UMi shows a glimpse of how the UMi Touch’s camera fares against the iPhone 6s


To say that Chinese OEMs are an enthusiastic bunch would be an understatement. Despite obvious differences, these brands like to take on the behemoth.

Today, a set of pictures and info comes from UMi, who are busy preparing their launch for the UMi Touch. The company wants us, and you, to take a look at how their upcoming phone — the UMi Touch — fares against the most powerful iPhone yet, the iPhone 6s.

A quick comparison between the iPhone 6s and UMi Touch cameras, from the release:

UMi TOUCH iPhone 6s
Sensor Sony IMX 328 iSight
Pixel 13 mega-pixel 12 mega-pixel
Aperture F2.0 F2.2

Clearly, UMi are proud that the Touch has a higher-res sensor and a wider aperture lens.

Gizchina News of the week


The Touch is scheduled to ship 20th March, and comes with a 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080p display, octa-core MediaTek MT6753 processor, 3GB RAM, 16GB ROM, 13 mega-pixel rear camera, 5 mega-pixel front facing camera and a 4000mAh battery.

Camera Shootout: UMi Touch vs iPhone 6s

These are downsized samples, you can access the full images here.

What do you think?

Disclaimer: We may be compensated by some of the companies whose products we talk about, but our articles and reviews are always our honest opinions. For more details, you can check out our editorial guidelines and learn about how we use affiliate links.

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96 Comments

  1. balcobomber25
    March 11, 2016

    The design looks more Meizu than Apple.

    • Nam Dang
      March 11, 2016

      Not even to mention iPhone 6S has an overall improved camera with 12 instead of 4 MP.

    • Ooove
      March 14, 2016

      Yes. The design looks like Meizu. But i do not care, it’s enough beatiful for me, i like the design. I like it’s 4000 mAh and front fingerprint with $150 too.haha

    • Steve B
      March 14, 2016

      Agree and check the file sizes of the iPhone samples (excluding crops obviously), they are nearly all under 1mb. Don’t think that is typical from iPhone, suggests they have been down-sampled and resaved.

  2. Riccardo Benzoni
    March 11, 2016

    I can’t judge iphone ones because I’d only trust a test done by myself with both phones in hand, but those made with the Umi really look nice, I’d also say very nice if you think about the price tag. We’ll see what will happen when the first units are dispatched.

  3. bassa
    March 11, 2016

    LAMO failed. just renaming files doesnt change camera quality.

  4. Semi
    March 11, 2016

    That’s nice! Good camera

  5. Milo
    March 11, 2016

    Impressive, cannot wait to receive mine!

  6. Wikez
    March 11, 2016

    Finally we se the misterious Sony IMX 328 and it’s not bad at all!

  7. MitsosDaBest
    March 11, 2016

    Lol, ok! Now UMi wants us to believe that this $150 phone has better camera than the $700 iPhone… Smells like scam to me.

    • Roberto Tomás
      March 11, 2016

      it looks good though, both in the sharp details and in the artificial color post-processing (that all phones do). I think they went a little overboard on saturation gain, but it definitely looks nice.

      • Yudo
        March 14, 2016

        I think it looks good though for a smartphone with 149.99$

    • Mohawk_975
      March 11, 2016

      iPhone is the reference for everyone, chinese seems a bit more obsessed with it tho.
      As for the price thing, it means not that much. Lens quality and software optimization make the magic or destroy it. I mean, gionee elife e7 costs 130$ and can pretty much compete with top products as regarding camera performance.

      • balcobomber25
        March 11, 2016

        Price doesn’t mean that much but it is a factor. You can only do so much with a $150 phone. The Elife E7 is a bad example to use, it costs $130 now but when it launched it was close to $500. Gionee spent a lot on the camera tech that is found in that phone.

  8. balcobomber25
    March 11, 2016

    The design looks more Meizu than Apple. For the camera it doesn’t look bad but I am always wary of company provided photos. I have access to the iPhone 6 (sisters and mother have it) and know it can take some stunning photos, the ones above look a little suspect.

    • Nam Dang
      March 11, 2016

      Not even to mention iPhone 6S has an overall improved camera with 12 instead of 4 MP.

    • Guest
      March 14, 2016

      Yes. The design looks like Meizu. But i do not care, it’s enough beatiful for me, i like the design. I like it’s 4000 mAh and front fingerprint with $150 too.haha

    • Steve B
      March 14, 2016

      Agree and check the file sizes of the iPhone samples (excluding crops obviously), they are nearly all under 1mb. Don’t think that is typical from iPhone, suggests they have been down-sampled and resaved.

