UMI Plus E, a smartphone based on the Helio P20

As far as I know, this is the first phone to use the new Helio P20 SoC, and that is arguably one of its main distinguishing features. It’s what caught my interest in the first place.

Before getting into the review, here are the specifications:

Operating system: Google Android 6.0
Processor: 8-core MediaTek Helio P20 MT6757, 2.3 GHz
RAM: 6 GB
Flash storage: 64 GB + microSD up to 256 GB
Wireless interfaces: Wi-Fi (b/g/n) DualBand, Bluetooth 4.0
Wired interfaces: USB 3.0 Type-C OTG
Network: GSM/GPRS/EDGE, LTE, two Micro SIM cards (2100(B1)/1800(B3)/2600(B7)/800(B20) MHz)
Camera: rear 13 Mp Samsung 3L8, front GalaxyCore GC5005 5 Mp
Navigation: GPS, A-GPS
Display: capacitive, Sharp LTPS 5.5'' with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels
Sensors: Accelerometer, Light,Geomagnetic,Gravity, Gyroscope, Proximity
Fingerprint sensor
AW8738 audio chip, 3.5 mm headset jack

Body materials: metal (6000-series aluminum) and glass
Battery: Sony 4000 mAh, fast charging 2.5A/1.67A(5V/7V/9V) 1.25A(12V)
Dimensions: 152x75x8.2 mm
Weight: 190 g

The first thing that surprised me about this phone was its packaging. As usual, I unwrapped the soft “mattress” the phone was packed in and took out a plain black cardboard box with no identifying marks.


The lack of markings and the usual IMEI label surprised me a little, but it turned out to be simple: there was another package inside, this time a plastic box with a lid.


The packaging is a little unusual, but I have to say that it makes it quite difficult for anything to get damaged during shipping (I’m thinking of the flimsy packaging for the Leagoo M5).


The package includes:
1. UMI Plus E smartphone
2. Charger
3. Manual
4. USB-to-USB Type-C cable
5. SIM ejector tool



A little more about the items in the box.
1, 2. The cable is very flexible and about one meter long.
3, 4. The charger supports fast charging. In my tests, a full battery charge took about two hours. It looks rather odd that a completely white charger and cable are included with a smartphone that is entirely black.
5. Since the phone has a side slot for SIM cards and a memory card, an ejector tool is included.
6. The manual comes in a separate black envelope.


The manual is in several languages, but Russian isn’t one of them.


Now let’s take a look at the smartphone itself. There’s a protective shipping film on top. The phone is black, and as far as I know, that’s the only color available—very Henry Ford.


Announcements and reviews often list the weight as 180 or 185 grams, but the phone actually weighs a little more: 190 grams. Still, when I compare it with my Doogee X5, I can’t feel any difference in weight. The X5 is a little lighter, but its sharp edges make it seem bigger and heavier.


I don’t use a lot of modern gadgets myself, but I often get to handle them, and I find manufacturers’ obsession with making everything glossy—literally mirror-like—really irritating. So I was actually pleased to see a matte protective film, thinking the surface underneath would be the same. Especially since the film was fitted quite neatly.


Unfortunately, it’s far too matte, and worse, it’s the only one—that is, it’s just a shipping film, so you can’t leave it on.


Even before running any tests, I noticed an event indicator LED at the top. It’s a tri-color LED; I’ll talk about what it does a little later.


Once the shipping film is removed, the phone is completely black, which doesn’t detract from its appearance. Still, I think the manufacturer should consider offering other color options.


There’s something on every side of the phone.
1. At the bottom is the USB Type-C port. It was nice to find that the phone supports USB 3.0. The main speaker is also located here.
2. The top has only a jack for headphones or a headset.
3. The right side has three standard buttons: power and volume controls. The buttons have noticeable play, and if you shake the phone, they can rattle a little. It’s not annoying, but it looks a bit odd.
4. On the left is a slot for SIM cards and a memory card, as well as another button. This button can be configured for different functions. In my opinion, it should have been a little stiffer, since accidental presses are possible and it takes some time to get used to it.
I should note that this button fits very snugly, unlike the ones on the right.


