We have just received UMi’s first non Mediatek device, watch our UMi eMax unboxing video here.
The UMi eMax mini is more than just the smaller brother of the 5.5-inch eMax, but also the first Snapdragon Qualcomm smartphone from the phone maker so far. UMi say that they have TCL building the eMax mini and that a Snapdragon 615 chipset beats beneath the 5-inch FHD display. This is a great move for the company but might not be the best move for users, you see the octacore SD615 has been a poor choice for both Xiaomi and Vivo, even OnePlus are avoiding it for their 5-incher coming tomorrow.
Still the use of a Qualcomm processor does open up the possibility of custom ROMs for the $139.99 UMi, selling point in itself to some customers.
We’ve already mentioned the display is a 5-inch panel, it also has a FHD resolution of 1920 x 1080, quite a high resolution for a 5-inch phone. The icing on the cake is the manufacturer of the panel is Sharp and in my short time with the phone it seems like a vibrant panel.
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The original eMax was marketed as a phone with large battery, it’s mini brother doesn’t have as large a battery but at a claimed 3050mAh it isn’t bad for the specs. That said the battery is non removable so we do hope it gives good performance in everyday use.
You can see the battery in the eMax Mini by removing the rear panel which is where you can also find the dual SIM card places and room for micro SD card. The inside of the phone is all plastic as far as we can see, as is the border of the phone. This makes the eMax mini feel lightweight but a little too light for my tastes (I like a little heft to my phones).
Final details are an Android 5.0.2 OS running a slightly customised ROM, not many changes just the launcher and icons by the looks of it. There are also a 13 mega-pixel rear and 8 mega-pixel front camera, both are fast but quality cannot be judged at this stage.
For now that’s all, if you have any questions about the UMi eMax Mini please feel free to ask below. Thanks to Pandawill for providing our review sample.
hardware and camera performance PLUS display quality !
please emphasize on all this !
I got it this morning, so far:
– Good usability and system response – I’d say on mt6753 level, pretty good.
– Best cameras from an UMI device since a lot of time!
– Incredible display, really vivid as andy says. A pleasure to watch, really. Biggest surprise when I powered it on.
So far, a quite surprising device for such a price tag!
im glad for u 🙂
surprising to hear umi FINALLY getting something right !
While I dont normally like Snapdragon chips since they are slower it definitely is tempting to ditch these locked down bloated Mediatek roms. I may just start buying my phones based on which ones support Cyanogenmod.
SD615 performance is only equivalent to MT6735, because it’s just an over Qualcomm’s product, destined to be discarded, and the poor of Android5.0 system, this price why not choose higher profile ulefone Paris, after all, it uses the MT6753 chips.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycFGAeNFYmU
ulefone paris resolution is only HD whilst uni emax mini is FHD 1920 !
I think emax mini is a better product
5-inch screen, you can hardly tell the difference between FHD and HD. Furthermore, HD screen will be more smooth system operation.
What’s more the weak GPU of Qualcomm SD615 is not able to drive 1080P at all. So the eMax mini will expectablly be very slow. And mobile phones makers such as UMI has no experience in optimization with Qualcomm chipset. I, too, appreciate Ulefone choosing MTK6753 and HD, a strong chipset for not so burdening display. The phone is very smooth, my real-world using tells me.
Higher specs do not always mean better experience, but it absolutely means higher consumption. For example, A full HD display is composed of about 2 million pixels (1920×1080). When you switch to one picture from another, you are not switching a picture, you are changing the color of 2 million pixels, and the graphics processor must complete the rendering in a tick. That means the processor must be very powerful. And a powerful processor is like a powerful engine, it consumes more energy. And if you want more energy, you need a big battery. If you can give all of these, you got the potential to make a good phone and you are yet to optimize the software. And FHD is no doubt top-heavy given the bad quality of Qualcomm 61’s GPU.
Damn right, a good phone is not a pile of high specs. You have to make it balance. A wise and responsible company will choose the right specs on the basis of their technical power. As far as i know, phones with Qualcomm 615 are best to warm your hand in winter. 😀
If you’d see how awesome the screen in mini is, you really wouldn’t complain! best screen on a 5 incher ever seen for such a price, really in love with it!
Welcome a new hot phone
watch out, you provoked angry ulephone employees!
All the big brand can make a great phone with Snapdragon 615 chips, i don’t think they can do it. So, buy MTK phones, if you don’t want buy a hot phone.
ok, it’s clear Suskind, giveme5, andrey, mariebrewis and sergioramos are all the same person (some ulefone guy). Waiting for the reviews of this device instead of hearing Ulefone dudes to post phones of the company they work in.
As this is a rebadged TCl 3s m3g, could I put the emax mini rom onto a TCl 3s? I can get the tcl cheaper than the mini.