The UMi Iron is a daring move for UMi. A device with good hardware and tons of added features, but have the phone maker managed to pull it off? Find our what we think in our UMi Iron hands on and first impressions.
UMi have taken a different approach with the UMi Iron. They have kept the hardware to the same level as their rivals, but really focussed on adding edition functions and features often overlooked by competitors.
Looking at just the hardware nothing really takes us by surprise on the UMi Iron. This actually really good news, as not one element of the hardware line up gives us cause for concern. Up front is a 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 display, Mediatek provide an eight core MT6753 chipset and with 3GB RAM on board and a mostly stock Android 5.1 Lollipop install you shouldn’t need to worry about the performance.
Sony has been asked to supply the 13 mega-pixel IMX214 main camera, one of the most popular and better performing 13 mega-pixel sensors on the market! Even the front camera is an impressive 8 mega-pixels. 8 mega-pixels up front is good for selfies, but it also means the camera is accurate enough to offer a retina scan feature for security (a feature coming in an OTA next week).
Internal storage is 16GB which is a good start, and thankfully there is room for a micro SD card so you can add to it if needed. LTE support, GPS, WIFI, Bluetooth are all there, even the battery is an impressive 3350mAh unit.
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The whole kit and caboodle is housed in a metal body, with the upper and lower areas of the rear made of plastic to prevent interference with the antennas. It’s all well thought out stuff and looks promising from the start.
If UMi had just left the specs at that then it would all sound really good value for just $179.99, but there is even more. An update brings with it an RGB notification beam at the base of the phone plus a heart rate monitor. A future update will bring the above mentioned retina scanner and also a UV scanner too! Oh, that’s not to mention the advanced audio HIFI brought to the phone via a Texas instruments chip.
UMi Iron Hands on and first impressions
The UMi Iron has a great package, some really neat features and the promise of OTA updates that are scheduled for later this month. This is all a very ambitious challenge for UMi, but if they can make it all happen and work as we hope they could be on to a real winner.
So far the features of the phone do impress us, as do the OTA features. The alloy body is a nice touch, but there is a bit of an alignment issue with our early production model between the alloy panel and plastic on the back.
The phone is fast, feature packed, easy to manage with one hand (even with a 5.5-inch display) and really very affordable! I am currently running the update for the UMi Iron to test the heart rate sensor and the LED notification and will perform a full review once we have fully tested the phone with the next OTA scheduled for 6th July.