UMi Plus Review

Recently, UMi has entered a row of releasing smartphones that are so similar, that they look like being each others' clones. It all started off with the UMi Touch, but the real trendsetter became UMi Super, which managed to compensate the general disappointment from UMi Touch and even gather more UMi fans. The Super truly deserves its name and is still a great buy. It has been followed by UMi Max, which is very often perceived as Super's downgraded version. Soon after it, UMi has announced and released the UMi Plus, which is the subject matter of this in-depth review, which will also pinpoint some differences with the previous two models. The Plus is also priced higher than the Super and Max, so we will check whether this model provides more bang for your bucks as well.

Specifications

UMi Plus is equipped with a 5.5-inch LTPS display with an FHD resolution (1080 x 1920). The IPS panel is made by Sharp and covers 95% of the NTSC color space. It is protected by NEG's Dinorex T2X-1 Glass and the top glass layer has 2.5D curved edges. The display graces a metal body made of 6000-series aluminum alloy (magnalium), which is used in aircrafts. Under its hood ticks the well-known MediaTek Helio P10 MT6755 chipset, which includes a 1.8GHz octa-core CPU and a 700MHz dual-core Mali-T860 MP2. The RAM and internal memory measure 4GB (single-channel, LPDDR3 RAM clocked at 933MHz) and 32GB (eMMC 5.1), respectively. The latter can be expanded with up to 256GB. The camera department includes a 13-megapixel primary camera with a Samsung S5K3L8 ISOCELL sensor, dual-tone LED flash, 5-element lens with an f/2.4 aperture and anti-glare coating, phase-detection autofocus. The front-facing camera has a 5-megapixel GalaxyCore GC5005 sensor with a size of 1/5" and a 1.12μm pixel size. It is combined with an f/2.8 lens. The audio setup is more advanced than average as it includes independent Hi-Fi system with a dedicated sound card and an Awinic AW8738 chip. A 4000 mAh, 690Wh/L high density battery by Sony keeps the lights on. It supports MediaTek's Pump Express Plus (Quick Charge PE+) fast charging technology and arrives with a quick charger with output power of 5V/1.67A, 7V/1.67A, 9V/1.67A, and 12V/1.25A. UMi Plus also features an advanced fingerprint sensor embedded in the physical home button. It is capable of 360-degree recognition and storing of up to 5 fingerprint IDs. There's a hybrid dual-SIM card tray on board as well, which can house either two micro-SIM cards, or a micro-SIM card and a microSD card for additional storage. The model works with quad-band 2G GSM, quad-band 3G WCDMA, and quad-band 4G LTE Cat. 4 networks. The rest of its connectivity capabilities includes dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, 802.11n 5GHz, Wi-Fi Hotspot, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi Display, Bluetooth 4.1, a Foxconn USB Type-C 2.0 port, 3.5 mm jack, GPS/A-GPS, Glonass. The on-board OS is Android 6.0 Marshmallow, which is bound to be upgraded to Android 7.0 Nougat in December. A complete list of the specifications of UMi Plus can be found here.

What's in the box

UMi has created a new kind of box especially for the Plus. It is rectangular, with rounded corners and made of customized polycarbonate material. The lid is in the same dark color as the box, but is transparent. It has the UMi logo and tagline written on it, while at the bottom of the box there is a sticker with information about some basic specifications of the model. The set of accessories is standard for the price class. Inside the box, you''ll see the smartphone in the top level compartment, made of hard plastic as well and having the UMi logo embossed in it. Underneath in separate compartments of the second level are the USB to USB Type-C cable, fast charger (5V/1.67A, 7V/1.67A, 9V/1.67A, and 12V/1.25A), pin for the SIM tray, and user manual.

