UMi Touch Review

UMi is a manufacturer of mobile devices from China. It does not have a record of ground-breaking innovations and design, but it strives to achieve very affordable prices for its devices. One of the latest models it has launched is the UMi Touch. Before creating it, the company created the Project Apolo - a poll on UMi's website, which asked people what would they like to have in their smartphone. The result of the poll and the following fund raising campaign is the UMi Touch - a user defined Android smartphone. Though questionable at moments, this process is now finished and the first units from the model are currently being shipped to their owners. The model packs lots of features, which should bring value to the customers and at the same time is very affordable, so it would be interesting to check, whether the device lives up to expectations.

Specifications

UMi Touch features a 5.5-inch LTPS display with an FHD resolution (1080 x 1920) and a pixel density of 401 ppi. The IPS panel covers 95% of the NTSC color gamut and is protected by a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 with 2.5D curved edges. It is powered by a high energy density, lithium-polymer-ion battery by Sony with a capacity of 4000 mAh. The accumulator is non-removable and is coupled with a standard 5V/1A charger. UMi claims that it provides 15 days of standby time, 24 hours of 4G browsing, 60 hours of 2G talk time, and 92 hours of music playback time. Performance-wise, the model is equipped with a classic MediaTek chipset. Namely, the MT6753, which includes eight Cortex-A53 CPU cores clocked at 1.5GHz and three Mali-T720 MP3 GPU cores clocked at 450MHz. Their work is aided by 3GB of single-channel, 800MHz LPDDR3 RAM. The internal memory measures 16GB. Multimedia-wise, UMi Touch features a 13-megapixel primary camera with a Sony Exmor R IMX328VQH5-C sensor with a diagonal size of 5.867 mm (1/3.06"). The backlight illuminated CMOS sensor is coupled with a dual-tone LED flash and a 6-element lens with an f/2.0 aperture. On the front sits a HYnix HI553 camera with a 1/4", 5-megapixel sensor and an LED flash. The model runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow out-of-the-box and the user can choose to download and install five ROMs: MyUI, WP8, VIBE UI, FLY ME, 360 OS. The smartphone has a hybrid dual-SIM card tray with support for 2G GSM (850/ 900/1800/1900 MHz), 3G WCDMA (900/2100 MHz), and 4G FDD-LTE Cat. 4 (800/1800/2600 MHz) networks. Its connectivity options also include dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1, and USB OTG. UMi Touch is equipped with a separate GPS receiver and supports GPS and Glonass. A fingerprint sensor, 3.5 mm jack and FM radio are on board as well. Here's the full list of UMi Touch specifications.

What's in the box

UMi Touch is placed in a black box with the company's logo on top and a sticker with the basic model details on the back. The box is placed in a fashionable cover of the same material, again with UMi's logo on top. Inside is the smartphone itself with a protective film on the screen and packaged in a white plastic pocket. Under it are placed a user manual and a SIM tray ejector, joined in a black envelope, a USB cable and a battery charger, each in a separate black box.

Design and build

UMi Touch's official presentation stresses a lot on its design. It has a full metal unibody crafted with the CNC design process that includes 68 times repeated working procedure and employs a classic 45-degree cutting angle, including for the design of the home button. The back of the body has an R-curved profile. Moreover, despite having a full-metal design, the device is not meant to have antennae problems. For this sensitive area PPS material is used, which does not affect the signal strength. It is also dyed in a different, from the anodized metal back, color by using a customized baking varnish. Regarding the assembly of the smartphone, UMi have used a double sided circuit board and a custom ultra-thin display to achieve the thinnest body possible - 8.8 mm in depth to be precise. With a height of 154.5 mm and a width of 76 mm, the model is far from being compact, but it is taller than wider and is actually comfortable for one-hand operations. The curved back does help in this regard. The weight is 200 grams, but actually the handset does not feel heavy. In terms of build, at a first glance UMi Touch appears to be a solid device. Indeed, the body is well made, there are no holes and neither the back, nor the display flex in any direction. The power and volume buttons are well made and fit perfectly in the frame. The display seamlessly blends into it as well. However, there are small details that cast a shadow on the overall look and feel. The SIM-tray can be tricky to open as there is no release button. Instead, when you enter the SIM ejector, you have to hook the tray with it and pull it out. The unit we received, has a home button, which is not placed properly and sits awry - this is a very slight defect and you have to look for it in order to see it, but it's there. In addition, the backlight of the right dot that serves as a back button is not as bright as the left one, mainly because of the improper mounting of the whole home button module. All the rest looks like being well-made and put together. The model is available in grey with a black front as well as in silver and gold with a white front. We are reviewing the grey variant.