  9. Riccardo Benzoni
    March 11, 2016

    I can’t judge iphone ones because I’d only trust a test done by myself with both phones in hand, but those made with the Umi really look nice, I’d also say very nice if you think about the price tag. We’ll see what will happen when the first units are dispatched.

  10. Young
    March 11, 2016

    UMI have professional photoshop guys.

    Believe them at your own peril. Software aspect of umi is terrible.

    Just praying your phone don’t just turn off and refuse to boot.

    • Sencis
      March 11, 2016

      there is nothing photoshopped here, as a photographer I can tell you those are totally raw images, both of them.
      I’ve tried many chinese brands, Umi has fared better than elephone for sure in both hadware and software, I’d say they are among the best after the giant ones. In the past I only had important problems only with be touch (ulefone) and redmi note 2, should I tell xiaomi is shit, while clearly it was only my unlucky experience?

      • Marius Cirsta
        March 11, 2016

        As an owner of a Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 I can testify that mine is a very good phone and I can hardly call it shit.
        I just installed Cyanogenmod 12.1 from needrom and it’s very nice and snappy while the battery easily lasts for 2 days of average use.
        Speaking of battery life I’ve found that background apps that connect to the internet use a lot of power. After I removed FBmessenger, Skype and whatsapp the battery usage dropped dramatically so it would have been wrong to blame that on Xiaomi.

        • Sencis
          March 11, 2016

          I’m not saying redmi note 2 is a shitty product, just read my reply to the user balcobomber25 to see what I meant in my previous post.

          • Marius Cirsta
            March 11, 2016

            I know what you meant. I was just confirming it’s really not but every company makes duds 😀
            It’s just matter of what percent of them are bad … and you can’t really judge that by seeing 2-3 people complaining their phone is bad.
            It happens, Xiaomi sold millions of Redmi Note 2 phones, some of them were shiity phones and even if those are 0.1% that still leaves thousands of people that can complain about their phone.

      • balcobomber25
        March 11, 2016

        The Redmi Note 2 has a good camera, I wouldn’t call it great but I certainly wouldn’t call it shit. As for UMi their camera’s are hit or miss, some are good, some are bad, most are in the middle. I wouldn’t say they are among the best at anything.

        • Sencis
          March 11, 2016

          I believe you didn’t get what I meant. I am not discussing xiaomi or redmi note 2 itself, it’s one of my favourite brands ever and I’m waiting for a redmi 3. But the only two phones which died beyond reparability without any faults of mine where those two, so if a xiaomi fails, every other phone can. The important thing is not to say “x model or x brand is shit” if something like this happens, because I know those issues can happen in such advanced products in mass production and this doesn’t mean xiaomi isn’t worthy, sometimes it’s only bad luck to pick the faulty unit.

          • balcobomber25
            March 11, 2016

            It was the way you phrased it. But now I get what you were trying to say.

      • Angry Mobile Nerd
        March 11, 2016

        Yes! Aside from being resized, the GIZCHINA watermark added (and ultimately re-saved and compressed again) and totally stripped of all EXIF data these images are totally raw. Riiiiiiiight. *rolls eyes*.

        At least you didn’t say “RAW” so I’m guessing you know the difference.

      • Young
        March 12, 2016

        I am telling you that Elephone and UMI produce shit.

        We sell phones and I know the complaints from customers on this two brands.

        There’s no batch of umi that won’t have problem, same goes to Elephone.

        UMI have a terrible after sales service.

        A phone will just trip off and when boot again, too many complains and UMI won’t listen to you.

        Same way they over hyped UMI Rome, almost all customers that bought the phone are complaining and UMI is doing nothing about it.

        See http://community.umidigi.com/forum.php?mod=forumdisplay&fid=38&filter=typeid&typeid=137

    • Mengkih
      March 11, 2016

      Very much agree with you that, Umi is a photoshop company, they only give the picture, not even any video. Even if they have more than a month of pre-sale time, but no operation of the video phone, which is awesome.You can search umi Roma inferior kind and beautiful pictures.

    • Mengkih
      March 11, 2016

      Very much agree with you that, Umi is a photoshop company, they only
      give the picture, not even any video. Even if they have more than a
      month of pre-sale time, but no operation of the video phone, which is
      awesome.You can search umi Roma inferior kind and beautiful pictures.

  11. Semi
    March 11, 2016

    That’s nice! Good camera

  12. Sencis
    March 11, 2016

    As a photographer I don’t rely on smartphones to take shoots, but this camera looks pretty decent and I wouldn’t mind testing it for casual snaps during the day, seems a pretty balanced camera without those artifacts that plague most of chinese phones.

