Umi Hammer S Review: SPECS
Display |
5.5″ 720P (HD) |
Processor |
MTK6735, Quad Core, 1GHz |
RAM |
2GB |
Camera |
2MP Front/13MP |
Connectivity |
Bluetooth, 3G, 4G, GPS, WIFI, GSM,EDGE, GPRS, UMTS, HSPA, HSPA+; FDD-LTE B1/B3/B7/B20 |
Battery |
3.200 mAh (removable) |
Dimensions |
154.2 x 77.4 x 8.5mm / 200g |
OS |
Android 5.1 |
Storage |
16GB (expandable via microSD card slot up to 64GB) |
Umi Hammer S Review: UNBOXING
The phone comes with usual stuff you can expect and that includes a charging brick, some documentation and last but not least the USB Type-C cable.
Umi Hammer S Review: DESIGN and DISPLAY
When it comes to the design of the phone, we are looking at the combo of metal chassis, all-glass front and a soft plastic back and it sits comfortably in the hand due to rounded corners on the back.
The Umi Hammer S comes with 5.5” 720P display, which is okay to look at indoors but it has quite a poor sunlight visibility, which is common to most of the budget phones.
A 2MP snapper, earpiece and the sensor light are on the top and 3 non-backlit capacitive buttons are on the bottom.
On the back we have a 13MP shooter with dual LED flash and right underneath it there is a fingerprint scanner.
Under the hood there is a removable 3200mAh battery, two SIM card slots and the microSD card slot.
On the right we have very clicky and responsive volume rocker and the power button.
The speaker grill is on the bottom, which sits next to the USB Type-C port.
On the top we have a headset jack and the IR blaster.
Overall, I kind of like the design and choice of materials. The build quality is great too. The Umi Hammer S is nothing you haven’t seen as far as exterior goes but there are a lot worse looking phones, in my opinion.
Umi Hammer S Review: UI
The phone runs on Android 5.1 Lolipop and you are getting a pretty much stock Android experience.
Umi changed the design of some icons and added a bit of extra functionality like gesture controls. Some of them work great while other not so great. Well, the only feature I use on all the devices is the “double click to wake”.
Although the fingerprint scanner is not the fastest I’ve seen, I am satisfied with how the it works but the setup process is a bit slower and the interface is different than other China phones I’ve tested.
All in all, the UI performance is smooth most of the times and this is what you usually get when the phone is running near stock Android build.
Umi Hammer S Review: BENCHMARKS
Umi Hammer S Review: PERFORMANCE
Umi Hammer S has a MTK6735 chip, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of expandable storage. This is a combo we’ve seen on a lot of Chinese phones lately but not all of them are well optimised.
Playing 3D games is possible but there is quite a lot of stutter and skipped frames, and graphics don’t look impressive.
Umi Hammer S Review: MULTIMEDIA
The multimedia consumption experience is on par with other similarly priced China phones. You are getting a tinny sounding loudspeaker and the sound via earphones is okay but nothing spectacular.
Umi Hammer S Review: CAMERA
The 13MP camera on the back is sometimes capable of producing okay looking images that can be used for social media. However, usually images have a poor colour reproduction, the dynamic range and exposure are usually off and some photos come out a bit blurry meaning that the shooter is having a hard time focusing.
The night images do not impress either. There is just so much noise, the level of details is poor but most importantly there is a red tint in some pictures.
The 2MP selfie snapper will do the trick for social media if you tend taking selfies with plenty of light.
As far as video recording, the footage lacks in many aspects but this is what you have to expect in this price range of phones (see the sample in the video review). And yeah, the sound quality is just terrible.
Umi Hammer S Review: CONNECTIVITY
As far as connectivity options go, Umi Hammer S has the 4G LTE support and the call quality is decent. Other options that include wifi and Bluetooth work fine and while GPS is not the fastest to get a position lock, it gets the job done while navigating in the streets.
Umi Hammer S Review: BATTERY LIFE
The phone comes with 3200mAh removable battery, which performed really good in Geekbench 3 battery test. The Umi Hammer S managed to achieve almost 10 hours of screen-on time with the dim feature off. That’s really impressive. For example, I remember that the Letv Le 1 Pro could barely get over 4 hours.
In real life you may not achieve the same results but the phone will definitely get you through the day and more depending on how you are going to use the device.
Umi Hammer S Review: CONCLUSIONS
So here it is, the Umi Hammer S. For the price of just over $130 you are getting a decently designed phone, which has a good build quality.
Also, Umi Hammer S has almost stock Android build and it is running smoothly most of the times.
In addition, the battery life is really good and some extra functionality like a fingerprint scanner and USB Type-C are great features for the price.
However, the processing power is not really capable of providing a decent gaming experience, the camera does not impress and the display is of a mediocre quality.
