3780mAh battery powered UMi eMax goes on flash sale 5pm China time today


The stylish UMi eMax is all set to go on flash sale in a few hours from now. The phone comes with a massive 3780mAh battery which should hold good for about a couple of days.

Not only that, but the phone can also be used to charge other devices by using an OTG cable… Elephone P5000 style. Other than that, the eMax comes with a full HD 5.5-inch display, and is powered by the ‘hot’ MediaTek MT6752 chipset which we’re seeing on a lot of phones, understandably.

There’s 2GB of RAM and 16GB of on-board ROM on the device, so it isn’t the most powerful phone around. But instead, the eMax explores a new angle with the rather large battery as mentioned previously. On the camera front, it has a 13 mega-pixel rear camera and a 5 mega-pixel shooter on the front.

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All this is combined with a decent looking frame, which combines metal and polycarbonate. UMi have kind of ‘revived’ themselves this year, with phones such as the UMi Hammer and now this (they even got themselves a new logo).

The phone will go on its first ‘flash sale’ (darn, isn’t everyone doing that these days?) today at 5pm (UTC+8, China time) on CooliCool where it’ll go for US$169.99 as standard, but the first 10 buyers will be able to get the phone for US$109.99. Will you be getting (or hoping to get) one?

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43 Comments

  1. Angry Mobile Nerd
    May 21, 2015

    I have to admit I am a little impressed by how large the no-name brand phone market is getting. I still don’t want one, though.

    • amirexpressir
      May 21, 2015

      umi is old..jiayu,thl,zopo,umi,xiaomi,huawei,zte,cubot,meizu,newman…all were the first hype-makers of chine phones in 3-5 years ago

      • Angry Mobile Nerd
        May 21, 2015

        I know, but it’s still a no-name brand along with 1/2 the other brands you listed.

        • Airyl
          May 21, 2015

          What’s a no-name brand to you exactly?

    • balcobomber25
      May 22, 2015

      What exactly qualifies as a “no-name” brand to you? Most of us here have known about UMI for quite some time. They aren’t exactly no name to anyone here.

      • Angry Mobile Nerd
        May 22, 2015

        I’m a little stumped on how to politely describe it so I resorted to using “no-name brand” but what I really mean are these smaller-mostly-unknown-firms with-next-to-no-market-share-producing-cheap-chinese-phones brands.

        No-name is not the correct term either because in some supermarkets the no-name brand can have sizeable sales compared to their branded counterparts. Maybe “worthless brand” is the word I’m looking for. Not implying the products they produce are bad or garbage, but from a brand perspective how much could the “Jiayu” brand by itself be worth? Not much if anything really.

        Umi, Jiayu, Siswoo, Bluboo, Doogee are just some examples that not one person (all Chinese 20+ years old) in my workplace (in China) have never heard of.

        • balcobomber25
          May 22, 2015

          So because no one in your small sample size has heard of them clearly that means no one has? Some of these brands (Jiayu and Umi in particular) are getting so popular they are starting to show up in western tech sites. As for their actual worth I would actually love to see the sales numbers for these brands.

          • Angry Mobile Nerd
            May 22, 2015

            Ask people in your office/workplace in Thailand and get back to me.

            And I said “mostly unknown” which I think is fair and accurate. Why do I always have to repeat myself here?

            • balcobomber25
              May 22, 2015

              Because you always make absurd claims and pass them off as fact. Like your claim that you hardly ever see anyone in China using Xiaomi products.

              My office deals with technology of Asia so many of us do use phones from China. I use a Xiaomi and others use Elephone, Sony, Apple, Samsung and one guy does in fact have an Umi Zero so our viewpoint like yours is only a small sample size and doesn’t mean anything for the overall popularity of a given company.

            • Ma Xiao
              May 22, 2015

              I’ve only got a small sample of friends and workmates in Shanghai to go on, but I respectfully agree that there is almost no brand recognition for Umi, Jiayu, IUni, Mlais, Iocean etc. Xiaomi, Vivo and Oppo are huge, Meizu is getting popular but I don’t think its unfair to say that most others are unknown.

            • Ma Xiao
              May 22, 2015

              I just asked my friends with me here about Umi, Jiayu, Iuni, Mlais, Iocean and from 9 person sample no-one had heard of any of them, They have Xiaomi, Nubia, Samsung, Nexus and lots of Iphones 🙂

            • Riccardo Benzoni
              May 22, 2015

              as I said in my previous post, there is no wonder “common” chinese people don’t know those brands, since most of them (if not all) are export brands which work only outside of china (in fact, most of them don’t have the CCC certification like chinese brands sold in china, and you don’t see most of them hitting TENAA, maybe only Jiayu and very few others started also to sell their models in china).
              The same is now happening on the other side, european companies not known here have a big export market in china (like italians in the fashion department, the other day saw a tv reportage where a shoes producer which I never heard of was interviewed, it seems he has a s**tload of sales in china even if here he is unknown!), for me he was a no-name if they asked me, but in the chinese context it may be a pretty respected brand!

            • Angry Mobile Nerd
              May 22, 2015

              I get what you’re saying but still most of these little companies aren’t exhibiting at shows like Mobile World Congress and they’re not getting any exposure on other mainstream tech sites and they’re not getting reviewed in trade publications like Android Magazine (who actually reviews other lesser known budget phones but none of these have came up).

              These are more or less vastly mostly unknown brands, meaning they are overwhelming more unknown than known except to people following this market segment like readers of this website.

            • balcobomber25
              May 26, 2015

              They may not be getting reviews in Android Magazine (which I never even heard of until today) but Phonearena, Techspot, Engadget, Android Authority, Android Central and Cnet have all reviewed phones of some of the lesser known brands including Umi, Jiayu, and THL. They don’t review every phone released but they are making their way into some of the larger tech sites.

