Smartphone Umi Rome X: characteristics, photos, reviews

Chinese manufacturers continue to amaze with a large number of phones that are getting cheaper every day. For example, Umi Rome, an excellent mid-level terminal, is sold at an affordable price - $ 90. If this surprises you, you still do not know about the release of the new model Umi Rome X (the photo is given further in the article) - the "younger brother" of the first specified phone, its mini version.

A dream come true?

For Umi, the release of a phone with an eight-core processor, a metal case and three gigabytes of RAM at a price not exceeding $ 100 is not something special. And if these same excellent characteristics, true, at lower power, are offered at an incredible price - $ 60? A dream that can not be true? Umi has done the impossible and produced Rome X - the cheapest metal phone in the world, sold at a price of $ 60, which intends to become the flagship of budget models. Unlike Rome, Rome X can really be bought at this price, so this is definitely not a marketing trick.

Design and assembly

The history of the model is not new, since the identical chassis, only without the prefix X, has already been produced. The all-metal case made of aluminum with 2.5D-edges on the sides looks excellent. It frames a 5.5-inch LTPS-screen with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels with a density of 267 dots per inch. The thickness of the case is the same - 7.9 mm.

Design Rome X looks like something in between the Samsung Galaxy S6, S6 Edge and some new phones of the same manufacturer. At a distance, the smartphone looks like an expensive model. But this is only until it is in your hands.

The phone is available in gold and black. The metal frame is complemented by a glossy rear panel made of polycarbonate. On closer inspection, it becomes apparent that the strips on the frame, designed to amplify the signal, do not allow the cover to fit snugly against the phone. This spoils what should have become an attractive premium design, although users are welcome to remove the back panel and gain access to a removable 2500 mAh battery and a dual SIM and microSD slot.

Another thing that spoils the design of the phone, according to users, is a bizarre, randomly placed under the screen microphone, located to the right of the return button on the home panel. He's not even in the center, which hurts the design, but, more importantly, why on earth is he there at all?

It is worth noting that the Home button is touch-sensitive and does not have a built-in fingerprint scanner. Today even cheap Chinese phones are equipped with such a sensor, and it, as a rule, is located on the rear panel. The fact that the phone does not have it at all, seems strange to many.

Metal housing

Not everything is so bad. The phone looks beautiful at first glance - it's a pretty large filelet with dimensions of 153.8 x 77 mm and weighing 177 grams, with curved glass, rounded corners and bevelled rear edges that allow you to control Umi with just one hand.

In Umi Rome X, the thickness characteristic, which is 7.9 mm, is significant for the phabet and is a significant achievement for the phone for $ 60. The camera protrudes slightly from behind, but at least it is located on the top, in the middle, which reduces the probability of an uneven position of the smartphone on a flat surface.

What's really rare with phones is the presence of a front flash in addition to the dual LED on the rear panel. Doing selfi, video chatting and simply checking the appearance is more convenient with backlight, although the fact that the front camera has only 2 megapixel resolution is depressing.

Another plus: the speaker holes are located at the bottom, and not on the rear panel. Umi also has a 3.5 mm headphone jack, FM radio works when the headset is connected to the phone.

Unfinished finish

In general, a brief description of the phone Umi Rome X is such - it's still a very "raw" device. According to buyers, he clearly lacks brilliance and polish. In addition, the weight of the smartphone is too unevenly distributed, because of what it sometimes seems very heavy.

On the front and back panels easily remain fingerprints. This is very annoying for some users. In addition, removing them from the surface of the hull is a non-trivial task. Although the smartphone for $ 60 and looks very good, unfortunately, according to buyers, it's not worth it anymore.

The front of the phone looks like a Chinese gadget in 2011-2012. A front flash is located at the speaker, and the front camera is above the screen. Under the display are three touch buttons: call the latest applications, go to the home panel and return, located in the order listed.

On the "chin" of the phone, on both sides of the USB port, two sets of holes are drilled. But the speaker is only one.

In general, the smartphone makes the impression of a device made of inexpensive but durable material, which, however, lacks, figuratively speaking, finishes. The weight of the phone is also not balanced both in size and in the distribution of its mass.

Umi Rome X: Hardware Overview

As already mentioned, the phone has one speaker, although two sets of holes for it. However, the main thing is not quantity, but quality, but it leaves much to be desired. In Umi Rome X, the audio output characteristic with too many high frequencies with no bass and low volume fully corresponds to the word "cheap".

According to users, they experienced difficulties with understanding the interlocutor during a telephone conversation, so that the "victim" of terrible quality is not only the loudspeaker at the bottom of the phone, but also the upper speaker.

The usual advantage of Chinese smartphones is the ratio of price and quality. Another plus is the support for two SIM cards. The device provides for simultaneous operation of two phone cards in standby mode, which makes it possible to use different tariffs for work and entertainment. Also supports TF memory card up to 64 GB.

