UMi Super Review

After reviewing the UMi Touch, which showed a great potential, we were curious to check the newest UMi smartphone that followed it and see whether the manufacturer has learned from its previous experience and improved the build. Dubbed "Super", the device sounds like being a must-have one, even more so when you check its specifications and affordable price. The model is feature packed and for its hardware are used components from renowned manufacturers. So, if you're curious what the results of our tests are, do go on reading, while without any further fuss we present you the official specs.

Specifications

UMi Super has an aluminum alloy unibody graced by a 5.5-inch IPS display by Sharp. It has an FHD resolution (1080 x 1920), covers 95% of the NTSC color space and is protected by a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 with 2.5D curved edges. The screen employs the LTPS (Low Temperature PolySilicon) display tech. Hardware-wise, the model is based on a MediaTek Helio P10 MT6755 with a 2GHz octa-core CPU and a 700MHz dual-core Mali-T860 MP2. Its work is backed by 4GB of single-channel, LPDDR3 RAM clocked at 933MHz, while the eMMC 5.1 storage (Samsung) measures 32GB. It can be expanded with up to 256GB. On the back of the smartphone is placed a Microarray 4th generation 3D fingerprint sensor, which unlocks the screen in just 0.1s, provides 360-degree recognition and can store up to 5 fingerprint IDs. It is accompanied by a 13-megapixel Panasonic SmartFSI MN34152 primary camera with a dual-tone LED flash. The selfie shooter packs a 5-megapixel GalaxyCore GC5005 sensor with a size of 1/5" and a 1.12μm pixel. The smartphone also features an independent Hi-Fi system with a dedicated sound card with an Awinic AW8738 chip. The lights are kept on by a 4000 mAh battery by Sony, coupled with MediaTek's Pump Express Plus fast charging technology and a quick charger with output power of 5V/2.5A, 7V/1.67A, 9V/1.67A, and 12V/1.25A. UMi Super is equipped with a hybrid dual-SIM card tray, which can house either two micro-SIM cards, or a micro-SIM card and a microSD card. It supports quad-band 2G GSM, quad-band 3G WCDMA, and quad-band 4G LTE Cat. 4 networks. The rest of it connectivity capabilities includes dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, 802.11n 5GHz, Wi-Fi Hotspot, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.1, a Foxconn USB Type-C port with OTG support, 3.5 mm jack, GPS/A-GPS, Glonass. The on-board OS is Android 6.0 Marshmallow. A complete list of the specifications of UMi Super can be found here.

What's in the box

UMi Super is packed in a black, metal, square box with rounded corners, which has the model's name engraved with gold-colored letters on the lid. Inside, the smartphone is placed together with an envelope containing a booklet, pin for the SIM tray, a fast charger and a USB to USB Type-C cable. The set is not generous, but is typical for UMi. Actually, the Touch arrived with the same set of accessories.

Design and build

UMi Super's design and build are worth more attention as the Touch had issues only in this regard. It is obvious that things have been improved significantly even from a first glance. In fact, the guys from UMi have done a great job. The unibody of the smartphone is made of aircraft-grade aluminum alloy, which makes it durable and light at the same time. Even the physical buttons - power, volume, and SmartKey - are metal. The CNC cutting and carving as well as the PBT nano-molding ensure perfect trimming. The body is 3D sandblasted on the outside and the inside for refined edges and has undergone 360-degree polishing. It is polished after coating and coated after polishing. All this is repeated five times and takes more than 40 hours to complete. There are five layers of coating measuring up to 0.02m thickness. Only the antenna area is made of PPS material, which does not affect signal strength. It takes a total 125 complex process to make one single unit and for sure you will find UMi's official video (placed below) about the production process of the Super very interesting. The back is curved at 165 degrees for comfortable grip and the metal frame has chamfered edges. The front frame edges seamlessly blend with the 2.5D curved edges of the top glass layer of the display. The frame's border is very thin, but the black bezels around the screen are there. The device looks and is solid, and feels nice to the touch. All small design details are well-made and are there for a purpose. All ports, buttons, speaker and mic holes are finely crafted. Moreover, the smartphone is very compact for a handset with a 5.5-inch screen and a 4000 mAh battery. Indeed, it is 75 mm wide and 150.8 mm high. By redesigning the inside area, where the battery is placed, UMi has managed to house a large-capacity accumulator in an 8.8 mm thin body that weighs 185 grams. It is available in three colors: gold with a white front, silver with a black front, and all-black variant. We are reviewing a silver unit with a black front.