Design and build

UMi Plus's body is made of 6000 series, aircraft-grade aluminum alloy, and more specifically - magnalium, which is aluminum with magnesium and small amounts of nickel and tin. It is easy to mould, weld and can be hardened by precipitation. It is also very light, yet solid. The body has undergone more than 100 strict processes including CNC cutting and carving, PBT nano-molding, 360-degree polishing, 3D abrasive blasting and multi-color anodizing. According to UMi this is a "unibody" design, but actually there are antenna caps that are separate from the back plate and it looks like they are made of the same PPS material as the ones in UMi Super. The vertical sides of the back are slightly curved to make handling more comfortable. They continue into glossy chamfered back edges, followed by the matte frame and the glossy chamfered front edges. They seamlessly bond with the plastic display casing, which protrudes slightly above the frame and merges with the 2.5D curved glass of the display. The whole design creates what UMi calls a five-step arc. The build is not bad, but is more on the cheap side. The physical home button has a top layer that is very thin and slightly crooked (visible from an angle). The button itself makes a clicking sound and has a significant travel, it feels like it is wobbling between the left and right. The SmartKey, power and volume buttons are metal and fit perfectly into their places. UMi Plus is as wide as the Super and Max - 75 mm, which makes it one of the most compact, in terms of width, smartphones with a 5.5-inch display and a 4000 mAh battery. However, it is 5 mm taller than its predecessors - 155 mm. That makes it one of the highest devices within this display-size and battery-capacity class. Its waistline measures 8.8 mm and the weight is 185 grams, making it also one of the thickest and heaviest smartphones among those in the same class. UMi Plus does not offer surprises in terms of controls layout. The left frame houses the dual-SIM tray and the SmartKey below it. With the latter by default you can open the Camera app, but you can actually choose whichever app you prefer from the Settings menu. If you press and hold the SmartKey it activates a Silent mode (vibrations only), the same action exits this mode. On the right frame are the volume and power buttons. The top frame houses a 3.5 mm jack, while the bottom features two speaker grilles on the two sides of a USB Type-C 2.0 port. Only the right grille has a speaker behind it. On the front above the display, from left to right, are a LED notification light, the light and proximity sensors, earpiece, and front-facing camera. Below the display is positioned the home button with an embedded fingerprint sensor. It is both pressure and touch-sensitive. The areas to the left and right of it are also touch-sensitive and serve as a menu and back button, respectively, but are not marked in any way. If you prefer on-screen navigation, you can switch it on from the Settings menu. Once activated, you can customize the position and appearance of the virtual buttons in several ways. On the back of the device, vertically centered, are the primary camera and a dual-tone LED flash below it with the cold light placed above the warm one. The UMi logo is right after it, while the model's name and production information are at the bottom. On the upper plate covering the antenna there is a microphone hole.

Display

UMi sources out the display units for its recent smartphones from Sharp. All models feature panels with one and the same characteristics - 5.5-inch diagonal size, IPS panel with an FHD resolution (1080 x 1920), LTPS (Low Temperature PolySilicon) technology. However, the displays of all four models show different results in our measurements, so similarities are only on the surface in regard to basic specifications. Another difference of the UMi Plus is that this time the manufacturer has opted for NEG's Dinorex T2X-1 Glass to protect the screen. Though not very familiar as a brand, Dinorex glass is in no way inferior to Corning Gorilla Glass and Dragontrail Glass. Of course, the top glass layer has 2.5D curved edges for improved touch experience. The display is very quick and responsive, but is an average IPS LCD one. In terms of peak brightness, white and black luminance, the display of UMi Plus is very close to that of UMi Max with the differences in the values being only marginal. The peak brightness is 456 cd/sq.m., which means this is a bright display that is actually very well readable under direct sunlight. Its contrast ratio is high - around 2100:1, however, it is inconsistent at the different levels of brightness - high at 100, 75, and 25%, low at 50%, and very low at 0%. This does not make it necessarily a bad unit, but points at imperfections. Another thing you'll definitely notice, even without measurements, is that the colors look colder. Indeed, the temperature of the white point hits the 9300K mark at its highest point and, actually, the lower the brightness level, the higher the white point temperature.

