What is it?
Last year saw several Chinese brands make their way to India, launching value for money smartphones that pack in premium hardware. Unlike Xiaomi and Meizu, UMI is a relatively unknown brand in mainland China, but is all set to mark its debut in India with the quite popular UMI Zero.
Who is it for?
UMI Zero packs in top-of-the-line specifications in a sleek form factor. The Zero allows being rooted out of the box to different Android ROMs and should appeal to a lot of Android enthusiasts.
Design
The UMI Zero claims to be the slimmest dual-sim Android smartphone, and the glass and metallic body makes for a well-designed phone that exudes a premium feel. The company claims that the Zero features aluminum-magnesium alloy metal frame with Gorilla Glass panels at the front and back. At 6.4mm and weighing 145 grams, it feels great in the hand, although it's a little taller for comfortable one-hand usage and the glass makes it a little slippery.
In a deviation from the norm, the volume rocker and power keys are placed along the left edge. It's odd, but enables better access to the power button. The SIM card tray has two slots, including one hybrid slot - you can either use it for the second micro-SIM or a microSD card.
Overall, UMI Zero is a pretty well-designed phone with premium materials, and it looks quite attractive.
Display
The UMI Zero features a 5-inch full HD (1920 x 1080) Super AMOLED display with Corning Gorilla Glass protection. Like it is with Super AMPOLED displays from Samsung, this one too offers over-saturated colors. With vivid colors, the display looks simply vibrant and gorgeous. And mind you, viewing angles are pretty good too.
Hardware
Powered by a 2GHz MediaTek MT6592 Turbo octa-core processor with 2GB of RAM coupled with a Mali-450MP4 GPU, the UMI Zero packs in a punch in terms of specifications. It also translates well in the performance, and navigation through the phone's UI, web browsing, and multitasking is a breeze. There's 16GB of internal storage, with an optional microSD card slot for expansion.
While running multiple apps in the background or playing graphic-intensive games and HD videos does not hit the performance, it tends to get pretty warm in the process.
The phone packs in a 2,780mAh battery that allows the phone to easily sail through a day on regular usage. There's also Power saving and Ultra power saving modes that limit background tasks and apps and turn off connectivity features to save on battery when you're running out of juice. The UMI Zero offers fast charging, allowing you to charge the phone's battery to half its capacity in 15 minutes. However, the phone gets heated up in the process, sometimes even beyond the normal levels for the phone.
Software
The UMI Zero comes with a stock version of Android 4.4 KitKat with a few additional features thrown in. While the phone doesn't support over-the-air software updates, it allows you to easily download and flash ROMs - even third-party ones - using their RootJoy PC tool, an application that offers one-click installation of Android ROMs. This precisely would be the USP of the Zero for Android enthusiasts and geeks.
Since the phone isn't yet officially launched in India, the Android version available out of the box might change, although one can always (and the company encourages the same) use the RootJoy tool to download and flash the latest stock ROM. The UMI Zero is sold rooted, and is preinstalled with SuperSU from Chainfire for advanced access management of any apps that require root.
Camera
The UMI Zero sports a 13MP rear camera with dual-LED flash and an 8MP front-facing camera. The phone supports 1080p video capture through both the cameras.
In well-lit conditions and in daylight, the pictures turn out to be pretty good with accurate color reproduction and great level of details. Close zoomed objects and macro-shots turn out to be pretty good as well. Indoors or at nights, the photos still manage to sneak in a lot of details but some graininess is apparent.
The accompanying Camera app is quite neat, and offers granular controls as well as HDR, Panorama, multi-angle view, motion tracking, and live photo (short video clip) modes.
The Best Part
- Great performance
- Premium design and gorgeous display
- Available as a rooted device
- Software updates an issue with non-geeks
- No clear availability details
- Gets heated up frequently
At its price, the UMI Zero is a pretty good Android smartphone that packs in a punch in performance and is quite a looker. You can even flash your phone to a ROM that you prefer. There's heating issues, which we hope would be resolved by an upcoming update.
UMI Zero is available across Chinese eCommerce retailers for quite a discount from the original launch price of $299.99 (₹19,000). A sub-20K INR launch price in India might just make it a good option on the table. However, there's no details on retail sales (they'll partner with an online retailer) and support channels. The phone was to be launched in the first week of April, but two months later too, there's no definite communication.
