UMI has made quite a name for themselves. The company is following in the footsteps of giants such as Meizu and Xiaomi by delivering top level smartphones at ultra competitive prices. The latest launch is no exception; the UMI Super.
It's latest venture into the crowded smartphone market retails at a very compelling price while boosting 4GB of RAM, a Full HD 5.5 inch display, an octa core CPU and a 4000 mAh battery, amongst many other amenities. Today we seek to dig a little deeper into the phone's virtues by providing our readers a post that explores in depth the pros and cons of the UMI Super.
UMI Super Pros and Cons exposed
Cons of the UMI Super
USB Type-C is still not a standard
While seeing that the UMI Super comes with USB type C might have you all excited it really shouldn't for a couple of reasons: 1) The "standard" isn't yet complete, 2) You'll have trouble finding a compatible charger.
Sure, USB Type-C could seem like a win but you should know right off the bat that the fact that it's a USB type C phone doesn't mean all USB type C accessories will be a match.
As if that wasn't enough of a hurdle, you should also consider that if you loose or break your charger you're going to need another one and chances are you don't just happen to have a USB type-C charger lying around in your cable drawer. Even worse, if you need to charge your UMI Super at a friends house chances are he won't have a compatible charger either.
As if that wasn't enough of a hurdle, you should also consider that if you loose or break your charger you're going to need another one and chances are you don't just happen to have a USB type-C charger lying around in your cable drawer. Even worse, if you need to charge your UMI Super at a friends house chances are he won't have a compatible charger either.
Upgradable storage? Or dual-SIM?
Who knows why but for some reason it seems that manufacturers are hell bent on making us pick between upgrading the native storage or having two numbers running on the same phone. This is a common flaw that most smartphones share so we're not going to say that this is a drawback limited to the UMI Super.
That said, the upgradable storage has a big pro in that you can upgrade all the way to 256GB, something quite unusual, even amongst high end smartphones.
It's not particularly light
Sure, the design is sleek and stylish but that doesn't mean that the phone is actually a lightweight device. On the contrary, the UMI Super weighs in at 185 grams (6.5 ounces).
To put things into context, the iPhone 6S Plus which shares the same screen size weighs in at around 6.7 ounces so if you've ever held one of Apple's most prominent smartphones you'll get an idea of what you're getting yourself into.
To put things into context, the iPhone 6S Plus which shares the same screen size weighs in at around 6.7 ounces so if you've ever held one of Apple's most prominent smartphones you'll get an idea of what you're getting yourself into.
It's got a MediaTek processor
Sure, most smartphones in the market carry a MediaTek processor but you simply can't deny that Qualcomm CPUs are considerably better in everyday performance. That said, it's not a bad CPU, operating with eight cores on a 64 bit architecture and a 2.0 GHz speed.
The battery is non-removable
Again, this con of the UMI Super isn't strictly limited to UMI's latest flagship but rather to most flagships in the market which suddenly decided that a slimming design was more important than giving the user the ability to remove and swap his battery whenever he was running low on juice.
However, there's an upside to this whole battery situation since UMI chose a very interesting 4000 mAh battery which delivers a very solid battery life.
Pros of the UMI Super
The design is a work of art
It's not an easy feat to find such a carefully crafted smartphone as the UMI Super where every single detail counts. Especially when looking into the lower end of the market. However, UMI really wanted to make its mark here and therefore played all of its cards to the design of the "Super" and boy did it pay off.
We're not just talking about the breathtaking SHARP display running at 1920 by 1080 pixels. We're talking about the build quality as a whole. This phone was built with users in mind. It has a fingerprint sensor just below the camera on the upper back of the phone, a dedicated key below the volume buttons to which you can assign any task and last but not least; it boasts the so-called "Super Skylight".
You might be asking yourselves; what's the Super Skylight? Well it's a redefined home button which changes colors according to the notification you've got pending. This way you've got a red circle for missed calls, a yellow circle for missed Skype calls, a green circle for facebook notifications and so forth. All in all, a very clever idea that I can really see myself using.
Stellar battery life
A huge flaw of most mid to high end phones is low battery life. However, this is precisely one of the UMI Super's biggest pros. Sure, the battery is non-removable but you shouldn't really need to remove it thanks to its 4000 mAh capacity.
To translate that onto actual usage we've got up to 48 hours of talking on the phone over a 4G network (more on a 3G network), 12 hours of continuous browsing, up to 15 hours of video playback and an astonishing 120 hours of musical playback. Overall, something tells me that charging the UMI Super isn't gonna be very high on your "to-do list".
5 minutes charging will give you 2 hours of talk time
As if having an incredible battery life wasn't enough, it also charges at a wicked speed. Thanks to QuickCharge technology with a 5 minute charge you can have the phone up and ready for a 2 hour call, charge it for 30 minutes and you've got a whole day of juice and charge it for 100 minutes (1:40 hours) and you've got yourself a full charge, capable of lasting well over two days on average usage.
Future-proof internals
Very few mid range phones can say they're future-proof like the UMI Super. We're not talking so much about its octa core CPU over here but more so about the 4 GB of RAM and Android 6.0 operating system.
4GB of RAM is more than enough to run Android 6.0 in all its splendor. What's more, as apps become more RAM-hungry, UMI's latest phone will be more than capable of keeping up with them at least for the next 2-3 years. While many mid range phones weren't designed to go past a year of usage, this one was clearly built to last.
If we add to that the fact that the phone comes with 32 GB of storage right off the bat and allows users to upgrade storage to almost 300 GB with an additional 256 GB we're not talking about a phone as much as an investment.
An excellent rear end camera and an even better sound quality
A 13 megapixel camera is nothing new, most mid range phones have this feature but very few have a Panasonic sensor that delivers a 0.3 second focus speed and a 0 second shutter lag. Add to that a high fidelity audio system and you've got yourself a fully blown multimedia machine.
Closing Statements
After carefully reviewing the pros and cons of the UMI Super it's become quite clear that we're looking at a smartphone where the advantages outweigh the disadvantages by a long shot. We didn't even talk about the low bearing price as another huge advantage but that's because we didn't have to.
The stellar design coupled with a solid hardware and the latest version of Android to hit the market makes the UMI Super a no-brainer for most consumers who aren't too focused on branding. All in all, an excellent choice for anyone looking to get some serious bang for their buck.