Brightness	White luminance	Black luminance	Contrast	Color temperature
100 %	456.307 cd/m2	0.211 cd/m2	2163 : 1	8585 K
75 %	353.787 cd/m2	0.162 cd/m2	2184 : 1	8610 K
50 %	204.147 cd/m2	0.109 cd/m2	1873 : 1	8848 K
25 %	114.861 cd/m2	0.056 cd/m2	2051 : 1	9057 K
0 %	15.802 cd/m2	0.013 cd/m2	1216 : 1	9339 K

The official specifications of the displays of the UMi Touch, Super and Max mentioned that the screens cover 95% of the NTSC color space, which is not accurate if you look at the CIE diagrams of those models. It is the same with the display specifications for UMi Plus. Its CIE diagram shows that it covers a range very close to the sRGB color space, which is far away from the 95% coverage of the NTSC gamut, with almost exact match in the blue area and slight deviations in the green and red areas. The panel has a traditional striped sub-pixel arrangement. Viewing angles are good in terms of color preservation, but just like in the other UMi models mentioned above, brightness is visibly lost when the display is looked from aside.

OS, UI and software

UMi Plus runs almost stock Android 6.0 Marshmallow with only slight tweaks here and there. If you've used an UMi device before, than you know it all. The lock screen is traditional and has shortcuts to the "Ok, Google" voice search, the unlocking itself, and the camera app. By default, it displays notifications and the quick menu. The home screen holds no surprises, either. It has two rows of docked apps. The upper one lists the Camera, Play Store, Music, and Settings. The lower one includes the Dialer, Contacts, App Tray icon, Messenger and default Browser. In the upper area of the screen is the "Ok, Google" voice search box, which cannot be removed or relocated. It appears on the second home screen that contains an extensive module of the Music app, which can be removed, and above the list with active apps in the Task manager. The latter appears after you press and hold the home button. The App Tray icon opens the list with pre-installed apps. They are listed in alphabetical order, but appear on successive screens that can be swiped back and forth. The Notifications shade appears after you swipe downwards from the top of the display, while a second swipe opens the Quick Settings. Pressing and holding for a while on the Settings icon opens the System UI Tuner, while pressing on the blue icon next to it opens the Contacts app. A long press on an empty space on the home screen or a tap on the menu button opens the Widgets and Wallpapers menu. There are no surprises and new features there as well as in the Volume shade and the Power off/Reboot screen. The Settings menu of UMi Plus is straightforward. The first group of settings is called Wireless & networks and besides all classic settings, includes a Turbo Download, Wi-Fi Direct and other functions. The second group of settings is called Device and lets you manage the Display, Sound, Apps, Storage, Battery, Memory, and the LED notification light. A typical feature under Display is the MiraVision one, which is used for enhancing the visual quality. It lets you tweak the Picture mode (color saturation), Dynamic contrast, and Color effect. You can also choose a wallpaper, calibrate the G-sensor and proximity sensor as well as tweak the S Cover settings. The Daydream function embedded in Android 6.0 Marshmallow serves as a screensaver for the display. There are four pre-set types of "screensavers" and you can also choose when daydreaming should start - while docked, while charging, or during both. It is on by default. The Sound & notification sub-group is standard and contains the four pre-set sound profiles, notifications management and DND mode settings. The Apps sub-group lets you manage app permissions and links, optimize app-wise battery performance, etc. The Battery settings will be discussed in the Battery section of this review. The Harlequin LED Notification is not Harlequin at all, only the name remains the same. This section lets you manage the LED notification light placed above the display to the left of the earpiece. The third main group of settings is called Personal and contains Location, Security, Accounts, Language & input, Google, Backup & reset. While most of these are self-explanatory, the Security needs to be mentioned as it contains the Fingerprint management section. Setting up a fingerprint ID is easy and can save up to 5 IDs. Once you set up even one you can activate the SmartLock function, which lets your device remain unlocked while it's on you, in trusted places, near trusted devices, faces and voices. Of course, the Google sub-group of settings gives you more powerful tools to manage your Google account on the device and provides additional security options. Smart Assistant is the fourth main group of settings. Its first option is to set which app the SmartKey should open. By default this is the Camera app, but you can choose any other app installed on your smartphone. Activating the app happens in a click. A press and hold on the SmartKey activates a Silent mode (vibrations only). The Battery saving mode will be described in detail in the Battery section of this review. The Smart Assistant also lets you choose whether you want to use the capacitive or on-screen navigation bar. Once you activate the on-screen one, you get access to various types of its appearance. If you choose an on-screen navigation bar, this does not disable the capacitive one, which is a nuisance. The Background task clear feature lets you choose which apps should be protected from the Clear All function in the Task Manager. The last group of settings is the System one. It contains the standard Date & time, Scheduled power on& off, Accessibility, Printing, About phone, and the System UI Tuner, suffice you have activated it from the Quick Settings. The System UI Tuner allows you to re-arrange and add/remove toggles from the Quick Settings shade, to choose which apps should appear in the status bar, show or not the battery percentage embedded in the icon, and activate a demo mode. UMi Plus has a standard set of default and pre-installed apps. They are alphabetically listed in successive screens accessed from the App Tray icon on the home screen. The list with apps includes Backup and Reset, Browser, Calculator, Calendar, Camera, Clock, Contacts, Downloads, File Manager, Flashlight, FM Radio, Gallery, Gmail, Google, Maps, Messaging, Music, Phone, Play Store, Search, Settings, SIM Toolkit, Sound Recorder, Voice Search. None of them offers more than the default settings and functions.