    • Mohawk_975
      March 11, 2016

      yeah, I was hoping for p9000 to have a good camera, but it failed to deliver. Let’s see how this thing will perform when first hand-ons will be available.

      • Nam Dang
        March 11, 2016

        Did you see the significantly improved camera performance of Elephone P9000 after newest OTA?

    • ukii
      March 14, 2016

      Hope to read and watch Touch’s reviews!

  13. Milo
    March 11, 2016

    Impressive, cannot wait to receive mine!

  14. Wikez
    March 11, 2016

    Finally we se the mysterious Sony IMX 328 in action and it’s not bad at all!

  15. Inti Energia
    March 11, 2016

    Look, I am hopeful that the UMI Touch will be a great phone for its price as I have ordered one. But these photos are worthless in making any sort of judgement about the relative merits of its camera. There is no attempt at objectivity as the “test” is conducted by and the photos released by the company who makes one of the phones and who is, to boot, in the middle of a campaign to promote the upcoming delivery of its phone. If anyone believes this, I would like to sell you the Statue of Liberty.

    • biio
      March 14, 2016

      I have ordered one too. I am glad these photos, hope when i use Touch, i can take some photos with good effect

  16. MitsosDaBest
    March 11, 2016

    Lol, ok! Now UMi wants us to believe that this $150 phone has better camera than the $700 iPhone… Smells like scam to me. Chinese companies should stop comparing everything with the iPhone, because it’s only for laughs… =P

    • Roberto Tomás
      March 11, 2016

      it looks good though, both in the sharp details and in the artificial color post-processing (that all phones do). I think they went a little overboard on saturation gain, but it definitely looks nice.

    • Guest
      March 11, 2016

      This comment was deleted.

    • balcobomber25
      March 11, 2016

      Price doesn’t mean that much but it is a factor. You can only do so much with a $150 phone. The Elife E7 is a bad example to use, it costs $130 now but when it launched it was close to $500. Gionee spent a lot on the camera tech that is found in that phone.

    • Guest
      March 12, 2016

      Hi balco, what was the blu equivalent of the Elife E7 ?

    • balcobomber25
      March 12, 2016
    • Guest
      March 13, 2016

      Tnx man

    • Guest
      March 14, 2016

      I think it looks good though for a smartphone with 149.99$

  17. Young
    March 11, 2016

    UMI have professional photoshop guys.

    Believe them at your own peril. Software aspect of umi is terrible.

    Just praying your phone don’t just turn off and refuse to boot.

    • Sencis
      March 11, 2016

      there is nothing photoshopped here, as a photographer I can tell you those are totally raw images, both of them.
      I’ve tried many chinese brands, Umi has fared better than elephone for sure in both hadware and software, I’d say they are among the best after the giant ones in the quality/price ratio. In the past I had important hardware problems only with be touch (ulefone) and redmi note 2, should I tell xiaomi is shit, while clearly it was only my unlucky experience? Of course not!

    • Marius Cirsta
      March 11, 2016

      As an owner of a Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 I can testify that mine is a very good phone and I can hardly call it shit.
      I just installed Cyanogenmod 12.1 from needrom and it’s very nice and snappy while the battery easily lasts for 2 days of average use.
      Speaking of battery life I’ve found that background apps that connect to the internet use a lot of power. After I removed FBmessenger, Skype and whatsapp the battery usage dropped dramatically so it would have been wrong to blame that on Xiaomi.

    • balcobomber25
      March 11, 2016

      The Redmi Note 2 has a good camera, I wouldn’t call it great but I certainly wouldn’t call it shit. As for UMi their camera’s are hit or miss, some are good, some are bad, most are in the middle. I wouldn’t say they are among the best at anything.

    • Sencis
      March 11, 2016

      I believe you didn’t get what I meant, I think I didn’t write well my post. I am not discussing xiaomi or redmi note 2 itself, it’s one of my favourite brands ever and I’m waiting for a redmi note 3 pro. But the only two phones which died beyond reparability without any faults of mine where those two, so if a xiaomi fails, every other phone can. The important thing is not to say “x model or x brand is shit” if something like this happens, because I know those issues can happen in such advanced products in mass production and this doesn’t mean xiaomi isn’t worthy, sometimes it’s only bad luck to pick the faulty unit.

    • Sencis
      March 11, 2016

      I’m not saying redmi note 2 is a shitty product, just read my reply to the user balcobomber25 to see what I meant in my previous post.