Wi-Fi works at 2.4 and 5 GHz, there is Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, but there are no NFC, OTG and infrared blaster.

The package includes a USB cable and a charger.

Screen

For a 60-dollar phone (Umi Rome X), the display is impressive. If you evaluate it on a scale from natural to saturated colors, then it tends to the latter. The colors are expressive, like, however, all LTPS-displays.

Applied technology MiraVision company MediaTek very much helps Umi Rome X Black. Characteristics of the image due to it are significantly improved, you can reduce the saturation, contrast and other parameters, if more to the taste of natural colors.

Since this is an LTPS display, the viewing angles are slightly limited. But many users are quite happy with them, not claiming more.

The screen is made on the technology of low-temperature ion exchange, which increases the impact resistance of the glass surface. The hydrophobic nanocoating is followed by a blue filter, tempered glass, protective glass and a coating absorbing electrostatics. High durability of the screen surface protects it from scratches and cracking even under extreme conditions. The surface allows the installation of an additional protective coating.

In Umi Rome X the touchscreen seems to have a low resolution, but this should be expected from a cheap smartphone, at least at the time of writing this article.

Duration of work

In Umi Rome X, a battery with a declared capacity of 2500 mAh allows it to be located somewhere between low and medium levels. There is no 4G LTE support, which saves the phone a bit, but the differences in the device's service life when operating in 2G and 3G modes are difficult to distinguish.

If you do not connect the smartphone to Wi-Fi, then on a single battery charge it can work from 8 to 10 hours. With Wi-Fi, everything that a smartphone is capable of is an hour of work, on strength - two. Time SOT - about 3-3,5 hours. But if there is a need for a long operation of the device, you can turn on the energy-saving mode. Supports fast or wireless charging is not available.

Software

Most phone manufacturers support the Rootjoy application, which allows you to connect to a PC and quickly save the contents of the memory or reinstall the operating system. This model is similar to the software, although the presence of a preinstalled SuperSU program indicates that the user is given all access rights.

Directly out of the box, the phone does not have a lot of applications, although having full access to Google Play gives you the opportunity to install everything you need. Users like the scrolling home screen and application bar. The function of customizable gestures Smart Wake works exactly, but it makes it possible in Umi Rome X firmware with Android Lollipop (5.1).

Performance

According to user feedback, the characteristics of the Umi Rome X phone and its MediaTek MT6580 chip, which includes 4 Cortex A53 cores, and Mali-400 video accelerator in terms of performance (in comparison with the hardware of modern smartphones) is a retreat a few steps back. Although the device is very budgetary, it would have been possible to create something better for the money given for it. For example, the MT6582 chip is really inexpensive and has good performance.

The microprocessor is supported by 1 GB of RAM. Compared to the older model, the built-in memory was also trimmed to 8 GB, but it can be increased with a TF card.

Tests

The main functionality that you should expect from any smartphone is browsing web pages, instant messages and mail, having a camera and, of course, the ability to make phone calls. Unfortunately, in none of these categories the device behaves quite well.

Online surfing is becoming an integral part of our lives, and caching web pages in browsers does not help anymore. And Rome X is struggling with a couple of open tabs in Chrome. Test Geekbench 3 gives 359 points for one core and 1171 points in multiprocessor mode. AnTuTu 6.0.1 showed the result of 23,964.

Smartphone Umi Rome X: the characteristics of cameras

Both cameras of the model got from her "big brother". The rear has an interpolated resolution of 13 Mp, which is actually 8 Mp. Sensor - Sony IMX179 with dual flash, six-lens, blue glass filter and aperture f2.0. The front two-megapixel camera features its own flash. This would be ideal for shooting a selfie or video chat in low light conditions, but unfortunately the front sensor has a very low resolution, and the flash does not make much difference.

The rear eight-megapixel camera uses software to increase its resolution to 13 megapixels. Dual LED flash works better than the front one. There are all the usual modes and options, including filters in real time.

Users do not really admire the capabilities of the Umi Rome X Gold camera. Its characteristics are sufficient when there is no camera at hand, but in places the image is very soft, and a lot of details are not enough. In addition, it is very slow: saving a snapshot takes a long time. Again, this could be expected from a phone for $ 60.

In general, in addition to the slow speed of the camera, which can be attributed to the microprocessor, Rome X allows you to take photographs, if their quality is not too strict ...

Conclusion

Umi is quite risky, releasing the phones one by one. Although the company had successful models that made a lot of noise, such as Touch, this is not the first attempt to win a niche in the price range below $ 100. And with Rome X Umi suffered another failure, but in the very near future, if not this company, then some other Chinese manufacturer will conquer this segment of the market.

Owners are advised to purchase a Umi Rome X 5,5 '' phone, whose characteristics are too low for modern communications, only in the case of an extremely limited budget. There are a lot of 100-dollar phones that perform their duties much better.