Controls

UMi Touch sports a rather classic design with regard to placement of the main controls of the device. On the front above the display from left to the right are the front camera's LED flash, an ambient light sensor, the earpiece, the shooter itself. No LED light notification. Below the screen is the home button - rectangular, with rounded edges and a metal rim. It has an embedded fingerprint sensor and on both sides has single backlit dots. The left is for the general menu and the right is for the back button. These cannot be changed or customized in any way. On the top back side the primary camera is centrally positioned and the dual-tone LED flash is below it. Then you see the UMi logo, some basic info about the model and at the back's bottom is the speaker grill with a single speaker inside. On the right hand side of the smartphone are the volume rocker and the power button, while on the left hand side is the hybrid dual-SIM card tray. The tray works with two micro-SIM cards or with a micro-SIM card and a microSD card. So in case you need extra storage, you have to give up the second SIM slot. On the top side is the 3.5 mm jack, while at the bottom are a standard micro USB 2.0 port and a mic.

Display

UMi Touch sports a really decent display. With a 5.5-inch diagonal size and a 1080p resolution, it has a pixel density of 401 ppi. The screen features an IPS panel with an LTPS active matrix. We have already explained the Low Temperature PolySilicon tech in our Leagoo Shark 1 review. In short, this is a preferred technology for large displays with high resolutions and pixel densities, due to the fact that the electrons move faster through the polysilicon grains and the pixels can be placed close to one another. Being an IPS screen, it provides 178 viewing angles, both horizontally and vertically. Color reproduction is correct and the backlight on a pure white background looks even. According to UMi the display covers 95% of the NTSC color space. All types of texts on documents and browsers are readable, while colors are rich and deep. The display is very responsive and fast. It supports MediaTek's MiraVision tech for an enhanced visual experience. The display is reasonably bright, but its black luminance is not so good and that's why the contrast ratio cannot exceed 903:1. The white luminance value when the brightness is at 100% is 386.54 cd/sq.m. and the black luminance value is 0.428/cd.sq.m., which results in a contrast ratio of 903:1. The latter drops to around 890:1 at the brightness level set at 75%, 50%, 25%, and 0%. At 0% brightness level the white luminance value is 27.62 cd/sq.m. and the black luminance value is 0.031 cd/sq.m. The temperature of the white point varies from 8671K (100% brightness) to 8997K (0% brightness).

Brightness	White luminance	Black luminance	Contrast	Color temperature
100 %	386.54 cd/m2	0.428 cd/m2	903 : 1	8671 K
75 %	302.30 cd/m2	0.339 cd/m2	892 : 1	8722 K
50 %	213.67 cd/m2	0.240 cd/m2	890 : 1	8756 K
25 %	122.60 cd/m2	0.138 cd/m2	888 : 1	8837 K
0 %	27.62 cd/m2	0.031 cd/m2	891 : 0	8997 K

OS, UI and software

UMi Touch arrives with Android 6.0 Marshmallow, but more interestingly it provides you with the option to download and install five custom ROMs for the device, namely MyUI, WP8, VIBE UI, FLY ME, 360 OS. We tested the model with Android 6.0 only, which is almost in stock variant. The OS behaves well, everything runs smoothly and we haven't encountered any problems such as lagging, software errors and so on. The Settings section is pretty standard and user friendly. You can manage your wireless connections, networks and SIM cards, the display and sound, battery and memory, as well as the Gestures and Smart Wake functions, if you're keen in such a way of interacting with your phone. There is also a whole Security section, where is the part with the fingerprint setup. The display supports MiraVision for visual enhancement and the Screen Cast function for loading content from your device to a larger screen like TV, for example. You may also adjust the text size, brightness along with the other typical options such as choice of a wallpaper. The Sound management section is extensive and has 4 pre-set sound modes, each of which can be additionally adjusted by you. There are also several options, which tell your device how to behave in a Do Not Disturb mode. The standard Sound Enhancement features are on board as well. With gestures you can access the launcher, make and receive calls, mute incoming calls, control your contacts and unlock the phone, make photos and browse through them in the gallery, shuffle through your playlist in the Music app, and so on. Various options under Accessibility make using the device more intuitive and easy by adjusting it to your specific needs - from enlarging the text and changing the colors to text-to-speech output. The interface is pretty clean with no excessive app clutter. You get a default browser, Google Play Store, News and Weather, Email, File Manager, Download, FM Radio, Maps, Messenger, Clock, Contacts, Calculator, Calendar and so on. There is an app launcher, which contains all apps installed on the device. You can also access the app list by moving through the screens adjacent to the home one.

Networks, calls and connectivity

UMi Touch is equipped with a hybrid dual-SIM tray. You can use it with two micro SIM cards or with one micro SIM card and one microSD card in case you need more storage. The model supports quad-band 2G GSM (850/ 900/1800/1900 MHz), dual-band 3G WCDMA (900/2100 MHz), and tri-band 4G FDD-LTE Cat. 4 (800/1800/2600 MHz) networks. Reception during the test period has been excellent with no drops or other problems whatsoever, calls have been of very good quality, too. The device also supports dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1, and USB OTG, all of which function properly. There is an interesting option from the Settings menu, which is called Turbo Download. By choosing it, you will enable your device to use available Wi-Fi and 3G/4G connection at the same time in order to download fast files larger than 20MB. Another interesting feature, is that the UMi Touch has a separate GPS receiver, meaning it will provide more accurate position. According to the manufacturer, the signal efficiency is increased by 35%. Indeed, GPS and Glonass function flawlessly. A 3.5mm jack and an FM radio are also on board.