Networks, calls and connectivity

UMi Plus is equipped with a dual-SIM tray, which can house two micro-SIM cards or a micro-SIM card and a microSD card, in case you need more storage. Both SIM cards support 4G LTE networks on a dual-standby mode. The official specifications state that the smartphone supports quad-band 2G GSM (850, 90, 1800, 1900 MHz), quad-band 3G W-CDMA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz), and quad-band 4G LTE Cat. 4 (800, 1800, 2100, 2600 MHz) networks plus VoLTE. However, the MTK Engineering Mode shows that our review unit supports even more LTE bands - FDD-LTE (800, 900, 1800, 2100, 2600 MHz) and TDD-LTE (2300, 2500, 2600 MHz). Call quality has been excellent at all times with no reception disturbances. In addition, the model provides a wide range of wireless connectivity options, which function pretty well and include dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, 802.11n 5GHz, Wi-Fi Hotspot, Wi-Fi Direct, Cast (Wi-Fi Display) as well as Bluetooth 4.1. There's a Turbo download function for fast downloading of files larger than 20MB. UMi Plus works with both GPS/A-GPS and Glonass. Upon initialization, the device needed some time detecting satellites from both networks, but once it managed to locate them the accuracy has been very good. At following attempts satellite detection has been very quick. Finally, the smartphone has a USB Type-C 2.0 port made by Foxconn.