SIM cards and the memory card are installed through the side slot. This is, of course, a drawback, and unfortunately quite a lot of manufacturers are going the same route.
On the one hand, this slightly increases the strength of the case, but on the other, it limits your options to either SIM + SIM or SIM + memory card. The fact that hot swapping is supported, along with the phone’s large internal storage capacity (64 GB), softens the blow a little.


Above, I mentioned that there’s an extra button on the left side of the phone, but it turns out that’s not all. Below the screen, in addition to the standard three capacitive buttons, there’s also a mechanical one.
The middle button is both capacitive and mechanical, and it also works as a fingerprint sensor. Touching it and pressing it are two different functions.
So this phone has a total of 5 mechanical buttons and 3 capacitive buttons.
By the way, the fingerprint sensor works great; I haven’t encountered any problems with it.

As usual, the earpiece and front-facing camera are at the top. The proximity sensor and notification LED are also located here.


The phone’s display is protected by glass made by the Japanese company Nippon, Dinorex T2X-1 (according to information I found online). The fit is excellent, and that’s actually what stopped me from opening the phone.
The front panel fits so tightly that I couldn’t even get anything between the glass and the case to release the clips. What’s more, hardly any dust gets into the gap. This photo was taken after I’d had the phone for about a month.


According to the specifications, the phone’s case is made of aluminum (6000 series). I won’t make any claims about the series, its “aircraft-grade” status, or anything else, but I will say that the case is quite sturdy and, judging by its heat capacity, fairly thick.


The rear has the camera, a dual-color LED (cool/warm), and an unexplained hole. I suspect there may be a second microphone behind it for the noise-cancellation system, but since I couldn’t open the phone, that’s just a theory :(


The glass has an oleophobic coating (though at this price, who would doubt it?), which I tested. As expected, I poured some water on it and tried to spread it around with my finger. The water immediately formed large droplets.


According to the manufacturer, the smartphone has a 5.5'' Sharp LTPS panel with a resolution of 1920x1080.
The viewing angles and brightness range are more than adequate. There’s both manual brightness control and an automatic mode that adjusts to the ambient light level.


When viewed “at an angle,” backlight bleed is still visible against a black background. It’s less noticeable in person, but the camera insists on “bringing up” the brightness.


The colors are vivid, and the image doesn’t wash out in bright light, although I preferred the screen on the Leagoo T1 Plus in this respect. The photo compares it with the Doogee X5 max, both at 100% brightness.


But when viewed straight on, black looks excellent—in fact, it’s black, not gray.


I’d seen reports online of dead (in this case, “hot”) pixels. My unit wasn’t spared either. They’re not very easy to see in the photo, but there must be around 7–10 across the screen. They’re only visible against a black background and disappear completely when there’s an image on screen.
Still, it’s strange—I haven’t seen anything like this in a very long time.


When you turn it on, you’re greeted by the familiar Android 6.0. Standard icons, no extra menus, and a selection of preinstalled apps.
There aren’t too many preinstalled apps, though: media players, a browser, and so on.


As stated in the specifications, the phone has 6 GB of RAM and 64 GB of flash storage. The memory capacity is a little unusual. I’m used to counting in 1-2-4-8, but six it is. I think it’ll be hard to say the phone doesn’t have enough memory now :)
Pretty much the same goes for flash storage. As I mentioned above, you can’t use two SIM cards and a memory card at the same time. The 64 GB of built-in storage partly solves this problem, though an extra slot wouldn’t have hurt.


The phone started updating almost as soon as I turned it on. At first I thought that was it, but a couple of weeks later it got another update, with a rather strange explanation: UMI rebrands to UMIDIGI. In other words, the manufacturer decided to rebrand and do it with a 322 MB update—a rather original approach. In my opinion, the only change was the startup screen :)


A little about the phone settings.
Along with a fairly large number of display settings and controls for launching apps, I found something unusual: the option to enable on-screen buttons that essentially duplicate the ones below the display. The deeper meaning of this escapes me, so I didn’t enable the mode. It annoyed me back when I used a Leagoo, too.


The additional settings interested me more. For example, you can assign any app to the extra button (the one on the left).
The phone also has advanced battery-saving controls (though these have become standard lately), which are certainly useful on today’s power-hungry devices.


