This morning UMi sent out a press release entitled “UMI Zero 2 To Feature 4GB of RAM & Helio X20?”. We think the answer is clearly a ‘no’ unless they plan to launch the phone well in to next year.
UMi have launched a lot of phones this year, but let us now forget what the company started with, the original UMi Zero. The original Zero had great design, and nice hardware, but it also suffered from a multitude of serious problems. Customers reported that the phone wouldn’t turn on from new, there were issues with the rear panel falling off, and a very troubling problem that caused the internal battery to expand splitting the phone apart!
Eager to put those stories behind them, UMi are now trying to stir the pot and build #HYPE about the UMi Zero 2.
UMi Zero 2 news is nothing new, the first reports of the phone were that it would feature a dual screen design, then there were contradictory reports of the phone featuring a genuine leather rear (confusing) and now these new ‘rumours’.
In the email UMi talk about different processors but they specifically ask if we believe the Zero 2 will come with a powerful Helio X20 chipset. The answer is a firm ‘no’. Mediatek will be supplying their larger partners with Helio X20 first, and companies like UMi will have to wait until there is a good supply of the chipset available before they can use it. This would delay the launch until mid 2016 at the earliest.
Instead we believe the UMi Zero 2 will ship with the current Mediatek Helio X10, in fact UMi even seem to believe this too;
its likely that the phone will feature the deca-core Helio X20 chipset for maximum performance. However, this may drive up the cost unnecessarily, and hence, the company may decide to settle with the MT6795 Helio X10 octa-core chip. Even this processor is quite capable of powering flagship devices, so it won’t be disappointing to see it inside the Zero 2.
So don’t get pulled in to the hype machine! UMi won’t be offering X20 phones until well in to next year, and their Helio X10 powered phone hasn’t even got a set release date yet.
In the meantime you can buy phones from Xiaomi, LeTV, and even Meizu all with the Mediatek Helio X10 chipset, not worry about quality issues and also steer well clear of all that BS hype.