[Smartphone review] | UMi Max | Is it better than the Redmi note 4?

A Redmi note killer?!

UMI is a newbie in the smartphone game. Just like anybody else, they want to make a name for themselves and have come up with a smartphone, UMI Max, to help them with it. How does it compare against the competition and what makes it hold its own ground? Let's find out in this review.

Design: The phone is a typical size for the modern day and did not amuse me in any way. It's completely made out of an aluminum alloy. The phone is 8.5 mm thick and weighs 185 gm. The volume rocker and power/wake button are on the right side and on the left side had a sim tray. There's a flush camera in the back and the antenna bands which we all love😒. There's a red home button on the front similar to the ZTE Nubia line up. But it's not just a red button, it also doubles up as a multicolor notification LED! The volume and power buttons are clicky with excellent tactile feedback.

​There's a USB type-C port on the bottom and again, NO headphone jack. You'll have to use the USB port to connect headphones. That's a good thing as you'll have better power delivered to your audio equipment (mainly headphones) via USB port than the weak output of 3.5 mm jack.
Overall I can say that the phone is very well made and doesn't feel too heavy and unmanageable in the hand.

Display: The phone has a 5.5' 1080p IPS LCD panel with 2.5D curved glass at 401 ppi. Display is sharp and vivid, with plenty of brightness and excellent viewing angles. This is actually a lot more vibrant than o expected and I love it. You'll have no problem reading text or watching content even on bright outdoors.

Performance: The phone is powered by a Mediatek Helio P10 true octacore processor clocked at 2 GHz and a Mali T860 MP2 GPU with 3 GB of DDR3 RAM. I'm quite used to see a powerful package on pretty much every phone I lay my eyes upon! There are no more slow and sluggish phones on the midrange segment nowadays, are there. The phone flies through everything thrown at it. Apps open quickly and games were pretty smooth thanks to that capable GPU. There is 16 GB of inbuilt storage but it's thankfully expandable upto 256 GB via microSD card.

The rear month fingerprint sensor uses an oleophobic layer on top, so you won't face a lot of fuzz if you're fingers are moist. The company claims a speed of 0.3 s to recognize and unlock your phone. I didn't exactly measure it but it's definitely really fast and accurate. Another thing that I'm used to everywhere I go.

The phone runs on Android 6.0 marshmallow with a moderate UMI skin on it. It's not laggy or buggy. You can use it on a daily basis without slowdowns or major crashes. It's far better than most Chinese UI that we all see today.

Camera: The rear camera on the UMI Max is a 13 mp sensor with dual LED flash and the rear camera is a 5 mp Samsung made sensor. Both cameras are surprisingly quite capable. The app is fast to launch and the autofocus is really very fast. 0.2 S apparently. The images come out sharp and detailed with very minimal distortion due to over exposure. The sensor only falls apart at night as the camera's super fast focus speed reduces to a crawl. Images come out grainy and smudgy if lighting is not so abundant.

The front camera takes really good selfies for my liking. It's a wide angled lens made by Samsung, which as I expected is quite good. Colors are not the best I've seen, but there's definitely a lot to appreciate about the overall quality.

All about juice!

Battery: The phone has a 4000 mAh battery made by Sony, incapable of fast charging. But the chipset is oriented more towards power saving, so you'll get longer battery life without compromising processor speed. Youll get 5½ hours of continuous usage out of this phone. That should make up for the absence of fast charging technology.

Price: You can buy this phone for 10,800 INR. Not a bad deal considering the performance and camera are better than the redmi note 3 and note 4, and there's that flashy home button/ led light to show off. It's a good choice if you can look past the lack of services in India as of now, though they are promised soon on near future.

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