The full-screen display phones would be a trend in the mobile industry in coming years. Many brands will be working on or have already come with the 18:9 aspect ratio devices. UMIDIGI, a little known Chinese handset maker recently has announced its new models S2 and S2 Pro (with higher specs) which are designed with the 18:9 aspect ratio and equipped with a 2 day lasting 5100mAh powerful battery. UMIDIGI S2 is an almost perfect smartphone that offers premium design and outstanding autonomy for a reasonable price. This year, in the design of mobile gadgets, something new has finally appeared. The screens of smartphones stretched out in length, and the upper and lower frames became very thin. The initiators of the fashion in the proportion of 18: 9 became the flagships from Samsung and LG, and after them, all the others were pulled too. Today we will introduce you to UMIDIGI S2 – one of the most interesting smartphones of its kind.

If your desire is to own a bezel-less phone on a budget, then the UMIDIGI S2 is a hot option. The UMIDIGI S2 has an uncanny resemblance to the Samsung Galaxy S8 when put side by side. While the Galaxy S8 costs $700, you only need to part with $200 to own the S2 Pro. We shall find out below what you can expect from this beauty in this review. UMIDIGI S2 Review Unit Provided by UMIDIGI. We would like to thanks UMIDIGI for his confidence in giving us the product for Review. You can Buy UMIDIGI S2 From Gearbest at $179.99 Use Coupon Code: 1111GBEU41 For S2 and GEARBEST also offers UMIDIGI S2 Pro at  $299.99 in PreSale Flash Sale

Unboxing

The smartphone came to us in a small box of black cardboard. Her design looks gloomy and depressing, not at all in accordance with the device’s premium status. In addition to the unsuccessful selection of materials, UMIDIGI designers are a bit too smart with the packaging design, hiding the smartphone in the very depths of it. However, it is worthwhile to take the phone in hands, as all the vigilance, which has arisen because of unintelligible packaging, disappears. From the first touch, it becomes clear that the appearance of UMIDIGI S2 has worked very well.

For the UmiDigi S2, you have come up with a new packaging. This consists of a “main box”, which is closed with a magnet and is rolled up, as well as a wrapper around it so that it cannot open during transport.

In the main box is a shell with the smartphone, a manual, SIM tool, 3.5mm Earphones Adapter and a bumper made of a soft and flexible plastic or silicone with a felt-like finish. In separate boxes are then still the power Charger and a red USB Type-C cable.

Design

One of the biggest strengths of the UmiDigi smartphones is undoubtedly the design. The Umidigi S2 is no exception. The mobile phone is of high quality and available in the colors red and black. Externally, it looks a bit like the Samsung Galaxy S8. At first glance, the 6-inch display with small display edges makes an impression. In length, the smartphone measures 15.8cm and is 7.5 inches wide.

So, as advertised by the manufacturer, the case is actually not much larger than most 5.5-inch smartphones. Also, the thickness of 8.9 mm and the weight of 185 grams are remarkable considering the large battery. The mobile phone fits well in the hand, even if the one-handed operation of the large display is not possible.

The housing consists of two antenna strips on the top and bottom completely made of metal. On the right side are the volume controls and the power button. The buttons are also made of metal and have a good pressure point. At the bottom of the device, there is a microphone, an audio speaker and a jack for connecting the USB Type-C cable. There is no separate headphone input, which is a serious disadvantage for many users. So the top edge of the smartphone is completely empty.

A multicolor notification LED is located above the display. It is mounted behind the opening of the auricle and shines only very weakly. Two Nano SIM cards or a SIM and a MicroSD for memory expansion can be inserted into the slot on the right side. There are no soft-touch buttons below on the display. The Umi S2 is instead served with on-screen buttons. The layout of this has been adjusted by the manufacturer takes little picture surface for itself. You can also change the arrangement of the buttons in the system settings.

Thanks to the elongated form, the phone lies perfectly in the hand. And if you still wear a complete cover, which has a slightly rough surface, then from the use of UMIDIGI S2 you begin to experience a direct physical pleasure.

Display

The Umidigi S2 has a 6-inch display with 1440 x 720 pixels and an 18: 9 format. This gives a pixel density of 268ppi. The so-called retina value, from which the human eye is allegedly no longer aware of individual pixels, is about 300 PPI. On closer examination, the Umidigi S2 still has individual pixels, but the display is always sharp enough for everyday use. The somewhat low resolution of the Umidigi S2 is compensated by a high-quality panel from Sharp, which scores points with its accurate color reproduction, good contrasts, and sufficient brightness. If you want to customize the display to your own preferences, you can do so with the integrated MiraVision Tool.

