As mentioned in the preview, Umi has been around for quite awhile. Recently they’ve stepped up their game in regards to marketing towards Westerners and it should be interesting how the older tried and true Umi competes against the up & comers.
Umi eMAX review style and build
The Umi eMAX is a sealed design, offering SIM ports and an SD expansion slot on the sides of the phone. The buttons give a tactile feel when pressed and there are no creaks when pressing on the back.
The sides are part of the backpiece and of plastic, though in a brushed style that give it a touch of class. Overall, the phone doesn’t take any chances to look unique, but looks good nonetheless. In the package is a flat style USB cable and something we don’t see too often – an OTG adapter.
Umi eMAX LCD display
The display on the Umi eMAX is 5.5″@1080p IPS OGS and looks very good. White brightness registers at a quite high lux of 390 and a minimum brightness lux of 48. The display is smooth and has moderate pop, with colors looking good without being over saturated; whites are strong, though slightly warm.
Viewing angles are very good with some mild change in color and contrast from very extreme angles, but the display still remains entirely legible.
Being an OGS display, your finger is directly up against the LCD when swiping and tapping. OGS is fairly standard these days, but if you haven’t used a phone with OGS, it can be a nice step up in pleasantness.
Viewing on a bright sunny day is no issue at all.
The sides exhibit no vignetting (darkening) and there’s no evidence of white spotting, light bleed, or of where the LEDs are situated. Overall a good display with moderate pop, and pleasant to look at. Viewing on a bright sunny day is no problem.
Umi eMAX review OS
The OS as it comes from Umi is currently 4.4.4, and is quite smooth. Play Store works without issue downloading and installing apps. Play Services updating without a hitch, and there were no force closes from apps. All of my testing apps and standard array of popular apps such as Facebook and Skype worked flawlessly. eMAX is deep sleeping no problem.
Interestingly, the eMAX as it came to me was already rooted. Not sure whether this is standard policy for Umi now, but it saved me some hassle. The root is proper and SuperSU updated the su binary without issue.
According to official Umi, the eMAX will update to Lollipop within the next month or so. For myself, this isn’t an issue, as KitKat is a fine OS and does everything I require. Still, I understand the desire to have the latest and we should see eMAX Android 5 coming along shortly.
Umi eMAX review main components
The OTG, gyroscope and compass are all working without hassle. The light sensor is sensing differing lux levels and adjusting brightness accordingly.
GPS is quite strong, cold locking within seconds; SNR for several satellites in the high 30’s and occasionally reaching into low 40’s.
External speaker loudness is quite good, allowing me to hear dialog in YouTube movies loud and clear, even with significant background noise. Both the mic and earpiece working well and providing enough loudness to hear and be heard during phone calls.
For those who are interested, there’s no backlight for the capacitive keys, which is something that is becoming increasingly more popular, but the Umi eMAX does include a multi-color notification LED, which can be disabled if you wish.
Umi eMAX Antutu and performance
Fast typing is no problem and there are no ghost touches or double taps required. The keyboard pops in and out smoothly.
The MT6752 SoC is a powerful SoC and can speedily handle any app you throw at it. Umi eMAX Antutu score is a very high 41k, hitting 8500 in 3D which means it has the power to push demanding games smoothly.
apps I’d opened 6 or 7 apps back from the previous day still sitting in memory
RAM on the Umi eMAX is 2GB and if there’s a disadvantage in comparison to 3GB, it’s not noticeable on the eMAX; apps are staying in memory very well, with apps I’d opened 6 or 7 apps back from the previous day still sitting in memory and instantly coming up at the point I’d left them.
Storage is entirely relegated to one partition, giving us more than 12GB free for installing apps. The external expansion slot officially allows for SD cards up to 64GB.
Umi eMAX battery
Charging from 1% to 100% takes 3.5-4 hours. This charges the phone to a solid 4.250+ which means the phone’s charging system is capable of fully saturating the battery. Calibration is also properly set, with the eMAX going down to 1% when at about 3.5V.
With the standard battery test of brightness at 140 lux and running a 720p video over YouTube WiFi the eMAX lasts 5 hours 45 minutes. This should be more than enough to get most users through the day without needing to charge.
Umi eMAX 3G 4G frequency support
The WCDMA 3G on eMAX is 900/1900/2100. A fully bizarre setup that several phones have recently been released with. LTE 4G on the eMAX is 1800/2100/2600. NOTE: while engineering mode says the phone supports 850 WCDMA, I have confirmed with Umi that this is only the software baseband.
This configuration is great for UK/Europe and most of Asia. T-Mobile and T-Mobile MVNO customers in USA should receive 3G without a problem in most areas. GSM 2G is quad-band worldwide. As always, check your carrier’s frequencies prior to purchasing a mobile.
Umi eMAX camera picture samples
solid images beyond adequate for social sharing
The camera on the eMAX is quite good, producing solid images beyond adequate for social sharing and medium-sized prints. They don’t hold up well to 100% pixel peeping, but with more reasonable crops look quite good. I took the liberty of making several “reasonable” crops in addition to the standard 100% crops and you can see the results below.
[flickr_set id=”72157655839301318″]
The images here are SOOC (straight out of camera / no edits) other than cropping and resizing. It should also be noted that these pictures were taken in full-on cloudy weather; not the sunny day images that I typically shoot.
Umi eMAX review WiFi
WiFi range on the eMAX is excellent. Staying strong and fast at 150ft / 46m from a home router with a concrete wall between the router and I. I couldn’t walk further back, but I expect it could have easily reached another 30ft.
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Umi eMAX is a solid mobile with all major components working without any problems. Honorable mentions go to the eMAX’s excellent WiFi; we haven’t had a phone reach this far back while remaining this strong in a long while, as well as outstanding performance in regards to apps staying in memory.
In addition, the 1080p display is quite good with decent pop, and the camera more than adequate for social sharing and perhaps even medium sized prints.
Also mentionable is that accessories such as tempered glass screen protectors, clear covers and flip cases are available and made specifically to exactly fit Umi’s models.
The Umi eMAX is a phone I can recommend to those who are looking for a powerful MT6752 SoC phone in the mid-budget range.
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