iNew U9 Plus Review – A $100 Phablet

iNew has a phone that costs $110, it has a 6” HD display and decent specs. Stay tuned to find out if this phone is any good in our full review.

iNew U9 Plus Review: VIDEO

iNew U9 Plus Review: UNBOXING

The phone comes with all the usual stuff and some extras include a pair of earphones, a screen protector and a hard plastic case.

iNew U9 Plus Review: SPECS

Display	6″ 720p (HD)
Processor	Mediatek 6735,  quad-core (up to 1.3GHz)
RAM	2GB
Camera	5MP Front/13MP Back
Connectivity	Bluetooth, 3G, 4G, GPS, WIFI, GSM,EDGE, GPRS, UMTS, HSPA, HSPA+, dual-SIM.
Battery	3.000 mAh (removable)
Dimensions	16.30 x 8.30 x 1.10 cm / 6.42 x 3.27 x 0.43 inches
OS	Android 5.1
Storage	16GB (expandable via microSD card slot up to 64GB)

iNew U9 Plus Review: DESIGN and DISPLAY

When it comes to the design, the U9 Plus is obviously a huge phone due to it’s 6” display.

Speaking of the display,  it has only 720p resolution but it is still quite sharp for a phone that costs just above $100.

As far as the overall build quality, the phone is well-made but I have to admit that the phone feels a bit plasticky and cheap since it uses only plastic in its construction.

We have a 5MP selfie shooter. Unfortunately, there is no LED notification light and the capacitive buttons are not backlit.

There is a 13MP camera coupled with a single LED flash. On the bottom, we have a loudspeaker, which is not very good but it is not bad for the price of the phone.

The backplate can be easily removed and underneath it you can find a replaceable 3000mAh battery, 2 SIM card slots and the microSD card slot.

The buttons sit on the right side and they are tactile. However, they are made of plastic and feel a bit cheap.

iNew U9 Plus Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE

The phone has a quad-core MTK6735 with the max. clock speeds of 1.3GHz, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of expandable storage.

The gaming performance is pretty good. I played Asphalt 8 on medium graphics and there were no lags. Also, the phone does not overheat.

iNew U9 Plus Review: BENCHMARKS

iNew U9 Plus Review: USER INTERFACE

The phone ships with the already outdated Android 5.1 and iNew’s skin on top of it. There is no app tray but there are quite a few fancy widgets and customization options.

Also, there are some gesture and motion controls but the phone is kind of slow to react to some of the gestures.

The user interface could have been nice but there are some pre-installed apps and even some apps that are designed for Chinese market.

Most importantly, the animations and transitions once you simply scroll through the different menus are slow. Thus, the whole user experience is not as good as I expected. This is something iNew should take a look at to fix this issue with the future software updates.

iNew U9 Plus Review: IMAGE QUALITY

The 13MP camera does not impress. Even the daylight images lack detail and sharpness. Also, the dynamic range adjustment is poor in most of the shots. Finally, the color reproduction is not always consistent.

The low-light shots do not impress either as there is a low amount of detail and quite a bit of noise.

The video quality is okay for the phone this cheap but don’t expect any great results.

A 5MP front-facing camera is not good either as most of the shots have a soft focus.

iNew U9 Plus Review: CONNECTIVITY

I didn’t have any connectivity issues. Even the GPS was very fast to find the position and pretty accurate to use.

iNew U9 Plus Review: BATTERY LIFE

The 3000mAh battery does not look impressive on paper but it performs pretty well considering its low capacity and a large display.

I could get around 5 hours of screen-on time on time but your results may vary, depending on the usage.

iNew U9 Plus Review: CONCLUSIONS

The iNew U9 Plus is a phone that aims to bring a huge 6” display and decent specs for a low price.

It succeeds in a couple of ways. It has a pretty sharp display that is great for multimedia consumption or gaming. Speaking of the 3D games, the phone handles them pretty well if don’t set the graphics on the maximum settings.

Also, the phone has a pretty good battery life considering its low capacity.

On the other hand, the phone has a decent build quality but it looks kind of cheap due to the fact that it uses plastic in its construction.

Also, I was disappointed that the transitions and animations in the user interface are slow, both cameras do not impress, there is no LED notification light and the capacitive buttons are not backlit.

In conclusion, the iNew U9 Plus could have been a nice phone but it has some shortcomings that you have to consider before buying it. Some of the cons hopefully will be fixed with the future software updates but at the moment, you would have to live with them.