UMI Z Review: The Last Smartphone Before Rebranding [Coup…

With the launch of the UMI Z the company closed a book titled UMI phones. As you know, the manufacturer has already renamed to Umidigi. This rebranding is not related with only the name but the whole activity. We have reviewed tons of Umi smartphones including the Umi Plus E, Umi Max and Umi Super, and we know regardless the high-end features and stylish design, those handset were priced affordably. Now seems the rules of game have been changed – the first smartphone of the rebranded company is more expensive than all its rivals. The Umidigi Z Pro costs more than the Xiaomi Redmi Pro and Huawei Honor 8. On this background the Umi Z gets more chances to sell more than the youngest phone of Umidigi. So we decided to take a look at the key features of the Umi Z and find out whether it’s able to use the formed situation to its advantage.

The first features caught our eyes is the metal unibody housing. We know metal housings can be found mainly on top-end devices. So the manufacturer decided to give an additional charm to the last Umi model. For example, one of the closest rivals to the Umi Z in face of the Zuk Z2 comes with a plastic housing. It’s not proper to consider this handset as a bezel-less smartphone, but the bezels of the Umi Z are quite narrow. The phone comes in two color options – gold and dark grey. But I have to say the front panel color changes according to the back one getting white and black shade, respectively.

As for the Umi Z appearance, it looks like the iPhone. But we already used to see Chinese handsets looking similar to top brand handsets. On one hand this may seem annoying, and many customers accuse those manufacturer in not providing their own designs. But on the other hand, top brands like Apple, Sony or Samsung spend tons of money to create something unique and competitive. As for other smartphone makers, they can’t afford themselves to spend so much. Well, let’s write down the Umi Z looks like the iPhone, but it’s not an iPhone clone.

The body of the Umi Z has been curved from a single aluminum slab. So it looks incredible. Plus, thanks to this manufacturing process the Umi Z is ultra-thin and extra sleeker. It also comes with a cutting edge dual 3D design with round corner for better ergonomics. We have to state the Umi Z design is really appealing. The phone comes at dimensions of 15.60 x 7.60 x 0.91 cm and weighs 175 grams. The latter is a bit heavier than expected, but I guess the weight is considered with the metal body.

The front panel of the Umi Z carries a 5.5-inch Full HD display at 441PPI pixel density. It’s made by SHARP, meaning we are dealing with a high-quality touchscreen. Many can be disappointed not seeing a Corning Gorilla Glass protection in the specs list. But the Umi Z screen is covered with the latest Dragon trail Glass protector. Therefore, the screen is scratch resistant. I can’t prove, but I have heard it’s more resistant than the Gorilla Glass. The screen is made by OGS technology found on the Bluboo Edge. The One Glass Solution means there is no gap between the touchscreen and the display panel. Therefore, the displayed image is alive, juicy, rich and natural. The speaker among with the 13MP front camera and sensors are located above the screen, while the oval-shaped home button is placed below the screen. It’s also responsible for fingerprint recognition. The front camera has a soft light, therefore the selfies are more realistic.

The back of the Umi Z looks identical to the iPhone, as I said above. Here we can find the same dual ribbons serving as antenna corridor. There is also a 13MP camera on the upper left corner supplied by Samsung. The front camera module is also made by this manufacturer, by the way. It’s accompanied with a quad LED setup for more color-accurate captures in the low light conditions. The rear camera uses both laser autofocus and phase detection autofocus. Actually, the camera is one of the selling points of the Umi Z. There is also a small hole for a microphone on the same line with the camera and LED. The back panel doesn’t carry anything but a few printed details and the logo.

The bottom side comes with dual speakers and a USB Type-C port located between them. The left side carries a hold to open the SIM card slot via a spin. The volume rocker and power button are on the right hand side. And finally, the top side carries a 3.5mm audio jack.

It’s said about the Umi Z ‘it smells as the ZUK Z2’. To understand what this means let’s check its specs out and compare them with the features of the ZUK Z2. The Umi Z sports a MediaTek Helio X27 SoC. It’s paired with a 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal memory. This chipset is based on ten cores running on frequency of 2.6GHz. As for the ZUK Z2, this handset is packed with a Snapdragon 820 CPU, a 4GB of RAM, but a 64GB of internal memory. As you see, the storage is the feature affected the Umi Z’s pricing.

Read: MediaTek Helio X27 vs Snapdragon 820

By the way, this is the answer to all those readers who wondered why we have compared these two chipsets.

We say the memory storage is smaller than expected, but it’s a fast eMMC 5.1 chip provided by Samsung. Thus it great for fast data transfers. On the other hand, if you worry about the space, there is a microSD card support up to 256GB. Anything is possible, folks!

At last, the MediaTek Helio X27 comes with a Malli- T880 GPU optimized to consume less power and give more speed to the Umi Z.

The Umi Z was tested via AnTuTu benchmark, and it scored about 110.000 that is an impressive result if taking into account we are dealing with a mid-range budget smartphone.

This device comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow, but it will be updated to Android 7 Nougat in the nearest future via an OTA update.

Umi Z Battery and Connectivity

The Umi Z comes with a 3780mAh battery promised to provide a day of a lifetime. But what’s amazing this piece of the puzzle is supplied by Sony that means all the key features of this handset come from respectable manufacturers. So it remains a mystery to me how Umi keeps its pricing so low.

It would be naïve to think such a powerful device doesn’t support 4G. The Umi Z comes with dual SIM options and both of them support 4G LTE network, though one slot is for microSIM and the next one is for nanoSIM.

The Umi Z is the last product of Umi. And I think the company has done its best to say goodbye with a charm. I mean now everyone will remember Umi as a great brand providing top-notch devices at the lowest prices.

This phone comes with a list of desired features including a Full HD screen, quite powerful camera modules, deca-core processor, long lasting battery life, touch ID, smart audio, USB Type-C, 4G support and many more. However, all these amazing features don’t affect the pricing. The Umi Z is available for only $229.99 if using the coupon (code: GBUMIZ). To explore what rivals it cracks down get acquainted with the 6 best UMi Z alternatives for 2017.

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