The event indicator settings are here, too. You can use it to show various system events, low battery, missed SMS messages or calls, and you can assign a different color to each.
There is one minor shortcoming, though: if you set one color for SMS messages and another for calls, then when you miss both an SMS and a call, the indicator will blink in the color assigned to whichever event was missed last.
So, if you miss 5 SMS messages and then a call, it will blink (or, more accurately, blink very, very slowly) in the color assigned to the missed call.
When I tested this feature, I thought the LED would cycle through colors, for example green/blue/off, and so on. That would have made more sense to me. Still, I liked the feature.
Although after many years I’ve gotten used to the notification system on my phone: one flash means a missed event, two flashes mean two events, and so on. If there are more than 5-6 missed events, it flashes continuously.


I also found controls for the flash LEDs in the apps; they can be used as a flashlight.
I use a memory card to install various software, so I tried inserting one without turning the phone off, along with a test SIM card. The phone recognized both automatically without any problems, whereas, for example, the Cubot kept insisting that I format the card.
I’d count the ability to hot-swap SIM cards as a plus.
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The smartphone is built around the new MediaTek Helio P20 MT6757 SoC, with eight Cortex-A53 cores manufactured using a 16 nm process and clocked at up to 2.3 GHz.
The graphics are handled by a Mali-T880 running at up to 900 MHz.
Unfortunately, all the apps report that there is no root access. As I’ve already mentioned, this isn’t that important to me personally, but I also don’t like having my actions restricted.


The phone has a fairly extensive set of sensors, matching the Cubot Cheetah 2 smartphone I tested earlier.
The list includes the usual proximity, light and sound sensors, as well as magnetic field and orientation sensors.




For reference, here’s the information from the Aida 64 app.


Aida doesn’t identify the manufacturers of the cameras installed in the smartphone, but it’s known that at least the rear camera is made by Samsung and has a resolution of 13 megapixels.


There’s also information confirming support for the 5 GHz WiFi band, though in my opinion it would be strange for a device costing over 200 dollars not to have it.


Speaking of WiFi, I can now test the 5 GHz band, so that’s where I started.
Even in the worst spot in my apartment (several reinforced concrete load-bearing walls, 12 m away), the smartphone detected my network and connected without any problems.
The connection speed was extremely low, though. Few devices work at all for me under these conditions. There was no connection at all in the 2.4 GHz band.


I usually test devices at five spots around the apartment, but today the test will be a little shorter.
First, the 5 GHz band.
1. About 11 m away, no line of sight, with reinforced concrete walls in the way.
2. About 6 m away, no line of sight, with a couple of interior walls in the way.
3. 1.5 m from the router.


The conditions are the same as in the previous test, but this time on the 2.4 GHz band. You can clearly see that the connection is much worse here; speeds are much higher on the 5 GHz band.
I didn't test the speed with SpeedTest this time, and decided to stick with the iPerf utility, since it gives a more realistic picture of the connection speed.


The smartphone has a GPS receiver and also supports A-GPS. But it all works a little strangely: although it sees relatively few satellites in the open, the phone managed to lock onto a couple quite reliably in very challenging conditions, where phones usually struggle with reinforced concrete and aluminum blinds.
I'd also note that the compass works pretty well; I've had some trouble with it in the past.


Even so, the track came out quite accurate, deviating from the actual route by about 6–8 m only a couple of times.
To avoid adding unnecessary screenshots, I'll just say that the touchscreen supports five simultaneous touches, and I haven't noticed any problems with it.


A little about performance. AnTuTu versions 5.2.0 and 6.1.3 score around 50,500 and 61,000 points, respectively.
In AnTuTu version 6.2.1, the device scored 61,500, although I've seen reports online of scores above 62,000. It didn't quite reach that score in my test, though.


The 3DMark and PCMark scores were 586 and 5,200. I expected a little more performance from this processor, but after trying a couple of actual games, I can say it really is fast enough for most tasks.
What is genuinely impressive, though, is the speed of the internal flash storage and RAM.
The flash storage managed over 200 MB/s read and 150 MB/s write speeds—an excellent result. RAM performance wasn't far behind either (as far as I understand, the memory runs in dual-channel mode here), at 4,500 MB/s. The previous devices I'd tested topped out at 3,500 MB/s.