    • Marius Cirsta
      March 11, 2016

      I know what you meant. I was just confirming it’s really not but every company makes duds 😀
      It’s just matter of what percent of them are bad … and you can’t really judge that by seeing 2-3 people complaining their phone is bad.
      It happens, Xiaomi sold millions of Redmi Note 2 phones, some of them were shiity phones and even if those are 0.1% that still leaves thousands of people that can complain about their phone.

    • balcobomber25
      March 12, 2016

      It was the way you phrased it. But now I get what you were trying to say.

    • Angry Mobile Nerd
      March 12, 2016

      Yes! Aside from being resized, the GIZCHINA watermark added (and ultimately re-saved and compressed again) and totally stripped of all EXIF data these images are totally raw. Riiiiiiiight. *rolls eyes*.

      At least you didn’t say “RAW” so I’m guessing you know the difference.

      EDIT: After downloading the “original” images to also double confirm both the UMI and iPhone shots have no EXIF data and they have questionable inconsistent modified dates. GIZCHINA also mixed up the first photos of the flowers; according to the file names, the more vibrant photo on the left is actually taken on the iPhone, not the UMI (which is actually the washed out one on the right).

    • Mengkih
      March 12, 2016

      Very much agree with you that, Umi is a photoshop company, they only
      give the picture, not even any video. Even if they have more than a
      month of pre-sale time, but no operation of the video phone, which is
      awesome.You can search umi Roma inferior kind and beautiful pictures.

    • Young
      March 12, 2016

      I am telling you that Elephone and UMI produce shit.

      We sell phones and I know the complaints from customers on this two brands.

      There’s no batch of umi that won’t have problem, same goes to Elephone.

      UMI have a terrible after sales service.

      A phone will just trip off and when boot again, too many complains and UMI won’t listen to you.

      Same way they over hyped UMI Rome, almost all customers that bought the phone are complaining and UMI is doing nothing about it.

      See http://community.umidigi.com/forum.php?mod=forumdisplay&fid=38&filter=typeid&typeid=137

  18. Sencis
    March 11, 2016

    As a photographer I don’t rely on smartphones to take shoots, but this camera looks pretty decent and I wouldn’t mind testing it for casual snaps during the day, seems a pretty balanced camera without those artifacts that plague most of chinese phones in this price range.

    • Mohawk_975
      March 11, 2016

      yeah, I was hoping for p9000 to have a good camera, but it failed to deliver. Let’s see how this thing will perform when first hand-ons will be available.

    • Nam Dang
      March 11, 2016

      Did you see the significantly improved camera performance of Elephone P9000 after newest OTA?

    • Guest
      March 14, 2016

      Hope to read and watch Touch’s reviews!

  19. Inti Energia
    March 11, 2016

    Look, I am hopeful that the UMI Touch will be a great phone for its price as I have ordered one. But these photos are worthless in making any sort of judgement about the relative merits of its camera. There is no attempt at objectivity as the “test” is conducted by and the photos released by the company who makes one of the phones and who is, to boot, in the middle of a campaign to promote the upcoming delivery of its phone. If anyone believes this, I would like to sell you the Statue of Liberty.

    • Guest
      March 14, 2016

      I have ordered one too. I am glad these photos, hope when i use Touch, i can take some photos with good effect

  20. Angry Mobile Nerd
    March 11, 2016

    Nice to see the Chinese still believe in their “as long as our customers are stupid” marketing tactics.

  21. Tarantino
    March 11, 2016

    I still do not believe Umi camera better than iPhone6S, if anyone bought Umi, camera effective as iPhone6s, you are not can choose to return?You can even Sony’s websites are not search imx328 this sensor,http://www.sony.net/Products/SC-HP/IS/sensor1/products/index.html

    • Nilzie
      March 13, 2016

      Its a comparison. Not a factual statement

    • alfa
      March 14, 2016

      whatever, i saw these photos are good, i am interested in buying one to review the camera, the most point that i want to buy is it’s 4000mAh battery.

  22. Angry Mobile Nerd
    March 12, 2016

    Nice to see the Chinese still believe in their “as long as our customers are stupid” marketing tactics.

  23. Adam Irvine
    March 12, 2016

    Well it looks to me like UMi have done so much hyping this time and have gathered such an audience that this could be their new ‘make or break’ phone…

    I mean, if they really do turn out to have lied full on then there will be A LOT of people that remember that sh1t and wouldn’t touch them ever again.

    • Assefa Hanson
      March 12, 2016

      “touch” them again, i see what you did there

  24. Tarantino
    March 12, 2016

    I still do not believe Umi camera better than iPhone6S, if anyone bought Umi, camera effective as iPhone6s, you are not can choose to return?You can even Sony’s websites are not search imx328 this sensor,http://www.sony.net/Products/SC-HP/IS/sensor1/products/index.html

    • Nilzie
      March 13, 2016

      Its a comparison. Not a factual statement

    • Guest
      March 14, 2016

      whatever, i saw these photos are good, i am interested in buying one to review the camera, the most point that i want to buy is it’s 4000mAh battery.