Controls

Classic layout, good symmetry and an interesting LED notification light are the pin-points of the UMi Super controls. On the left hand side resides the dual-SIM tray and below it is the SmartKey. With it you can access any app of your choice, all you have to do is assign it from the Settings menu. There is a special section called Shortcut button settings. On the right hand side are placed the volume rocker and the power button below it. On top of the device a 3.5 mm jack is positioned, while at the bottom you'll find a USB Type-C port surrounded by two speaker grilles - only the right one houses a speaker actually. On the front above the display, from left to right, are the light and proximity sensors, earpiece, and selfie camera. Now, here is the interesting part. Below the display is positioned the Harlequin LED Notification Light. This is a backlit circle that blinks slowly and notifies you about various events such as missed calls, messages, battery down and so on. The color for each type of event and the light's behaviour can be adjusted from Harlequin LED Notification menu. By default, UMi Super arrives with virtual navigation buttons, but these can be customized in almost every way possible. For starters, you can choose whether the virtual buttons should hide or not; you can switch the places of the back and menu buttons, and moreover - if you don't like virtual ones, you can switch to using the capacitive buttons, embedded in the area below the screen. Yes, no one would expect that in case one didn't dig in the Accessibility menu of the Settings. If you choose to use the capacitive buttons, the area of the Harlequin LED Notification Light immediately turns into a sensitive home button, while the left and right buttons are not marked in any way - these are just sensitive areas on two sides of the home one. Again, you can switch the place of the back and menu 'buttons'. Having such possibilities for customization of the navigation bar is definitely a big plus, at least according to us. On the back of the device, centrally positioned, are the primary camera, a dual-tone LED flash below it (cold and warm light), and a fingerprint sensor. 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 hole for the noise-cancellation microphone.

Display

Our very first impression from the UMi Super display is that it's a very good one. During the test period this first impression has been confirmed. The device is equipped with a 5.5-inch IPS display by Sharp. It employs LTPS (Low Temperature PolySilicon) technology, which is perfect for larger displays with higher resolutions. In that case the resolution is 1080 x 1920 pixels (FHD) and the panel covers 95% of the NTSC color space. The screen is protected by a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 with 2.5D curved edges. After reviewing several units with 2.5D screens and thin metal frames, we've come to like the feeling of working with such displays as they seem tactile in a nice way. UMi Super's screen is quick, responsive and pleasure to look at. Colors are rich and deep, text is crisp. The on board MiraVision technology allows you to tweak the color temperature and other features, while if you're a fan of the Daydream function, you can switch it on to serve as a screen saver. Another immediate impression we have had after switching on the UMi Super for the first time is that its screen is 'warm' compared to the devices we've reviewed recently. When we measured the temperature of the white spot, it turned out that it was slightly above 7600 K and remained almost unchanged at all brightness levels. If you prefer more 'warm' displays, you will like this one for sure. The viewing angles are not perfect, but good enough. The color reproduction deviates within normal limits. The contrast ratio is pretty good and is around 1700-1800:1 at all brightness levels, with the exception at 0% brightness when it is 1045:1. This good contrast ratio is due mainly to the very good black luminance, which is the lowest among the devices with IPS displays we have reviewed.

Brightness	White luminance	Black luminance	Contrast	Color temperature
100 %	348.054 cd/m2	0.197 cd/m2	1767 : 1	7671 K
75 %	268.563 cd/m2	0.155 cd/m2	1733 : 1	7655 K
50 %	196.971 cd/m2	0.108 cd/m2	1824 : 1	7611 K
25 %	100.43 cd/m2	0.059 cd/m2	1702 : 1	7630 K
0 %	13.59 cd/m2	0.013 cd/m2	1045 : 1	7600 K

