UMI has been taking the world by storm and making no apologies for it. The company has recently launched a slew of new and exciting smartphones such as the low cost UMI Diamond or the recently reviewed UMI Plus. Clearly, the company excels at developing budget phones that deliver prominent features.
Today we're going to take a stab at one of its most promising and exciting new models.Specifically, we're gonna review the pros and cons of the UMI Max. Why the UMI Max? Well because its one of the most attractive budget phablets on the market and we simply couldn't miss out on looking up its advantages and disadvantages in detail considering how affordable its become.
UMI Max Pros and Cons covered in depth
Disadvantages/Cons of the UMI Max
MediaTek instead of Qualcomm. Let's get this disadvantage out of the way as soon as posible. As is common amongst affordable handsets that aren't signed by Xiaomi, the Umi Max packs a MediaTek processor. Specifically, it's an octa core Helio P10 CPU that works at a base speed of 1.8GHz.
This isn't a bad processor, it's actually one of the best in the budget smartphone segment but we're not gonna stand here and say that it's better than an octa core Qualcomm Snapdragon like the one on the Xiaomi Redmi 4. It's good, it's just not as good as a Qualcomm CPU. Most likely you'll never actually notice the difference but it's worth a mention.
Limited storage. Base storage on the UMI Max taps out at 16GB. Nowadays that's more like a con of the UMI Max when you consider the fact that you're left with about half as much in available storage once the software space is discounted. That said, you've got the option to expand storage via microSD cards of up to 256GB which is actually quite impressive seeing as how most phones will allow up to 64GB.
It's not the lightest phablet on the market. It's not the heaviest either but we'd definitely point out that the fact that the phone weighs 200 grams as a con of the UMI Max.
That said, consider that most phablets in this size range tend to weigh around 170-180 grams so the difference in weight is pretty negligible. Also, the "extra weight" is more than justified when looking at the 4000mAh Sony Battery that the phone brings onboard.
Non-removable battery. The unibody design strikes again! Yup, there's a unibody design that we love but in exchange for said design we must forgo the possibility of swapping out the battery when we're running low on juice.
Chances are that won't be an issue as we'll see down the line when we explore the pros of the Umi Max but having the option is always a welcomed feature. Another option is carrying an external battery.
USB Type C, a pro and a con at the same time. This feature can be seen as either an advantage or a disadvantage. For the most techies of the bunch that like to handle the latest tech it's definitely a pro. However, for those who have a billion microUSB cables lying around and aren't looking forward to transition to a new kind of cable then it would go under the disadvantage list.
Especially for that inevitable moment when you loose your charger and you can't use any of the other microUSB chargers.
Pros of the UMI Max
Smart notifications. One thing we really likes about Umi's latest phablet is that it features smart notifications. Specifically, the home button shines with a different light depending on the notification it's sharing with you.
This is a step up over the standard LED light on most handsets and gives you a clearer picture as to the importance of the notification. For example, I would prioritize calls over messages so if I see the calls notification I might check my phone whilst if I see a message notification I'd feel more free to ignore it.
4th generation fingerprint sensor. While having an actual fingerprint sensor on a budget smartphone isn't a huge advantage in and of its own, we should mention that the UMI Max features a 4th generation fingerprint recognition technology which delivers a 3D recognition on a full 360 degrees with a speed of just 0.1 seconds to unlock.
Great battery life. We previously mentioned the inability to swap out the battery as a con yet the battery life on this phone is good enough that it becomes a secondary issue. In that regard, we've got a 4000mAh Sony battery that can deliver over 260 hours on 4G standby (over 10 days) and an impressive 32 hours of music playback on speakers.
You get the pure Android experience. A big pro of the Umi Max is that it comes with the latest version of Android; Android 6.0. However, what's even more interesting is that it comes with stock Android, that means there's no personalization done by UMI and therefore a lot less bloatware. Knowing that it packs a pure Android OS also tells us that the phone's performance will be pretty fast.
We know that Android 6.0 works great on an octa core processor with 2GB of RAM so knowing that this model packs 3GB of RAM means we have the guarantee that it will have a fluid performance not just in this iteration of Android but also when the OS is updated which in this case UMI delivers through OTA updates.
Excellent set of cameras without any interpolation. A pretty common trait amongst most mid range handsets such as this one is that they come with a sensor that typically offers two resolutions, a lower 8 megapixels native resolution and a higher 13 megapixels through interpolation (which is a fancy way of saying digitally optimized). That said, this model actually comes with a native 13 megapixel rear end shooter signed by Panasonic and a 5 megapixel front camera.
We also appreciate how fast the camera actually is, delivering a speed of 0.5 seconds to launch and 0.3 seconds to focus with a 0 seconds shutter speed delay. That means that taking a quick snap will be done in an instant and you won't have to worry to much about the moment fading.
What's the verdict?
After carefully examining the pros and cons of the UMI Max and exploring quite a few you probably didn't even consider, we gotta say that we where pleasantly surprised. The pros definitely outrank the cons.
Sure enough a Qualcomm CPU would've made this phone even better but the fact that we get a long lasting battery life and 3GB of RAM ends up making up for that. Overall, if you're searching for a phablet and you wanna get the most bang for your buck this is an excellent choice.
Sure enough a Qualcomm CPU would've made this phone even better but the fact that we get a long lasting battery life and 3GB of RAM ends up making up for that. Overall, if you're searching for a phablet and you wanna get the most bang for your buck this is an excellent choice.