A few GeekBench tests.
Version 3: 1011/4643. For comparison, the Cubot Cheetah 2 scored 600/2571.
Version 4: 824/3513; the Cubot Cheetah 2 scored 593/2067.
Version 4 Compute: 2209; the Cubot Cheetah 2 scored 1281.
So this device is 1.5–2 times faster than the Cubot Cheetah 2.


I tested Epic Citadel in three modes, and in two of them the app nearly hit its limit—that is, further performance gains no longer improve the score. So, if we go by the Ultra High Quality test, the results are:
UMI Plus E - 45.0
Cubot Cheetah 2 - 26.1
Vernee Thor - 43.4 (at 1280x720 resolution)


Video playback performance isn't particularly good, and the list of supported formats is fairly limited, which affected the battery life test results.
Even so, the device scored 807 in this test, compared with 601 for the Cubot Cheetah 2.


By the way, about battery life. Unfortunately, since I couldn't take the phone apart, I couldn't run one of the important tests: measuring the battery's actual capacity. But I'm not giving up, and I'll still try to take it apart.
It's worth noting that measuring capacity while charging won't work with this phone. It supports fast charging and operation at voltages above 5 V, which means it uses a switching controller inside, not a linear regulator or just a resistor. The current going into it is therefore not the same as the current coming out.

The manufacturer says the phone has a 4000 mAh battery made by Sony. If that's true, that's pretty good—very good, in fact.

I've seen reports online that the battery lasts 12 hours of video playback. I don't know—maybe my video file is unusual (although I use the same Full HD file for all my tests), or maybe it's something else, but I got only 8 hours. The phone lasted a little less when playing Full HD video from YouTube.
The GeekBench 3 test also came out at 6 hours.
In everyday use, though, the phone lasts about two days with typical use (3G internet, reading, calls), or about a day to a day and a half with fairly heavy use.


Above, I mentioned the limited number of supported video formats. The thing is, the results of a video playback battery-life test depend heavily on hardware decoder support. So far, I’ve had only one smartphone that didn’t heat up while playing the test video: the Leagoo T1 Plus. It played the same video for 9 hours on its 2600 mAh battery and stayed cool.
This one managed 8 hours, but a lot of energy went into heating it up. Incidentally, the top half of the phone gets hotter, which is quite predictable.
The point is, if a phone can keep heating up for 8 hours straight, that suggests a large battery capacity rather than a small one. There you have it: my original method for estimating battery capacity :)
The photo shows the temperature after about 7 hours of use.


The phone has two cameras. The front-facing one is nothing special, but I’ll say a little about the rear camera.
According to the manufacturer, the smartphone has a 13 MP Samsung 3L8 camera.
The main screen is standard for most smartphones, with a choice of shooting mode and image resolution.


There are also advanced settings, accessed by activating pro-photo mode. I wouldn’t say there are a lot of settings, but you can make some improvements to your shots if you want. The menu on the right takes you to the advanced mode; you can select any menu item and get the same result. All the settings can be adjusted smoothly, although this is really more like fine-tuning, and stepped adjustment would have been enough.
This smartphone’s camera can also shoot video at 4K resolution. However, the first time I tried, it gave me a message saying the flash memory speed was too low—even though everything is written to the built-in flash memory, which has a speed of 150 MB/s.
The message didn’t appear again after that. But the camera’s advantage isn’t just its ability to record in 4K: it also has continuous autofocus while shooting, and you can still focus on any point on the screen by tapping it. Unfortunately, though, the 4K video quality leaves a lot to be desired. I think you’re better off using the regular Full HD mode.


And of course, some comparison shots. I noticed that autofocus doesn’t always kick in properly, so it’s better to tap the screen to focus first and only then take the photo.






A few more individual shots.
A little backlighting.


And the eternal student with his laptop :)


The macro shots are pretty good, though. The camera can focus from a very short distance.



The auto white balance doesn’t work quite right—or rather, I’m not entirely sure it’s working correctly, although the outdoor photos turned out pretty well.
For comparison, here are two photos taken in natural light at the same time and under the same conditions. Auto white balance is on the left; manual selection of the sunny-day setting is on the right.


