Umidigi Z2 Budget Smartphone Review – £175 notched full-screen display with dual rear & front cameras

Umidigi have been making waves in the budget market for the past few years, producing a large number of phones to suit all tastes and budgets.

I have previously reviewed the Umidigi S2 Lite and the A1 Pro and found them to be superb based on the price.

The Umidigi Z2 is one of their latest models and is available direct from Amazon. When I ordered the phone on Amazon, it was £189.99 but has a £15 voucher available making it £174.99.

Umidigi Z2 Specification

• Processor: Mediatek Helio P60
• Graphics adapter: ARM Mali-G72 MP3, Core: 800 MHz
• Memory: 4GB
• Display: 6.2 inch 18.7:9, 2246 x 1080 pixel 402 PPI, capacitive, IPS, glossy: yes 90% screen to body ratio
• Camera: 16.0MP + 8.0MP front and rear
• Storage: 64GB
• Weight: 165 g
• OS – Android 8.1
• Battery Capacity: 3850mAh and USB-C
• Price: £175

Design and Build

Umidigi always packages their phones well, with a premium look and feel. The phone ships with a charger, USB cable, SIM ejector pin, a headset jack adapter and it comes with a TPU case for some added protection.

The phone itself looks and feels great with its stand out feature being the 90% screen to body ratio of the screen and its notch, these things that are normally found on much more expensive phones. The rear of the phone is a glossy plastic with a carbon fibre type design to it. While the plastic shell may be less desirable than other materials I have no issue with it, it makes the phone a little lighter and it is less likely to smash than glass. The twin cameras on the rear have a small bump to them, with the fingerprint scanner being slightly recessed and sitting slightly below them.

The phone has a USB-C port for both charging and audio. It is excellent for a phone this price to use USB-C, but it is disappointing that they cut out the 3.5mm jack.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Display

The display is one of the stand out features of this phone, its 6.2-inch FullHD+ display at a resolution of 1080 x 2246 and a display ratio of 19:9 combined with a notch definitely give it a look of a far more expensive phone. The bezels are not quite as thin as some flagships but it certainly looks better than the excellent Xiaomi Mi A2 lite.

The notch is quite large, and this is likely due to the fact it houses two front-facing cameras, which match up to the spec on the rear.

Even with the large notch and slim bezels, the phone manages to achieve an impressive 90% screen to body ratio.

The display is IPS with a pixel density of 403 PPI and performs admirably for a phone at this price point. I found it can get quite bright and it works well outside in sunny conditions. It also has excellent black levels and contrast so watching media on it is quite enjoyable.

Camera

The front and rear camera have the same specification of 16-megapixel and 8-megapixel snapper with a f/2.0 aperture and five element lens. That’s based on Sony’s IMX371 image sensor. 

I found the camera to perform much better than other phones at the same price and with its excellent front camera specification if you are fond of selfies, this is the perfect budget option.

As I am quite poor with photography, all my shots are done in auto mode, with some with the HDR enabled. I also used the bokeh feature when shooting the sign.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Battery

With an impressive 3850mAh battery, the Umidigi Z2 will easily last a full day on charge, for light users you may get two full days. I didn’t test the performance properly, but Umidigi claims that the phone can go from 0% to 100% in 80 mins. During my use, it would easily charge the phone from dead in under two hours and I would expect the claimed times are approximately correct.

Performance

The MediaTek Helio P60 MT6771V processor is good but not amazing and helps keep the cost of the phone down. It is more than suitable for all your day to day tasks and it features in many of the phones at this price point and offers similar level of performance as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 660.

For day to day apps such as productivity, social media and web browsing this phone is more than capable of any task you can throw at it. For gaming, it doesn’t fare quite as well but it still does a decent job, and I was able to play modern gamers such as Asphalt 9 without too much issue. For very demanding games you may need to turn down the settings slightly to get the best performance.

Software

This is not an Android One based device, but Umidigi has effectively installed pure Android on it, I can’t find any bloatware like you see on other devices such as Alcatel. Since receiving the phone, I have had three security patches, so it is promising that they are updating the phone. However, it is still running Android 8.1 and if or when Android 9 Pie gets released for it is unknown.

Thanks to the pure unencumbered Android the overall user experience with the software is excellent, and it helps with the day to day performance of the device.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Conclusion

Overall this is a great phone, you get a lot for your money, and there is nothing serious to criticise about it, though the lack of a 3.5mm jack is a little disappointing.

This phone has an attractive premium design, a superb selfie camera and overall excellent camera performance for the price. The pure Android OS combined with the Helio P60 work well together to provide a pleasant user experience with no performance issues.

Overall this is a perfect phone for someone on a tight budget that just wants something that works, can take decent photos, and use the internet and social media.