UMIDIGI S2 Display has up to 10 points of contact at the same time and the finger glides pleasantly over the glass surface. The display glass is according to the manufacturer of Corning Gorilla glass 4. We doubt this, however, and believe that Umi wants his buyers here once again duped. During the scratch test with a screwdriver and a key, the Umidigi S2 fails, as scratches in the glass occur even at relatively low pressure. It is best not to pack the phone with your key in your pocket or at least use a screen protector.

Finally, something to the advertising slogan “First Full Metal Bezel-less Phone” said. The Umidigi S2 manages to install a very large 6-inch display in a compact housing. In this point, the manufacturer is completely right.

However, this does not mean that the smartphone has no borders around the display. With 3 mm left and right and 1 cm above and below these are indeed present, although they are low. In terms of design and processing as well as the display, this can convince the Umidigi S2 on the whole. You get a very well made mobile phone with small edges around the big 6-inch display. The only downside is that the glass is relatively prone to scratches.

Hardware and Performance

The Umidigi S2 has a Mediatek Helio P20 processor installed. In our editorship, this chip is very popular because it provides a good system performance with simultaneous energy efficiency. The CPU, which also bears the model name MT6757, has 8 Cortex A53 cores each with 2.3GHz. The GPU comes with a Mali-T880. The chipset is intended for mid-range devices and thus the equivalent to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 625. In the Umi S2, the processor is supported by 4GB of RAM. In the Umidigi S2 Pro, it will even be 6GB of RAM. In practice, the Umi S2 performs well. The navigation through the Android6 System works perfectly smoothly. For the opening and closing of apps, the Umidigi requires only a very short time. Switching between different applications is also fast. Thanks to the 4GB of memory, it is also possible to have a large number of apps and games open at the same time, without any applications being closed in the background.

In addition, the Helio P20 is a chip that is also quite suitable for gaming. This benefits from the fact that the Umidigi S2 with its HD panel requires less computing power than smartphones with Full HD resolution. That’s why even demanding games like Asphalt 8 or Modern Combat ran smoothly on our test device. The memory modules are quite fast at 207 MB / s in writing and 228 MB / s in reading. The same applies to the main memory with a write speed of 4.7 GB / s.

UMIDIGI S2 – Software

In terms of system, Umidigi S2 causes some confusion. The manufacturer’s website states that the smartphone is equipped with “Android 6 / Android 7 UmiOS”. However, our test device runs on an Android 6 system and the manufacturer does not yet have a ROM with Android 7 and UmiOS.

In the recent past, we were unable to give some Umi smartphones a buy recommendation because of the new UmiOS system. The system is contaminated with malware by the factory, plays advertisements in the system and a launcher change is blocked by the manufacturer. These restrictions are enough in a highly competitive marketplace to banish a cell phone on the big garbage dump of e-waste products. From Umidigi’s internal sources, we also know that Umi does not find any buyers for the UmiOS cell phones Umidigi C2, Umidigi C Note 2 and Umidigi S mentioned. The fact that the manufacturer will also deface the upcoming Umidigi S2 Pro with UmiOS makes us fear that this smartphone will also be a shot in the oven.

As far as our present Umi S2 review device is concerned, we are pleased to have an almost untouched Android 6 system without UmiOS installed by default. I would even Android 4.4 KitKat rather than UmiOS. At the same time, however, it is also somewhat surprising that the manufacturer is delivering its new model without Android 7. Therefore, we have asked our Umidigi contact man if an Android 7 update is planned. This is not the case.

The Android 6 system of the Umidigi S2, although it is now getting a bit old, runs smoothly and quickly. Anyway, one wonders, in which actually the big innovations of Android 7 exist. If you did not know that the Android version is not up-to-date, you probably would not notice it. At first glance, the system runs pleasantly fast and shows no gross crashes or bugs. After prolonged use, however, we have noticed a few small mistakes that the manufacturer should still eliminate:

• The notification LED does not work reliably and sometimes does not inform you of new messages.
• When opening apps that require the speakers of the phone, the speakers briefly make a low humming sound, which remains even when completely off the sound remains.
• Sometimes the phone does not recognize that the headphone adapter has been plugged in or removed, and it does not play tones or calls through the correct output. You then have to plug in and unplug the device repeatedly or restart the device.