Thanks to a link to a teardown video shared by one of the readers, I was able to take the smartphone apart. When I tried before, I missed two things:
1. You need to remove the plastic covers on the back of the case first. They were supposed to be held in place by clips alone, but in my case they were glued on as well.
2. There are six screws under the covers.
3. You need to remove not just the display section, but also the plastic bezel around the display, unlike on other smartphones I’ve taken apart.


Inside, you’ll also need to unscrew and unclip two plastic frames.


There are antennas at the top and bottom of the case: two at the top and one at the bottom.


Overall view.


"Motherboard" of the smartphone.


The phone is built around a fairly substantial aluminum chassis. I’m a little surprised the manufacturer managed to fit a 4000 mAh battery, the chassis, and all the other components, including a 5.5-inch display, into a weight of 190 grams.


1, 2. Viewed from the back, the GPS+WiFi antenna is on the left and the GSM antenna is on the right. You can also see a second microphone on the right, to the left of the antenna contacts.
3. It is not entirely clear what the antenna at the bottom is for. I would guess it is also for WiFi, but at 5 GHz.
4. The battery connection and current-sense resistor. I didn't get as far as the charger itself.


As stated in the specs, the phone has a 4000 mAh battery. The smartphone is still being tested, though, so I'll post the exact capacity later.


I tested the capacity in the usual way, as I do in all my reviews.
First, I discharged the smartphone until it shut down automatically, then connected it to the tester and applied a set current. I used that same current for the discharge test.


In this case, I chose a discharge current of 2 A. The battery voltage under load was 3.12 V.


Next comes a charge cycle at 2 A, with discharge stopping when the charging current drops to 1/10 of the set value.
"Charged in" 3777 mAh.
Next should have been a discharge cycle at 2 A, stopping at two checkpoints: 3.12 V (the phone's own shutdown voltage) and 2.80 V (the battery's minimum voltage).
But the software misbehaved—or, more simply, froze at around 2660 mAh.


Since the battery tester runs almost autonomously, I simply kept an eye on its own display after that. The results were:
Capacity used by the smartphone: 3700 mAh
Charge remaining in the battery after discharging to 2.80 V: 92 mAh
Total battery capacity: 3700+92=3792 mAh.
The stated battery capacity was 4000 mAh; the actual capacity is about 5–6% lower.



That's about it. Time to sum things up.
Pros
Very neat appearance.
Good build quality and a well-fitted case.
6 GB of RAM and 64 GB of fast flash storage.
USB 3.0 connection to a computer.
"Fast" charger.
SIM card and memory card can be swapped "hot".
Good image quality.
High-capacity battery.
Stable GPS performance.
Three-color notification indicator.
Additional multifunction button.

Cons
Shared SIM and memory card slot.
Some dead pixels on the screen.
The camera was expected to be a little better.
4K video recording doesn't work very well.

My opinion. After almost a month of occasional use, I can say that I like this phone more than I don't. I understand that looks aren't everything, but this phone really is attractive—I would even say it looks classy.
The 6 GB of RAM and 64 GB of fairly fast flash storage are also a welcome bonus. Performance could be better, but it's more than adequate in everyday use.
GPS behaves a little strangely, but does its job quite reliably; I had no issues with it. When connected to a computer, the phone offers high transfer speeds, mainly thanks to USB 3.0. WiFi is stable, but only delivers good speeds on the 5 GHz band. The notification indicator is a little awkward to use, since it only shows the latest notification, but overall it makes life easier.

Of the things I personally didn't like, I'd mention the shared SIM and memory card slot. Unfortunately, this seems to be becoming very popular these days. Still, you can partly excuse the manufacturer: they were trying to make a rugged phone.
Based on the advertising claims, I expected a very good camera, but I wouldn't call it that. The image quality is decent, but it doesn't even match the Vernee Thor, mainly because of the slow autofocus. On the plus side, I was pleased to find that autofocus works while recording video.
The dead pixels were a real surprise. I didn't expect them in a phone in this price range, especially since, as it turned out, this is a very common defect. They didn't bother me personally, though, since they're only visible against a completely black background. I stopped noticing them after just a few days.


I'll wrap up here. As always, I look forward to your comments.

The store provided coupon GBUME for this smartphone, bringing the price down to $214.99.