Performance

In terms of performance, UMi Touch relies on the classic MediaTek MT6753 chipset with a true octa-core CPU. Generally, it is clocked at 1.3GHz, but all benchmark tests as well as the About Phone section of the device showed that it is clocked at 1.5GHz - this is usually the clock rate of the MT6753T modification of the chipset. It is coupled with a Mail T720 GPU. On one hand the SoC is fast enough to provide a seamless experience in browsing, watching videos, interacting with various apps, texting, etc. On the other, it is very power efficient. We even managed to play Asphalt 8 set at its highest graphics level without any problems. With more demanding games in terms of graphics it won't be that good. AnTuTu's score of the UMi Touch is 38441, which is very good for a device of its class. The CPU is paired with 3GB of LPDDR3 RAM clocked at 800MHz. It adds up to the whole impression of having a responsive device. There are also 16GB of internal memory, of which 11.18GB are available to the user. The storage can be expanded with up to 128GB. In addition, the model has a light, proximity, gravity, orientation, rotation vector, and linear acceleration sensor, along with a gyroscope, accelerometer, and magnetometer. Embedded in the home button, the fingerprint sensor unlocks the device very fast and is fairly accurate. Setting up one or more fingerprint ID(s) is easy and it bundled with a number of other security options.

Cameras

The primary camera of UMi Touch is equipped with a 13-megapixel Sony Exmor R IMX328VQH5-C sensor. This sensor is not officially listed by Sony and details about it are not available, with the exception of two documents, which are supposed to be "secret", but have been leaked by an UMi official. We used the ES File Explorer and saw that the system folders corresponding to the primary camera show IMX328, so we're inclined to believe that this is the sensor, indeed. We have also contacted Sony, but we have received no reply on the matter. We made two shooting sessions with the device. During the first the photos were with a resolution of 21 megapixels, obviously interpolated. Then an automatic update of the software changed this and the device was capable of making photos in their native resolution, so we made a second shooting session and the photos below are from it. A following update provided an option to take 5-, 8- and 13-megapixel photos. As long as it concerns the rest of the camera specifications, here what we have as information: the back-illuminated CMOS sensor has a size of 1/3.06" with a diagonal of 5.867mm. It is coupled with a 6-element lens that has an f/2.0 aperture, and a dual-tone LED flash with the cold light positioned above the warm one. The camera has a pixel rate up to 280.8MHz and 2D noise reduction. It supports live photo, multi-angle view, motion track, and panorama mode, and is capable of shooting 1080p video. The front-facing shooter is equipped with a 5-megapixel Hynix HI553 sensor with a size of 1/4", which also has an LED flash.

Primary camera

Secondary camera

Audio

The audio set up of UMi Touch has not been marketed as one of the device's assets. However, our audio test returned an overall result of Very Good, which is a nice surprise. In frequency response, noise level and dynamic range, the device even excels. The audio test has been made by using the RightMark Audio Analyzer software and the TASCAM US-2x2 audio interface. Regarding the speaker, it is a standard single one, placed on the back of the device and performs as most average speakers on mobile devices.

Test	Value	RMAA rating
Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB	+0.11, -0.02	Excellent
Noise level, dB (A)	-96.5	Excellent
Dynamic range, dB (A)	96.4	Excellent
THD, %	0.0100	Very good
THD + Noise, dB (A)	-77.5	Average
IMD + Noise, %	0.014	Very good
Stereo crosstalk, dB	-82.2	Very good
IMD at 10 kHz, %	0.021	Good
General performance		Very good

Battery

UMi Touch is equipped with a 4000 mAh battery by Sony, which is non-removable. This is a high energy density Li-Pol-Ion accumulator, which manages to pack a larger capacity in a smaller body. According to the manufacturer, the battery provides 15 days of standby time, 24 hours of browsing in 4G networks, 60 hours of 2G talk time, and 92 hours of music playback time. It arrived with a standard 5V/1A charger and USB cable. The unit we received, had a defect charger. While charging, it was becoming extremely hot and the battery would stop charging. There was even a deformation of the plastic around one of the pins. We used another USB charger and cable, and the battery charged normally. We addressed this issue to GearBest, who provided the test sample, and they said they can guarantee the other units won't have USB cable and charger problems. It took 3 hours and 53 minutes to charge the battery from 0% to 100% with a normally working charger. The device also scored pretty well in the PCMark battery test, which showed 8 hours and 11 minutes of work battery life. As recommended by Futuremark, the test has been performed with the display's brightness calibrated at 200 cd/sq.m.

Final thoughts

During our test UMi Touch turned out to be a controversial device. On one hand, we detected some build issues and had problems with the charger, which turned out to be unit-bound. On the other, it sports a nice display, performs well, has a good battery life and is in general a good phone for a low price.