            • Ma Xiao
              May 22, 2015

              True that here are so many ‘Italian brands’ unheard of in the west, a few of which must actually be from Italy 🙂 I know because every New year I go home my mum tries to buy them for me and I have to fight to wait buy myself when I’m in Shanghai

            • balcobomber25
              May 22, 2015

              And I have a small sample size in Guanzhou and Beijing of people who use many of those brands. I am not saying they are well known brands like Xiaomi and Oppo but they all have been in business for a few years and continue to come out with new products so they obviously have some presence in China.

              And on this website and within this sample size we all know of them!

            • Ma xiao
              May 22, 2015

              Everyone knows these brands on this website for sure but I don’t think normal Chinese do, that’s all. people in the tech industry might do, but most people aren’t interested beyond the strongly marketed brands. I would guess that Vivo are the most successful here of the newer brands. Letv too because their website is so popular, lots of publicity for them the last month.
              Not picking a fight, but being objective I think that your friends in tech should know about these things, it’s their job, ?whereas for most people its a niche market that they have no interest in, unfortunately 🙂

            • balcobomber25
              May 22, 2015

              My friends in China don’t work in tech they are mostly university students or recent grads who hold normal jobs. My coworkers in Thailand are the tech workers. Many of the university students I know, do know a lot of these brands we speak of.

            • Angry Mobile Nerd
              May 23, 2015

              My comments are based on observation of living year round in Southern China. Your comments (especially about Xiaomi) are heavily biased. My comments usually go againt the grain of what most are thinking but some get it.

              Again, I was commenting how I was IMPRESSED how this segment is growing and you deranged bunch managed to turn it into a huge argument. Clap clap, well done.

              It would probably make your blood boil if you learned I probably speak, read and write Thai better than you.

            • balcobomber25
              May 23, 2015

              I honestly could care less about what you can speak, read or write. But if you need that to make you feel like The Cool Kid, congrats!

        • Riccardo Benzoni
          May 22, 2015

          those are export brands, that’s why you don’t hear them in china, because they actually (save a few) don’t exhist there. Their value can’t be measured where they don’t exhist.

  2. Chickens
    May 21, 2015

    Is it worth $99 if the camera is probably an interpolated 8mp Omnivision or as bad as Umi Hammer?

    • May 21, 2015

      Can’t say before we get the phone… hoping it isn’t just an interpolated sensor.

    • amirexpressir
      May 21, 2015

      Umi camera arent bad..so its quality is on par on competitors or better so far on all releases

    • Riccardo Benzoni
      May 21, 2015

      i think they are improved compared to hammer, for example the frontal one should be the OV6570 like meizu’s note M1 one, which should be pretty good!

    • balcobomber25
      May 22, 2015

      Omnivision like Sony has some excellent camera’s and some not so great ones, it all depends on which one is used.

  3. csak1user
    May 21, 2015

    I’ll try to be in the 10

  4. Andrey
    May 21, 2015

    I was able to buy it for 109.99 . But it was only pre-sale . Now i need only wait for shipping

  5. cuios
    May 21, 2015

    Advertised a 2250mAh battery but only 1750mAh in fact, the fake battery and false advertising made UMI a big liar — http://etkchina.com/2015/05/20/advertised-a-2250mah-battery-but-only-1750mah-in-fact-the-fake-battery-and-false-advertising-made-umi-hammer-a-big-liar/

    • Riccardo Benzoni
      May 21, 2015
      • cuios
        May 21, 2015

        maybe you belive the I do not , there is a saying “A thief passes for a gentleman when stealing has made him rich.”

        • Riccardo Benzoni
          May 21, 2015

          a thief doesn’t make gifts, just turns his head to the other side and keeps the money,

        • Airyl
          May 21, 2015

          Does the thief give back the money? No, genius.

          • cuios
            May 22, 2015

            Hey genius you have paid for a phone with 2250 battery

            • balcobomber25
              May 22, 2015

              And the company offered that battery for free to anyone who bought it…..

        • balcobomber25
          May 22, 2015

          A thief doesn’t admit guilt and try to make up for the mistake, he just keeps the money. A company that is worried about its reputation and wants to grow a fanbase apologizes and makes up for it. It’s easy to sit back and blame a company when something like this happens but they often have no clue when it happens.

          Once Umi places the order for their parts, they send that to that OEM. The OEM receives the parts and builds the phones, they then send UMI a few test units so UMI can make sure the phone meets their original specs. But they don’t personally inspect every phone that is made, they rely on the OEM to do that and they rely on their suppliers to give them the correct parts. They aren’t the first company that has had this happen and won’t be the last. At least they admitted the mistake. I can guarantee you you have bought dozens of products that got cheated on parts and you never even knew about it.

    • KS
      May 21, 2015

      yeah, if nobody peeled off the battery specs label and found the under-declared battery capacity, would UMI have gotten away with it? just wondering…

  6. Chickens
    May 22, 2015

    By the way, anyone know if it has quick or fast charge function?

  7. psyemax
    May 22, 2015

    I’m hating that new logo, looks so shit and unprofessional.

    • balcobomber25
      May 26, 2015

      As some who specializes in marketing in Asia I couldn’t disagree more, I love it. It is fresh and new and really sets them apart.

  8. Tony
    May 25, 2015

    When can we expect a review?

  9. Hugo
    May 29, 2015

    I think the rear camera is only 5mpx because it has the ov5670 chip
    (http://www.kimovil.com/en/umi-emax/camera)
    Hi hate when they say that is 13mpx but it is really a 5mpx camera.