Performance

Like the previous two UMi smartphones, UMi Plus is based on a MediaTek Helio P10 MT6755 chipset, which has been created to optimize both performance and power efficiency. Actually, in this model the CPU has been underclocked as it features four 1.8GHz Cortex-A53 cores, which are usually clocked at 2GHz, and four 1GHz Cortex-A53 cores. Graphics are handled by a 700MHz dual-core Mali-T860 MP2 GPU. UMi Plus scored 50603 in AnTuTu, which puts it on par with the Gionee S8 (50616), and slightly behind the Ulefone Future (50939), which is the current leader among smartphones with a Helio P10 chipset according to AnTuTu results. Both the UMi Super (47647) and UMi Max (47921) fall behind the Plus. This is even more impressive, having in mind that the device has a downclocked CPU. It is almost the same with all other benchmark tests, which generally show that in terms of performance UMi Plus slightly prevails over the previous two UMi models. Our review unit performs as expected and is very fast. Only games and applications with heavy graphics make the system hiccup. All else is fine. In terms of RAM and storage, the UMi Plus has the same setup as the UMi Super - 4GB of single-channel, LPDDR3 RAM clocked at 933MHz and 32GB of eMMC 5.1 internal memory. 4GB of RAM, even though it is from the previous generation, is more than enough for a smartphone of that class. The memory is made by Samsung and performs excellently for its type. The sequential and random read/write speeds shown by Androbench are pretty fast. It is expandable with up to 256GB and of the 32GB on-board storage 25GB are available for the user. The set of sensors is standard and includes a light, proximity, orientation, accelerometer, gyroscope, gravity, magnetometer sensor, etc. Unlike previous UMi models, the UMi Plus has a fingerprint sensor embedded in the home button. It is of unspecified generation FPC one and is coupled with TouchID 2.1. The sensor provides chip-level security, 360-degree recognition and allows the storing of up to 5 fingerprint IDs. Setting up an ID works like a charm, unlocking is fast, even from when the screen is off. The only glitch we could find is the make of the whole button. As mentioned earlier, it is a bit wobbly and the top layer that covers it is a little bit crooked, which can be seen at a certain angle, but is very slight and cannot be otherwise felt.

Cameras

UMi has redesigned entirely the Camera app for the UMi Plus and has included the new design as an OTA update for the UMi Super and the UMi Max. Besides looking differently, the new app provides more control of the photos you take. It includes a new Pro-Photo mode, which has six main parameters, which you can help you achieve a better image - saturation, brightness, contrast, exposure, ISO, and white balance. This mode and the other three main ones - Photo, Video and Panorama, appear above the big circular shutter button, which has a shortcut to the photos to its left and a shortcut to the camera switch to its right. On the top of the screen are shortcuts to the flash and HDR as well as to the settings. The latter is a one page of toggles and choices for 12 parameters, including zero shutter lag, picture quality, aspect ratio, etc. The settings for shooting videos are limited to six parameters only, including the video resolution time lapse, noise reduction, etc.

Primary camera

For the UMi Plus the manufacturer has opted for a different primary camera sensor, compared to the UMi Super and UMi Max, which have one and the same 13-megapixel Panasonic SmartFSI MN34152 sensor. This time the sensor is again 13-megapixel, but is a Samsung one, and more specifically - the S5K3L8 ISOCELL one. The same one is used in Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, which we have also recently reviewed. The sensor is combined with a 5-element lens that has an f/2.4 aperture and anti-glare coating. Their work is aided by phase-detection auto-focus and a dual-tone LED flash (the warm light is below the cold one). The images are with an output resolution of 4224 x 3168 pixels. The camera can also shoot 1080p videos at 30 fps. Our personal view on this camera is that it does not offer improvement over the Panasonic one and both provide photos that are not of very good quality. Especially, if you have a look at the edges, where the objects are clearly very out of focus.

Secondary camera

The front-facing camera setup of the UMi Plus is the same as the one of the Super and Max. It includes a 5-megapixel GalaxyCore GC5005 sensor with a size of 1/5" and a 1.12μm pixel and an f/2.8 lens. The images are with output resolution of 2560 x 1920 pixels and the camera can make 640p videos at 30 fps. Below you can check sample photos made with this shooter and compare them with the photos from the selfie camera of the UMi Super and the UMi Max.