OS, UI and software

UMi Super runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow. It is almost a stock variant with very few alterations, but the layout looks more like a Lollipop one. The lock screen is classic with options to open the camera app and voice search directly. The home screen has two rows of docked apps by default. The lowest one includes the Dialer, Contacts, App Tray icon, Messenger and default Browser. The upper row lists the Camera, Play Store, Music, and Settings. On top of the screen is the "Ok Google" voice search app. It appears on the second screen, on the Task manager screen and cannot be removed. The second screen has an extended Music app only, which can be removed, if you prefer. The Task manager appears after tapping on the Menu button, while being on the home screen. The App Tray icon opens the list with pre-installed apps, which is quite standard and without excessive clutter. The apps are listed in alphabetical order, but appear on successive screens like in Lollipop, not in one scroll-able screen like in Marshmallow. The Notifications screen comes up after a single swipe downwards from the top of the display and a second swipe brings the Quick Menu settings. The latter includes shortcuts to the brightness level, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, DND and Airplane mode, Auto-rotate, Flashlight, Location, Cast (screen), Audio profiles, Battery saver, Data connections. As per standard a long press on an empty space on the home screen opens up the Widgets and Wallpapers menu. The Volume and Power off/Reboot screen are traditional as well. UMi Super has a pretty self-explanatory Settings menu, which deviates very slightly from a classic Android 6.0 one. It starts with the Wireless & networks set of options, which includes Turbo Download. The second set of options is the Device one, from where you can tweak the Display, Sound, Apps, Storage, Battery, and Memory. This section includes the Harlequin LED Notification light management too. Under Display you can see the MiraVision set of options for enhancing visual quality as well as the Daydream function. Under Smart Assistant there is one feature only - the Shortcut button settings, which brings up a large list of apps, from which you can choose, which app to be associated with the physical SmartKey. Personal is the fourth set of options and lets you manage Location, Security (including the fingerprint management), Accounts, Language and input, Google, Backup & reset. System is the last set of general options and includes all the standard stuff Date & time, Scheduled power on & off, Accessibility, Printing, and About Phone. It is under Accessibility that the management of the navigation bar is hidden. It has been explained in detail in the Controls section of this review. UMi Super arrives with a standard set of default and pre-installed apps including a Dial pad, Contacts, Messenger, Clock, Calculator, Calendar, Sound recorder, Radio and Flashlight. Under the Display settings you can access the G- and Proximity sensor calibration services. Of course, Google's Play Services are on board as well - Gmail, Maps, Voice Search, Play Store, Play Movies and Music. A File manager and a Downloads app take care of organizing the files stored on the smartphone.

Networks, calls and connectivity

As most smartphones emerging from China, UMi Super has a dual-SIM tray with hybrid functions. That is, it can house two micro-SIM cards or a micro-SIM card and a microSD card, in case you need more storage. As per the official specifications, the model 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. However, the MTK Engineering test showed that our unit supports twice as more LTE bands - FDD-LTE (800, 900, 1800, 2100, 2600 MHz) and TD-LTE (2300, 2500, 2600 MHz). The smartphone did not have any issues with the reception and call quality at all. The wireless connectivity options of the model include dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, 802.11n 5GHz, Wi-Fi Hotspot, Wi-Fi Direct as well as Bluetooth 4.1. The Turbo download feature allows you to download faster files larger than 20MB by combining Wi-Fi and 3G/4G networks simultaneously. The device can also cast contents to a larger display such as TV or monitor suffice you have a suitable adapter. Finally, as long as it concerns the location and navigation services, the official specs state that the device supports GPS/A-GPS and Glonass. The Androits app shows that our unit has detected only GPS satellites and no Glonass ones. However, the choice of satellites is large enough and location is with great accuracy (up to 1 meter). The smartphone is equipped with a USB Type-C port by Foxconn with OTG support, which has been tested and works fine.

Performance

UMi Super is the fourth device based on a MediaTek Helio P10 MT6755 chipset, which we review. The chipset includes a 2GHz octa-core CPU and a 700MHz dual-core Mali-T860 MP2 - just like the one of the Elephone P9000. In fact, the performance scores of the UMi Super are very, very close to those of the P9000, which means that it performs better than Meizu m3 Note and slightly less than Gionee S8. The MT6755 chipset does provide higher performance than the MT6753 one in general, while remaining pretty power efficient, so it is a good choice for devices from the higher mid-range tier. The SoC's work is aided by 4GB of single-channel, LPDDR3 RAM clocked at 933MHz. Generous RAM usually does make a difference, and in this case it is no exception. The device flies, while running the usual set of apps, browsing and playing games. It only lacks power for strongly demanding, in terms of graphics, games. The on-board storage is 32GB and eMMC 5.1 type. The memory is made by Samsung and performs excellently as seen from the Androbench results - the sequential and random read/write speeds are pretty fast. There's a standard set of sensors on board the smartphone, including a light, proximity, orientation, linear acceleration, rotation vector and g- sensor along with an accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer. Finally, the smartphone features a Microarray 4th generation 3D fingerprint sensor placed on its back, which provide 360-degree recognition, supports up to 5 fingerprint IDs and unlocks really fast. It is evident that UMi are relying on proven manufacturers for the most important hardware parts, just like in the display, and we must say that there is a positive difference.

