UMiDigi S5 Pro Review

UMiDigi is back at it again, disrupting the mid-tier phone market with the beautiful S5 Pro

Reporting on mid-range smartphones can be a dull & monotonous chore with little to distinguish between a bunch of nearly identical models. So it’s a breath of fresh air when I see a phone like the UMiDigi S5 Pro pop-up on my radar. Pun intended.

The UMiDigi Power 3 impressed us earlier in the year, by covering all the basics well whilst offering excellent battery life. The all-new S5 Pro takes it a step further giving us the performance we deserve a super sleek & premium glass sandwich design.

Related: What’s the Best UMiDigi Smartphone in 2020?

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If you’re looking to buy a new phone, but, you’re thinking the OnePlus Nord (amazon) is a tad too expensive, then it’s highly likely this could be the phone for you. In many ways, it offers the same Android experience but with a price-tag around 30% lower.

It’s not without its cons though, so stay with me as I cover everything you need to know about this UMiDigi 2020 flagship. As always, leave your questions at the end.

The S5 Pro offers Premium Design & High-tier Performance!

What We Love

• AMOLED Display
• Excellent Battery Life
• Popup Selfie Camera
• In-display Fingerprint Reader
• Gaming Performance

What Could Be Better

• No Wireless Charging
• No Headphone Jack
• No Always On Display
• Video Stabilisation

Display

To say the S5 Pro display is on-par with Samsung, Apple or OnePlus’ flagship phones would be a big fat lie. But, rest assured, the 6.39″ full HD AMOLED panel is a step above the competition with perfect black levels, good max brightness and colours that really pop.

Viewing angles are also excellent and you have the option to adjust the colour temperature via the settings. No longer are you stuck with a white balance that’s either too cold or too warm. As well as this, you can setup a night-mode filter to reduce your blue light exposure.

Onto the refresh-rate and it’s a plain 60Hz, so no superfluid 90 or 120Hz here. But unless you already have a high refresh-rate device its not something you’ll miss, and a 60Hz panel really does helps to keep down the price.

Just like the UMiDigi F2 from last year, the S5 Pro keeps the optical in-display fingerprint reader which helps leave the glass rear of the phone looking classy and minimal.

The screen-to-body ratio is on-par with high-end flagships thanks to the addition of the popup selfie camera. If you’re after an almost bezel-less display, the S5 Pro feels very immersive indeed.

Screen Tech Specs: 6.39″ AMOLED Display, 2340 x 1080 resolution, 403 PPI, Popup Selfie Cam, In-display Fingerprint Reader

Design & Build Quality

If you were wondering what causes the price difference between the F2 & the S5 Pro, it comes down to two things: build quality and performance.

Build quality on this device is fantastic. It reminds me a lot of the Samsung Galaxy S9 with its curved glass back that seamlessly meets the metal edge. This makes it very comfortable to hold, even at 202 grams. Luckily the front display is flat, so adding a screen protector is a breeze.

The rear glass battery cover uses an opaque pearlescent shimmer that catches the light nicely. Onto the camera and the very iPhone-looking bump protrudes a few mm’s from the glass, meaning there’s a little wobble when laying the phone flat.

Onto the power & volume buttons and they have a nice solid click to them. The camera selfie unit also feels very strong and responds to a light press when you want it to recede back into the phone.

The only downside I’ve found is that the vibration motor feels a little cheap, but we can’t have it all. And if I had to be picky, I think that UMiDigi should have added wireless charging at this price-point.

Finally, Kudos to UMiDigi for managing to create a solid & premium Android phone that not only looks the part but includes a few innovative features that we don’t normally see below the £400/$450 mark.

And if you were wondering about dropping a 202g slab of glass, then you’ll be happy to know that there is a textured phone cover included in the box.

Colours: Ocean Blue & Cosmic Black
Weight: 202g
Thickness: 9.6mm
Body Material: Metal & Glass

Performance & Gaming

The gaming focussed G90T is the MediaTek CPU we’ve been waiting for! Gone are the days where MediaTek plays second best to Snapdragon in the mid-range. The G90T makes light work of modern games whilst breezing through everyday Android tasks.

This is in part thanks to UMiDigi offering bloatware-free stock Android 10 on their 2020 devices as well as loading the S5 Pro up with 6GB’s of RAM and a super fast 256GB’s of UFS2.1 storage.

