Complaint Review: UMIDIGI - Shenzhen Guangdong

So I bought a UMI Plus E phone as an upgrade to my current Ulefone Power (1st version) and got ripped-off. The UMIDIGI company has an exceptional we-don't-care attitude towards their customers when it comes to dedication and customer care. Firstly, the phone is riddled with glitches which their customers are continuously complaining about in their forums, and they don't seem to show any form of competence to even try to resolve the issues. customers are being banned from their forums if they go into too much detail about how the phone's camera is not functioning as it should. Just look at the complaints here: here http://community.umidigi.com/thread-12869-1-1.html and here http://community.umidigi.com/thread-16303-1-1.html and here http://community.umidigi.com/thread-12346-1-1.html and here http://community.umidigi.com/thread-6191-1-1.html and here http://community.umidigi.com/thread-5953-1-1.html and so the list goes on. Firstly, the camera works partially in the stock app. They claim the camera supports PDAF (explained here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ3Wdq8S1O0). Obviously, the camera goes hand-in-hand with software/firmware that drives the hardware. The camera performs terrible when focussing and will re-focus at even the slightest movement using a non-PDAF technique. This is donw by adjusting the focus too much, and then too little in order for the software to "detect" whcih point of relative lens adjustment is optimal. This is done in software, on the UMI Plus E - this is NO PDAF as seen in the video

The camera will do this litteraly every 5 seconds, making both video recording and video-calling features useless on the device as a whole. Instead, they could have rather used a DSP tracking method as used on some DSLR cameras which adjusts the focus continually with precisely the right amount. This UMIDIGI piece of s#it tries to focus like a person that is high on marijuana (I think someone high on marijuana is able to focus their lenses better). Its almost like a device that has no PID (Proportiaonl Integral Derivative) control. Everytime the camera does this, it looks like someone is playing with the zoom in/out buttons and off course it blurs in every re-focus attempt. The camera hardware itself is not the problem. This is where the 2nd issue comes into play. The way the firmware allows the camera to be used by 3rd party apps. In all other camrea apps like "Open Camera", "Google Camera", "Snapchat" and "WhatsApp" images as well as video appear extremely, extremely, extremely dark. To the point of it being useless. Guess what UMIGIDI's response to this is? They either band you from their forums or they just simply tell you to complain with the 3rd party apps. They are not interested in improving their firmware's handover abilities so that 3rd party apps can use the camera properly. Mediatek's P25 Helio processor actually makes this easier for them to acomplish this, but it seems like UMIDIGI doesn't care.

Sometimes the USB connection to the PC will also not work properly, and you need to reboot the phone or go to settings and tap on "USB for file transfers, then tap on File transfers" - this is needed even though that option is already selected.

Just to compare the two images taken (of a USB-to-USB isolator) in OpenCamera - the dark ons was taken by the UMI Plus E - with the lights in the room switched on. The other image was taken on the Ulefone Power with all lights off - only replying on the camrea flash. This is how video calling also looks in WhatsApp. "Designed and Made in China"

The 2nd pair of images is taken of each of the phones - by their opposition. As you can see... The UMI clearly has a lot of contrast and a lot of saturation, but the image is darker. UMIDIGI - "Designed and Made in China"

The 3rd pair of images is taken of a spider web in a wire mesh workshop table - in THE SAME LIGHT CONDITIONS. UMI PLUS E - "Designed and Made in China".

The home button is just as annoying. On all other phones, holding the Home button will allow the user to switch between applications. Not on the UMI Plus E - nope, the minute you even touch the home buttopn it will exit your current app and go straight to the home screen instead of waiting to see if the user holds the home screen button or is requiring a "switch between apps" action.

There are many more irritating s#it with the UMIDIGI - almost as annoying as every 2nd sentence here starting with "the"... I did not even read through this passage as I feel UMIChina, I mean UMIDIGI doesn't deserve s#it.

Oh yes - before I forget. The touch will also sometimes not work accurately as mentioned here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WsXt_owsn8. As you guessed it - UMIDIGI has no fix for it... They are probably still wondering how to commit to proper engineering practice.

China phones are like playing Russian Roulette. Period.

Here is one of the 5 images that did not upload properly.