Cameras

UMi Super features a 13-megapixel rear camera with a Panasonic SmartFSI MN34152 sensor coupled with a dual-tone LED. The same sensor works behind the primary camera of the Ulefone Vienna. А typical feature of the SmartFSI sensors is their structure. Each color component of the pixel is surrounded by a light wall, which coupled with a light tube lessen color crosstalk and light loss. Furthermore, UMi uses an advanced closed-loop focus system, which is much faster than conventional solutions and allows the camera to focus in 0.3s. Even if you have already taken a photo, you can adjust the focal point with the Magic Focus function. It allows you to switch the area of focus in the photo from one object to another after you have made the shot. Depth of field and bokeh effects can also be adjusted afterwards. A tracking autofocus lock on fast-moving objects is on board as well as 12 real-time filters. The primary camera can shoot FHD video @ 30fps. The camera app is standard and includes options for adjusting the ISO, exposure, white balance, brightness and shadows, to switch on and off the anti-shake, face recognition, and zero shutter delay functions, etc. The front-facing camera is equipped with a 5-megapixel GalaxyCore GC5005 sensor with a size of 1/5" and a 1.12μm pixel. The unit arrives with 36 preset beauty filters.

Primary camera

Secondary camera

Audio

UMi did not brag about the audio setup of the Super, but actually the smartphone has an independent Hi-Fi system with a dedicated sound card, including an Awinic AW8738 chip. It is interesting to see that the model shows results that are extremely close to those of the Ulefone Vienna, which has been marketed as an audio-centric device. As usual, we have performed the audio test by using the RightMark Audio Analyzer software and the TASCAM US-2x2 audio interface. The overall test result is Very good. The model excels in frequency response and scores average for the THD + Noise. For the rest of the parameters it scores Very good. There is only one speaker on board, placed behind the right grille at the bottom of the device, while the left one is empty. It is designed this way for symmetry.

Test	Value	RMAA rating
Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB	+0.02, -0.10	Excellent
Noise level, dB (A)	-93.9	Very Good
Dynamic range, dB (A)	93.8	Very Good
THD, %	0.0087	Very good
THD + Noise, dB (A)	-78.4	Average
IMD + Noise, %	0.011	Very good
Stereo crosstalk, dB	-80.7	Very good
IMD at 10 kHz, %	0.017	Very good
General performance		Very good

Battery

UMi Super has a 4000 mAh, Li-Ion-Pol, non-removable battery by Sony. In order to fit it properly in the 8.5 mm thin body with a curved back cover, the manufacturer has used a novel, trapezoidal structure. According to the official specifications, the accumulator should provide up to 48h of talk time in 4G, 360h of standby time, 12h of internet browsing, 15h of video playback, and 120h of music playback. The PCMark Work battery test shows a result of 6 hours and 45 minutes. The test has been performed with the brightness level calibrated at 200 cd/sq.m. as recommended by Futuremark. The smartphone arrives with a fast charger that has an output power of 5V/2.5A; 7V/1.67A; 9V/1.67A; 12V/1.25A and is coupled with MediaTek Pump Express Plus tech. When we tested it, the battery of UMi Super needed 1 hour and 28 minutes to charge in full from 0% to 100%, which is very close to what UMi has specified - 100 minutes. During the whole charging period, the output power has been 12v/0.88-0.92A. A curious thing we have noticed, is the fact that when the battery level dropped to 1% our unit managed to maintain this charge level for 40-50 minutes. On the software side, the battery is aided by a Standby intelligent power saving mode, which is switched on by default, as well as a battery save, which you may choose to turn on, when the charge drops to 15%.

Final thoughts

UMi Super is a feature-packed smartphone that is definitely worth your attention. It combines very good design and solid build with a nice display and well-selected hardware from renowned suppliers. All of this makes one reliable smartphone with good battery life and useful software features, which can turn it into a useful tool in your everyday life. Last but not least, its reasonable price of $220 makes it even more attractive. If you've been tentative about UMi's smartphones so far, you don't have to be with the Super one - it totally lives up to its name.