Umidigi F2 is one of the long-suffering smartphones of last year. The manufacturer opened its pre-order much earlier than prepared the right number of devices ready for sale. As a result, the first buyers were forced to wait for smartphones already paid for almost two months, which resulted in a sea of indignation in various forums and social networks. Fortunately, supply problems have already been resolved and the novelty has begun to come to its owners. To find out what came of it and whether it was worth the wait, read our review of Umidigi F2.
The device has a good bundle, everything you need is in it. The Chinese did not save on the case, it is made of high-quality black silicone, pleasant to the touch and has an interesting texture. Also, a protective film is glued to the screen from the box, unfortunately, without an oleophobic layer.
- Display size : 6.53” FHD+ FullView
- Display resolution : 2340 x 1080
- Rear camera : 48MP + 13MP + 5MP + 5MP
- Front camera : 32MP
- Processor (CPU) : MediaTek, Helio P70
- Ram and Rom : 6GB+12Gb
- Battery : 5150mAh
- Network : 2G 3G 4G
Design
The design of Umidigi F2 is pretty good, it doesn’t stand out from the competition, but at the same time it matches all the current trends – small frames, a bunch of cameras, a color with a low-key gradient and, of course, a front-facing camera built into the display, which 2020 will be used everywhere, from state employees to flagships from A-brands.
The device is assembled soundly, you can only find fault with a crookedly installed depth sensor, which is not quite in the center of the lens, but with normal use it is not striking. But various creaks, button loopholes and other assembly jambs, characteristic of third-tier Chinese manufacturers, bypassed F2.
With regard to practicality and ease of use, he will have to put up with something. Firstly, the smartphone is easily soiled and slippery – this is a standard drawback of all devices in a glass case. Secondly, the dimensions – the device turned out to be extremely overall, it’s not very comfortable in the hand, since the edges of the back have no curvature, and the weight under 210 grams makes itself felt during long-term use. In general, this device is definitely not for a miniature female hand.
Umidigi F2 received a Type-C port, a 3.5 mm headphone jack and a full tray for 2 SIM cards + MicroSD, but an infrared sensor for controlling equipment and, most importantly, there is no notification LED.
Display
The 6.53-inch FullHD + Umidigi F2 display at first glance seems pretty good, it is quite bright and does not fade in the sun, but the lower brightness threshold is high – it is not comfortable to read from a smartphone in the dark, you have to use third-party software to lower the brightness.
Minimum brightness on Umidigi F2 (left) and Redmi Note 8 Pro (right)
There are no obvious shoals in terms of color reproduction, the picture on the display is contrasting and saturated, however, the white balance gravitates towards cold shades and there are no options for adjusting it in the settings. There is only a night mode, a dark theme, which on the IPS matrix does not have any particular practical benefit and adaptive brightness, which works surprisingly adequately.
The multi-touch here recognizes only 5 touches at a time, although there are no complaints about the responsiveness of the sensor. The worst situation is with viewing angles, with strong deviations, color inversion and loss of brightness are noticeable, but with normal use of the smartphone it is practically not noticeable. In general, the F2 display will be able to satisfy most users, but, as you can see, there were some jambs.
Fingerprint scanner
The fingerprint scanner is integrated into the power button on the right side, it is noticeably recessed inside the case, which is especially noticeable if you carry the phone in a case. The sensor works quite fast and stable if the smartphone is in a good mood, but sometimes it just refuses to read the fingerprint. This happens in about 10% of cases, most often after a long downtime, for example in the morning. Also in F2 there is face unlocking, no problems have been noticed with it, although the local Face Unlock does not break performance records.
Performance and software
Umidigi F2 received an 8-core Helio P70 processor, clocked at 2-2.1 GHz. This is a rather powerful chipset, gaining almost 195 thousand points in the AnTuTu test – the result for this price segment is extremely good. Under load, the device heats up, but gives stable performance and confidently passes the throttling test.
The memory is also in full order: there is a lot of it, it is fast – UFS 2.1 / LPDDR4x, and expandable. In everyday tasks, the smartphone works smartly and smoothly, small microfreezes can periodically skip, but there are no complaints about the stability of the system. Perhaps this is largely due to the clean version of the OS. The Chinese followers of the “do no harm” principle and installed fresh Android 10 here with a couple of additional functions like face unlock and game mode. It is noteworthy that all the standard settings of pure Android are Russified, and some menu items added by Umidigi are not translated.