  25. Adam Irvine
    March 12, 2016

    Well it looks to me like UMi have done so much hyping this time and have gathered such an audience that this could be their new ‘make or break’ phone…

    I mean, if they really do turn out to have lied full on then there will be A LOT of people that remember that sh1t and wouldn’t ‘touch’ them ever again.

    • Assefa Hanson
      March 12, 2016

      “touch” them again, i see what you did there

  26. eliHd
    March 12, 2016

    Iphone uses 1inch camera sensor and no other android phones have such sensor at the moment therefore this is a lie! As i said before and o said ot again, oppo is the only chinese oem that have camera quality par with top oems i.e. samsung and apple.

    • Assefa Hanson
      March 12, 2016

      wow not even VIVO??

    • Vlad Jurj
      March 12, 2016

      What drugs are you on ? The iPhone 6s is using a 1/3 inch sensor, NOT a 1 inch one, stop spreading misinformation. And YES, there is a 1″ sensor on an Android phone, it’s called the Panasonic Lumix CM1.

  27. eliHd
    March 12, 2016

    Iphone uses 1inch camera sensor and no other android phones have such sensor at the moment therefore this is a lie! As i said before and i say it again, oppo is the only chinese oem that have camera quality par with top oems i.e. samsung and apple.

    • Assefa Hanson
      March 12, 2016

      wow not even VIVO??

    • Vlad Jurj
      March 12, 2016

      What drugs are you on ? The iPhone 6s is using a 1/3 inch sensor, NOT a 1 inch one, stop spreading misinformation. And YES, there is a 1″ sensor on an Android phone, it’s called the Panasonic Lumix CM1.

  28. Steve B
    March 14, 2016

    File size of iPhone samples looks far too small.

  29. Steve B
    March 14, 2016

    File size of iPhone samples looks far too small.

  30. vale981
    April 13, 2016

    Images are wrong tagged!
    Left: Iphone | Right: UMI Touch

  31. vale981
    April 13, 2016

    Images are wrong tagged!
    Left: Iphone | Right: UMI Touch

  32. Kurt Gerster
    May 14, 2016

    Why do the UMI samples have over 20MP?

  33. Kurt Gerster
    May 14, 2016

    Why do the UMI samples have over 20MP? I guess these samples are fakes. Here are other samples of the Touch. And the quality of these samples is just average.

  34. Kurt Gerster
    May 14, 2016
  35. Kurt Gerster
    May 14, 2016

    Lots of software smoothing.

  36. Rupert Moran
    July 6, 2016

    The MI Touch is a piece of junk. Dont buy it. I say this after my own purchase and 2month trial and observing similar experoences of others wasting their money on a Touch.
    The first thing that makes the device unusable is the ‘Touch’screen ( ironic eh !) The lower section of the screen does`nt register letters typed from a keyborad. Extremely frustrating and off putting.
    Next, all Touch`s I`ve seen have the return button placed askew in its housing. It not only looks cheap, its diconcerting…and amazing that the factory QA would let it pass. Apparently, the Touch`s successor the Super, has the power button placed askew.
    The bezel is not consistent and has a wider margin left compared to right.
    The Touch, like UMI Super, does`nt have NFC.
    No use reporting the failures to UMI. Their agent JoJo simply fails to comprehend the complaint and refers you to the reseller. Very poor service where evidently, the failure is with design, manufacture and quality assurance.
    Dont buy a UMI Touch.

  37. Rupert Moran
    July 6, 2016

    The MI Touch is a piece of junk. Dont buy it. I say this after my own purchase and 2month trial and observing similar experoences of others wasting their money on a Touch.
    The first thing that makes the device unusable is the ‘Touch’screen ( ironic eh !) The lower section of the screen does`nt register letters typed from a keyborad. Extremely frustrating and off putting.
    Next, all Touch`s I`ve seen have the return button placed askew in its housing. It not only looks cheap, its diconcerting…and amazing that the factory QA would let it pass. Apparently, the Touch`s successor the Super, has the power button placed askew.
    The bezel is not consistent and has a wider margin left compared to right.
    The Touch, like UMI Super, does`nt have NFC.
    No use reporting the failures to UMI. Their agent JoJo simply fails to comprehend the complaint and refers you to the reseller. Very poor service where evidently, the failure is with design, manufacture and quality assurance.
    Dont buy a UMI Touch.