Umi has released quite a lot of phones last year and the Umi Plus was a pretty decent phone for the price. This year the company released an upgraded Umi Plus E with 6GB of RAM, Helio P20 chip and a lot more. Learn more in the full review.
Umi Plus E Review: VIDEO REVIEW
Umi Plus E Review: UNBOXING
The phone ships with all the usual items that come with any device. It’s worth mentioning that you get a fast charger out of the box.
Umi Plus E Review: DESIGN and DISPLAY
When it comes to the design, we are looking at the all-metal phone (except for the top and bottom parts for antennas).
The build quality has actually improved over the regular Umi Plus. Now I don’t have any complaints as the buttons do not rattle. Well, the only thing that some users may not like is the sharp edges on the backplate. Also, the backplate attracts fingerprints and smudges very easily, which is unusual to metal surfaces.
We have a 5.5” 1080p display, which is pretty sharp, vibrant and it is a nice panel overall.
A nice touch is a customizable LED notification light, which sits next to the 5MP camera, and navigation buttons. You can choose between the on-screen keys and the capacitive keys, and change the position of them.
I love the fact that physical home button can be just tapped as it serves as a back key. Also, it has a fingerprint scanner. It is quite accurate but sometimes the display may light up a bit slower if you unlock the phone straight from the standby mode. A customizable shortcut button is a pretty nice idea but it would have been nice if it worked from the standby mode.
As for the camera, we have a 13MP Samsung shooter with a dual tone dual-LED flash.
The loudspeaker sound quality is now better than the Umi Plus but it is still kind of mediocre. I would love to hear some more rich tones.
The sound quality via the headset jack is pretty good for the price of the phone and that is thanks to the built-in Hi-Fi audio chip.
Umi Plus E Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE
As far as the specs go, the Umi Plus E is just a beast. It has an octa-core Mediatek Helio P20 chip with the clock speeds of 2.3GHz, whopping 6GB of RAM and 64GB of expandable storage.
The gaming performance is great. I played some games like Asphalt 8, Nova 3 on the highest graphics and the Umi Plus E handles them absolutely fine. Also, I didn’t notice any overheating issues even after 30 mins of gaming.
Umi Plus E Review: USER INTERFACE
The Umi Plus E ships with the pretty much stock-looking Android 6.0.
There are not too many features to talk about except for those I have already mentioned (customizable navigation bar and LED notification light). Most importantly, the Umi Plus E is fast on the daily basis and you can keep a lot of apps opened thanks to 6GB of RAM. Finally, I didn’t have any issues with the phone’s daily performance no matter what I did with it and that is really impressive.
Umi Plus E Review: BENCHMARKS
Umi Plus E Review: IMAGE QUALITY
IT IS HIGHLY-RECOMMENDED TO DOWNLOAD FULL RESOLUTION CAMERA SAMPLES TO SEE THE ACTUAL IMAGE QUALITY. THE PICTURES UPLOADED ON THE WEBSITE ARE 50% SMALLER IN RESOLUTION.
The camera department is where the Umi Plus E could be better. Keep in mind that I tested the phone on a cloudy day but it’s winter time… You can get some decent-looking photos and I see an improvement over some previous Umi phones. However, the daylight images could have more detail and sharpness. Also, the colors look a bit washed out in some of the shots, the dynamic range and white balance adjustment is not always accurate.
The low-light camera performance is not so great either even for a $200 phone. The images lack in detail, there is a lot of noise and a visible purple tint in most of the shots.
The selfie camera is okay and it will do the trick for social media. However, I would love to see some more sharpness and detail in the photos.
When it comes to video, the footage does not really look good. You can now shoot in 4k resolution but it looks like just an upscaled 1080p video. The major problems here are the aggressive color and auto-exposure shifting. Also, the footage could look sharper and there could be less noise.
Download camera samples
Umi Plus E Review: CONNECTIVITY
When it comes to connectivity, the Umi Plus E performs great. I didn’t have any issues with the GPS accuracy, Wifi or call quality.
Umi Plus E Review: BATTERY LIFE
When it comes to battery, Umi Plus E is a great performer as it ships with a beefy 4000mAh unit. I could get over 6 hours of screen-on time on a daily use, which is a great result. Also, the phone ships with the fast charger and I was able to fully charge the phone in around 1:30 mins.
Umi Plus E Review: CONCLUSIONS
Umi Plus E is another phone from China that aims to deliver a lot of value for about $230. It definitely succeeds in a lot of ways.
The Umi Plus E is a really powerful phone and that translates to a great day-to-day and gaming performance.
Also, the device has a nice and sharp display, the user interface is simple and fast, the phone is nicely designed and uses premium materials in the construction.In addition, the battery life is great and you can charge it up fast.
On the other hand, the camera still remains the weakest point of the Umi smartphone. While it is not terrible, we have some strong competitors that produce better quality images and videos.
At the end of the day, Umi Plus E is probably the best Umi smartphone I’ve tested and it seems like a very solid phone for the price if you don’t mind just an average camera performance.