The mobile phone is in principle easy to use and runs pleasantly fast. However, there are still minor bugs in the software and whether a clean Android 7 update will appear is still uncertain.

Camera

The Umidigi S2 has a dual camera on the back with a 13 megapixel and a 5-megapixel lens installed. First off: Dual-camera features are not expected from the smartphone. Instead of portrait shots with a blurred background, the phone simply draws a blurred circle around the center of the image and there is no optical zoom. So this is a pure marketing lie. Apart from that, the main sensor is a Sony IMX258 with an aperture of f / 2.0 and PDAF autofocus, which can be used in daylight usable standard shots. As long as enough light is available, the images have a sufficient sharpness and the focus is usually set correctly. Occasionally there are problems with the white balance and in low light, the pictures are rather useless. Overall, you get an average good main camera. Less well, however, cuts off the 5-megapixel Seflie cam on the front. The pictures do not have good sharpness and beautiful selfies cannot be recorded with the Umi S2. Check out some Camera Sample Below.

Connectivity

The Umidigi S2 is a dual-sim Mobile. In principle, two sim cards can be used simultaneously, as long as you do without the second Sim slot. Unfortunately, there is a big problem here, as noted by some users in the comments. Namely, the Umidigi only establishes a mobile data connection via one of the two SIM slots. When using the second SIM slot, no Internet connection is established. This is particularly annoying because neither the dual SIM function nor the memory extension can be used on the device. The only working slot is the one in which the MicroSD card could be inserted. Whether this is a hardware or software error, we can not judge yet. We hope that the problem will be solved with a firmware update. Surely you can not be here.

Also regarding the network coverage, you do not have to worry: All 2G, 3G and 4G ( LTE ) frequencies required here are supported. The call quality when making a call is only mediocre for the caller. It is understood, but a slight noise in the background is heard. You yourself understand the conversation partner well. The handsfree function can also be used. The wifi module with a / b / g / n standard has an average strong reception and you have no problems, even a few rooms away from the router to use the Internet. The wireless connection via Bluetooth 4.0 works well.

Positioning via GPS works very well on the Umidigi S2 and the mobile phone can also be used for navigation in the car or on foot. As far as the installed sensors are concerned, the Umidigi S2 is used to deliver the standards. In addition to the proximity, acceleration and light sensor, there is also a Hall sensor (for smart folding casings), a gyroscope and an e-compass. On unnecessary gimmicks such as NFC was waived.

The sound of the speakers is quite loud but also very tinny and not suitable for listening to music. If you connect the headphone adapter to the USB-Type C connector, you can use its normal headphones with good quality.

Battery

Umidigi advertises the S2 as a “big battery phone” and lives up to this slogan. With 5100mAh, the phone has a fairly large battery installed, which gives the phone along stamina. In the practical test, it was almost impossible for us to use up the battery in one day. With an average intensity of use of about 3 to 4 hours spread over the day, so you come to a good two days of running time. Playing a 1-hour Youtube video at half brightness costs the Umi 9 percent battery and in the PC-Mark battery test, it lasts a full 13 hours. Such good values are rarely achieved in this price range.

The battery is charged with Mediatek’s Pump Express 2.0, which turns out to be an equal alternative to Qualcomm’s QuickCharge. In 2.5 hours, the battery is fully charged again.

Conclusion

With the Umidigi S2, the Chinese manufacturer has almost achieved a usable mobile phone. The smartphone has a good system speed and is even suitable for gaming. The workmanship is at a surprisingly high level and the large 6-inch display also makes an impression. In addition, you get an excellent battery life, with which even power users are easily satisfied. Downer on the otherwise successful smartphone are the somewhat outdated Android 6 system, which still suffers from teething problems in some places, the useless dual-camera and especially the defective SIM slot. If the problems with the Android system and the dual SIM function are resolved, we can make a buy recommendation. So far, however, it is for the time being: wait! You can Buy UMIDIGI S2 From Gearbest at $179.99 Use Coupon Code: 1111GBEU41 For S2 and GEARBEST also offers UMIDIGI S2 Pro at  $299.99 in PreSale Flash Sale