The Android chalet market has exploded in recent months over here in China. Now it is easier than ever to get a fully loaded FHD phablet at an affordable price. Here are two of the best the Orentphone N3 Plus and UMi Cross.
UMi Cross
We recently reviewed the UMi Cross here and found it to be an extremely well made device with great hardware, but perhaps not the best choice of gamers.
Some of the highlights of the UMi Cross are it’s well designed body and great use of quality materials, large battery, full HD display, quad-core processor and 2GB RAM. During the review I also confirmed with UMi that the Cross does have Gorilla Glass and will support WCDMA 900 / 2100mhz, also UMi mentioned (as we discovered ) that current versions of the UMi Cross don’t have NFC, but this will be included at a later date.
The recommend retail price for the UMi Cross is $350, but shopping around you can find it for $300.
Gizchina News of the week
OrientPhone N3 Plus
The OrientPhone N3 Plus is smaller than the Cross at 5.7-inch, and also has a display resolution of 1280 x 720p, however this actually helps the N3 Plus to perform a little better in gaming situations where the UMi Cross struggled.
Those of you who like a Samsung Mega style phone will enjoy the near 1:1 look of the OrientPhone N3 which also has a physical home button rather than 3 capacitive buttons. Under the hood specifications are similar to the Cross with a 1.5Ghz quad-core processor, 2GB RAM, 32GB built-in memory and dual-SIM support.
Pricing for the OrientPhone N3 Plus is significantly less than the UMi phablet and can be bought for around $245.
UMi Cross Vs. OrientPhone N3 Plus
[komper pid=116,132 compareform=no]Which would you choose
So with those two choices which phablet would you go for? The larger, higher resolution but more expensive UMi Cross, or the smaller, better performing and more affordable OrientPhone N3 Plus?
I ordered Umi Cross, I just hope it will not be too large. I was deciding between Zopo ZP990 or Umi Cross, and Umi was priced lower.Currently I own LG Optimus 4X, and I constantly browse web pages after work at home and I have to say it is a small device. At first I thought that it is quite big, coming from iPhone, but I found a way to put it in the right pockets to carry it around normally. My work for HP envolves a lot of reading of pdf documents while I am out of office at the customers, many e-mails etc… And while ordering I kept on thinking you constantly zoom in on those pdf’s, you need a bigger screen. I made myself a dummy phone with such dimensions as the Umi Cross to try it out carrying etc, and by dimensions it is a big phone, I just hope I will get used to it as fast as my current Optimus.
hows cross carlos????
UMi Cross. Having a clone means you can’t show your friends what a Chinese phone is about, because it’s just a clone. No matter how your clone is, it is still a clone, and thus won’t be receiving much respect points from people. Also, the Cross looks stunning for such a large device.
UMI Cross without doubt 🙂 I’m a little bored with all those sam’ clones tbh.
I have also ordered Umi Cross… I think that with a prize of 299$ is unbeatable.
One question, what does “TBA protection needs”?
One important thing is that Cross has Exmor RS camera lenses.
TBA – to be announced
Thanks Andi!
The Umi European site says it has Gorilla Glass…
hows the cross performance ivan?
Very nice, almost like the rest of mtk6589 phones.
Not bad overall, anyway I think that it would be nice to have the possibility of overclocking it to 1,7ghz… for certain games this processor is not able to move them properly. Very high detail games, I mean.
Yes, it would be the UMI Cross for me too. I can’t believe how significant not having a Samsung clone has become for me. On my Galaxy S3 the centre button slowly sank into the phone, although it always operated correctly, and I could never work out why they’d put one physical button when the other two were touch.
When there are so many Chinese phone with such similar innards, appearance can easily become the decisive factor. The phone which, to me, looks the best is the Carpad T6S. It has NFC and an intriguing extra side-button labelled “Rec” which I hope turns out to be a physical shutter button. But would I buy one without the benefit of a GizChina review? Probably not.
I’m very happy with the UMi Cross. The giant battery means a longer life, it’s extremely well-made and has just the right features. Not too big and the camera quality on both sides is fantastic. Best phone I’ve had. Oh, and the scrolling is fast and smoothe. 🙂