The gaming capabilities of UMI F2, considering the price, are also pretty good. CoD: Mobile and PUBG without jerks and brakes work at high graphics settings, WoT: Blitz – at medium. The device can be considered as an inexpensive gaming device, although in this budget for games there are more interesting options, the same Redmi Note 8 Pro.
Camera
Despite the solid resolution of each of the modules, you can call a smartphone camera good only with a stretch. During the day, she takes pictures with dignity, the pictures in the standard 12-megapixel mode have natural color rendering, a good dynamic range and pleasing detail, but if you bring the image closer, it becomes noticeable that it is achieved due to the absence of any noise reduction. As a result, we get a sharp picture with noise, even when shooting during the day, although if you upload the photo to the social network, this problem will not be so noticeable on the compressed images.
At night, the quality of photographs is expected to decline, but remains tolerable by the standards of this price segment. Here, another jamb was noticed behind UMI F2 – due to poor quality optics, the camera often catches glare from light sources against a dark background. If you don’t find fault with this moment, you can make a legible photograph even at night, for this there is an appropriate shooting mode.
The front camera in the smartphone is already at 32-megapixels, which provides decent detailing of the selfie. Problems with the dynamic range or color rendition were not noticed, fans who post themselves on Instagram will definitely like it.
The smartphone can record video on all modules, including a macro lens. However, he succeeds, to be honest, so-so. Shooting is carried out in a maximum format of 1080p / 30fps without stabilization, the videos do not shine with clarity even during the day, and slow autofocus can be a problem when shooting dynamic scenes.
Sound
The F2’s speaker is extremely mediocre, it screams loudly, but at a loudness above average, listening to the phone is frankly unpleasant. The sound is sharp, with strongly lifted high frequencies, an almost complete absence of bass and noticeable distortions at maximum. In general, it’s better to forget about listening to music through the phone’s speaker right away.
For this, Umidigi has a 3.5 mm headphone jack, where there are no such quality problems – the device plays normally, no worse than other budget employees. True lovers of wireless sound are waiting for a bummer, the Chinese have saved and put in F2 the old Bluetooth 4.2 without aptX support. The smartphone keeps stable with wireless headphones, but its normal range is limited to around 10 meters. In fresh BT 5.0, this figure is much higher.
The speaker in the smartphone is high-quality, it conveys speech well and has a good volume margin, which can not be said about the microphone. Interlocutors often complain about a quiet sound, as a result of which they have to raise their voices even in quiet places.
Network
Wi-Fi / GPS is also stable, the search for satellites in navigation applications with a cold start takes 20-25 seconds, and the navigation module sees the satellites of all the declared positioning systems. And of course, NFC, F2 is officially certified by Google, so you can use Google Pay without any restrictions.
Autonomy
Umidigi F2 boasts a battery with an impressive capacity of 5150 mAh and support for fast charging, which comes with the device. From an 18-watt adapter, the battery charges up to 25% in 30 minutes, up to 66% in one and a half hours and up to 100% in 2 hours and 50 minutes. At the same time, the tester shows a 4856 mAh capacity close to the declared one.
The autonomy of the F2 is not bad, even with active use it survives confidently until the evening of the second day, and if you save battery, you can get a three-day autonomy. The firmware has a special energy-saving mode, but here the developers are too smart and when it is activated, the smartphone starts to noticeably jerk.
Should I buy Umidigi F2?
Benefits:
Actual design and good build quality
Good gaming performance
A lot of memory and a separate slot for microSD
Normally working NFC
Disadvantages:
There is no notification indicator
Periodically problems with the fingerprint scanner
Final Verdict
Umidigi F2 turned out to be a typical smartphone from the Chinese brand of the third tier. Judging by the characteristics, iron is the killer of everything and everything in its price category, but in practice things are not as rosy as we would like.
This device really looks interesting and has a fairly powerful processor, albeit from MediaTek. He has a good battery, there is NFC, a triple slot for cards, and all this is sold for quite adequate money. However, along with the advantages, F2 has a whole scattering of various jambs, which only undemanding users can ignore.
Is it worth it to go on a gamble and take a similar smartphone? Of course it is up to you to decide, but I would not advise being driven on dry characteristics. Only 1.5-2 thousand more expensive in Russia is the gray Redmi Note 8 Pro (review) , which, with comparable autonomy, is better than Yumidigi F2 in literally everything – the camera, gaming performance, screen quality. You can even save a little money and take Redmi Note 8T or Realme 5 – these are proven devices, the probability of running into problems with which is much lower.