You probably haven't heard of the company Umi. They're a relatively unknown Chinese manufacturer with a mission to brand affordable devices with compelling feature sets. And they're not lone in pursuing that formula: there are tons of companies throughout Asia trying their hardest to grab a share of the entry-level market.

OnePlus, some other Chinese startup founded by former Oppo employees, succeeded in competing with other electronics giants by selling well rounded and affordable Android phones, however they tend to be the exception rather than the dominion. Historically I've taken issue with smaller OEMs and the devices they produce equally they rarely live upwards to their advertised claims, making quality a big hit or a huge miss seemingly at random.

However, I am willing to requite any company a chance to impress, which is why I accept the Umi Bear upon in the office to review. Priced at $160, the Impact carries a respectable list of specs including a 5.v-inch 1080p display, 13-megapixel Sony IMX328 photographic camera, a huge 4,000 mAh battery, a metal pattern, and fifty-fifty a fingerprint sensor. Information technology's running the latest version of Android as well, without much bloatware or customization.

So can the Umi Touch interruption away from the norm and actually nowadays a good package from a lesser known Chinese manufacturer? I've spent more than a month with the Affect to observe out.

The design of the Umi Touch on is nothing too fancy. The phone is a pretty typical rounded-rectangle with glass on the front, and metal on the back that curves around each long edge. This metal is flanked past plastic along the acme and bottom of the rear, finished to look similar to the metallic plate.

This method of disguising plastic doesn't ofttimes work from a visual standpoint – the divergence in materials is obvious – and is something not seen on premium handsets. Of form at this cost point, the Umi Touch on isn't a premium device, and so I can forgive the company for opting to design it in this way.

I certainly prefer the metal dorsum to the plastic build budget devices like the Moto K employ, and in full general this 5.5-inch device is comfy to hold cheers to decent curvature along each edge. Withal, there's no mistaking this metal design for the best on the market; the HTC 10 and Nexus 6P, for instance, are still several steps ahead in terms of visual entreatment.

At that place are a couple of design issues with the Umi Touch that expose information technology as a inexpensive handset. The seams between the metal and plastic on the rear are very noticeable and not particularly even, which is something a loftier-end telephone manufacturer wouldn't tolerate. The forepart panel likewise lacks symmetry in pattern: the front camera is at a different height to the forepart flash, and the domicile push beneath the brandish is very slightly beveled in the unit I received to review.

Most damning is the departure between the press renders of the Umi Affect'due south front panel and the real model. The renders appear to testify a large display with very little bezel at the edges, but in reality the bezels are considerably larger and quite noticeable. I don't similar this sort of deception at all, every bit the renders portray a design that's significantly more than attractive than the actual device. Buyers expecting a sleek, bezel free design could exist seriously disappointed when their Touch arrives in the mail.

The Umi Touch (left) is almost as large equally the Google Nexus 6P (right)

The bezel size makes this 5.v-inch phone larger than average: it's bigger than the Galaxy S7 Edge by a decent margin, and almost the same size every bit my 5.7-inch Nexus 6P. At 8.5mm and nearly 200 grams, it's a thicker and heavier device too. The weight in detail is very noticeable, as it helps to brand the Touch experience dense for a phone of this class, probably due to the iv,000 mAh bombardment inside.

The glass panel on the front is both good and bad. I like the way the drinking glass curves abroad to the polished metal rim, creating a "ii.5D" blunt feel while swiping beyond it. Notwithstanding, the coating Umi has used isn't the aforementioned quality as most other smartphones, which makes information technology a bigger fingerprint magnet and reduces the swooshability. Swiping across the display has more resistance than the 2022 Moto G, for example.

Beneath the display is a fingerprint sensor; something seldom seen at this price point. The sensor is touch-activated, like most fingerprint sensors constitute in smartphones, and it works far improve than I was expecting. It'due south similar in speed to a Nexus 6P and merely slightly less accurate, plus it doubles equally a capacitive touch dwelling house push button. Kudos to Umi for getting this key feature of their smartphone working well.

Umi has designed the other capacitive navigation buttons, constitute to the left and correct of the fingerprint sensor, in a similar fashion to OnePlus. There are no logos on the buttons, which can be a little confusing before yous realize the right button is back, and the left push button is menu. I'd have far preferred to see the dorsum push button on the left, and an app switcher button on the right, equally opposed to the legacy and more often than not unnecessary menu push button. A software option to change this, similar to OnePlus, would be much appreciated.

The ability button and volume rocker are found on the right side in a comfy position, and both showroom a decent clicky response. On the lesser is a standard micro-USB port, while the 3.5mm audio jack is on the superlative. The left border features a unmarried tray with 2 slots: one for a micro-SIM, and another for either a second micro-SIM or a microSD card depending on your needs.

There is a single speaker on the Umi Touch, located at the lesser of the rear console. At that place's no front facing audio hither, then you might need to cup your hands around the speaker to get a decent audio experience. Quality is very average as you'd imagine, and it'south not particularly loud either.