Umi Rome smartphone

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Excellent value and very good specs

I was sent this phone free for my unbiased review by Phonect:  http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B019H3A9S8
(Phonect also inform me that this code applied at the checkout on Amazon will give you a £10 discount:  WXNXE8T9 )

I think the phone is very good.  It is well made, it looks good and has very good specs for the price, so I think it is outstandingly good value.

When reading this review, do bear in mind that I am in late middle age and that my use may not reflect yours. I don't game or tweet, for example; I use the phone for phone calls and texts, music, checking email sometimes, some catch-up TV, occasional photos and occasional web browsing. This means that I cannot advise on comparisons, lots of technical specification and so on, but for what it's worth:

The packaging is solid and rather stylish.  You get a charger and a good-quality micro-USB lead for charging and data transfer.  I think the phone itself is very attractive: it is slim, stylish and has a very nice, robust case which is comfortable in the hand.  The frame is metal and the back is plastic but very solid when in place.  The screen is very good to my eyes; it's a generous 5.5" and a pleasure to use.  Video, TV catch-up and so on look very good and with 3GB RAM it all runs smoothly and quickly.  The OS is Android Lollipop 5.1, and everything seems very quick, simple and pretty intuitive. The internal memory is big at 16GB and you can expand with a micro-SD card of up to 64GB capacity (I use a 32 GB and it works fine).  It is a dual-SIM phone and, can take two SIM cards and a micro-USB card at the same time.

Set-up was very easy, but there is no manual available. The overview (printed on the packaging) is OK but very basic.  You remove the back (very simple) for access to SIM and micro-SD card slots, and installation is easy.  The battery is separate on arrival and is also very simply installed – which means it's replaceable, of course, which is an excellent feature.  Battery life is OK but not brilliant – about 6 hours continuous use for me, although I'm hoping this may improve with a few more charging cycles.  It holds its charge very well on standby.

In use, the Rome has been is great for me and everything I want just works very well. Wi-fi connection was very straightforward as was syncing with my account.  I don't think the speakers are very good, but through headphones or via Bluetooth the sound is excellent.  There's no NFC, but normal Bluetooth pairing is very quick and simple, and stable up to a decent range. The rear camera is excellent with a very good 13mp resolution. Other functions also seem very good.

Plenty of apps are pre-installed, including Google Play. Note that SuperSU is installed and the phone arrives rooted. I had no idea what this meant until one of my apps wouldn't work because of it, but it's simple to unroot the phone via SuperSU if you need to, even for a bit of a numpty like me.

In summary, this is a very stylish phone which does everything I want. It is simple to use, seems robust and works well. It has very good specs for this price and I am very happy with mine.  I have tried a number of Umi phones now and I have been impressed - I've been using the Umi Iron as my main phone for several months now and it's been great.  This looks just as good and I can recommend it warmly as an excellent-value, good quality phone.