Audio

The Music app of UMi Plus is a default one and does not offer new features. It allows you to group the audio files according to albums, artists, songs, and playlists. There's a main screen for the song that is currently playing with options to shuffle the songs in the playlist, regroup them or loop the playlist. There's a standard equalizer with several pre-set music profiles and a flat one. Each can be further customized by you. In terms of audio hardware, UMi Plus is equipped with the same Awinic AW8738 chip as the UMi Super and the UMi Max. We already saw in the review of UMi Max that one and the same hardware can produce different results, so lets check those of the UMi Plus. We perform all audio tests by using the RightMark Audio Analyzer software and the TASCAM US-2x2 audio interface. In terms of absolute values for every separate parameter, the UMi Plus stands between the Max and Super, the Max having the best results of the three. Just like it, UMi Plus excels in frequency response and IMD + Noise, and has a Good result in THD + Noise. The only difference is the THD value, which is Excellent in UMi Max and Very good in Umi Plus. The rest of the parameters are valued as Very good and the overall test result is the same. The sound from the speaker is pretty loud and clear, and is actually very good for a device of that class. The speaker is located behind the right grille at the bottom frame of the smartphone.

Test	Value	RMAA rating
Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB	-0.05, -0.18	Excellent
Noise level, dB (A)	-94.0	Very Good
Dynamic range, dB (A)	94.1	Very Good
THD, %	0.0053	Very good
THD + Noise, dB (A)	-81.8	Good
IMD + Noise, %	0.0080	Excellent
Stereo crosstalk, dB	-79.5	Very good
IMD at 10 kHz, %	0.015	Very good
General performance		Very good

Battery

The Battery settings are separated in two groups. The first one is the Battery monitor, which provides report of the current status and screen usage details. It also contains toggles for showing the battery indicator as percentage and for switching on/off the standby intelligent power saving mode. The Battery Saving profiles are hidden under the Smart Assistant settings and include Intelligent, Sleep, Marath and My Mode. For each you can preview the settings and change them to adjust each profile to suit better your needs. There is also a Battery Saver function, which is off by default as well as a Schedule profile switch. UMi Plus has the same battery as the previous two models - a 4000 mAh, Li-Ion-Pol, non-removable accumulator by Sony. It has a very high density of 690Wh/L. This parameter measures the amount of energy stored in a battery per unit volume. Simply put, higher density, means longer battery life. According to the specifications, it should provide up to 48 hours of talk time and up to 360 hours of standby time. The PCMark Work battery test shows a result of 9 hours and 17 minutes. In this parameter UMi Plus noticeably prevails over the Max and Super, which had slightly more than 8 hours and 6 hours, respectively. The test has been performed with the brightness level calibrated at 200 cd/sq.m. as recommended by Futuremark. Similar to the UMi Super, our review unit of the Plus has a fast charger with an output power of 5V/1.67A; 7V/1.67A; 9V/1.67A; 12V/1.25A and is coupled with the MediaTek Pump Express Plus tech (Quick Charge PE+). We have posted the results from our test charging and battery temperature monitoring in the graph below. The yellow line depicts the battery charge from 0 to 100%. It is obvious that for the first ten minutes the charging was slow and even did not reach 5% of the capacity. Afterwards, the charging speed increased and after 18 minutes (a total of 28), 20% of the capacity were reached. The charging speed remained steady almost throughout the whole process and slowed down only after the battery reached 98% of its capacity. The whole process took 1 hour and 53 minutes, which is 25 minutes more than the UMi Super and 31 minutes quicker than the UMi Max. The temperature monitor during battery charging started off at 28°C. At 20% of battery charge it reached 40°C and continued to raise gradually and reached the top level of 43°C, which was maintained with slight ups and downs of 1°C till the battery reached around 87% of its charge. Then its temperature started to drop and at 100% it was 36°C.

Final thoughts

UMi Plus is a fine smartphone for its class. It has some build issues, an average display and camera, good audio, very good performance and battery life. However, we do think that it is overpriced, especially having in mind that it has been released very soon after the UMi Super and the UMi Max - two smartphones, which are very similar to the Plus and cost less. A correction in the price of the device would be only in its favour and will make it a real competitor in a slightly lower price class.