Inside the phone, UMiDigi has used a liquid-cooled chamber to dissipate the heat more evenly across the glass back. We didn’t encounter any frame-drops or stuttering during out testing due to thermal throttling of the G90T.

As you can see from our AnTuTu Android benchmarking tool, the G90T matches the more expensive Snapdragon 730G that we see in the competition.

AnTuTu Benchmark Score: 284103

• CPU: 93856
• GPU: 81735
• MEM: 53756
• UX: 54756

Performance Specs CPU: MediaTek Helio G90T (8 Cores @ 2.05GHz)
RAM: 6GB LPDDR4X Dual Channel
Storage: 256GB UFS2.1 (expandable up to 256GB via Micro-SD)
OS: Stock Android 10

UMiDigi S5 Pro – Quad Cameras

Onto the camera department and quad-lens setup offers two main choices. The main 48MP lens for detailed day-time and low-light photography and a 16MP wide-angle lens that captures a 120° field of view.

The 5MP depth sensor didn’t make much difference in our testing and while the 5MP macro lens is fun, cropping on the 48MP lens produced better results. Photos on the 48MP lens show plenty of detail and we were surprised with how well it handled low-light. Dynamic shots with bright and dark areas struggled the most with skies often looking blown out.

The wide-angle works well in bright sunny conditions but feels soft and grainy compared to the main lens. Also, video doesn’t handle movement well as its lacking stabilisation. The recorded footage also looks a little soft and washed out compared to photos. Another thing to note is that UMiDigi advertises that it’s 4K capable, although we were only able to get 1080P in our testing.

It’s a decent mid-range camera setup, we just wish they’d drop the two extra 5MP aesthetic lenses and up the quality of the wide-angle.

Rear Camera:

• 48MP Main Lens @ f/1.79 aperture
• 16MP Wide Angle Lens (120-degree)
• 5MP Depth Sensor
• 5MP Macro
• Dual LED Flash / Torch
• Extras: AI Scene Detection, Macro, Portrait, Panorama, Face Recognition
• 1080P @ 30fps

Front Camera (Selfie time):

• 16MP Popup Lens @ f/2.0 aperture
• AI Beautify
• Face Recognition & Beauty Mode
• Video 1080P @ 30fps

Battery Life

We’ve always been impressed with how UMiDigi manages to squeeze big batteries into their slim phones. The S5 Pro is no exception with the 4680mAh cell giving us between 5-8 hours screen on-time which is more than enough to get you through a full day.

Related: Best Battery-Life Phones 2020

There’s an 18watt fast charger included in the box, although it’s disappointing to see a lack of wireless charging, especially since it used a glass design.

Battery Specs: 4680mAh (18w Fast Charge)

Connectivity

UMiDigi skipped out on the true-dual SIM aspect of the S5 Pro by adding a shared 2nd SIM slot. You can choose between 2x Nano SIMs or 1x Nano SIM + 1x Micro-SD. Normally I see this a big con, especially if you want your work + personal number on the same phone, but with the large 256GB storage I can’t see this being an issue.

The headphone jack has been removed, but there’s a Type-C to 3.5mm jack in the box. We also get dual-band AC WiFi and Bluetooth 5 plus access to 4 GPS systems. Finally, the S5 Pro is NFC capable.

Face ID Unlock & Fingerprint Unlock

As the selfie camera is hidden most of the time, you do miss out on Face ID on the S5 Pro. It’s not a deal-breaker though as we do have an optical in-display fingerprint reader to use instead. I wish it was a little faster but it reliably unlocks the phone with about 95% accuracy. I found that adding the same finger twice improved the unlock rate significantly.

Microphones & Call Quality

It’s a thumbs up for call quality. During my testing, the internal mic picked up voices clearly on both ends of the call.

GPS also worked well with Google Maps following my location accurately in the UK.

UK Network Support: Full (4G, 3G + VoLTE)
US Network Support: Check US Cell Support @ Amazon
WiFi: 2.4 + 5Ghz (a,b,g,n,ac) (WiFi Direct + WiFi Display)
NFC: YES
Headphone Port: No
SIM Support: Nano + Nano or SD + Nano
GPS Module: GPS + GLONASS + BeiDu + Galileo
Bluetooth: 5.0
USB: Type-C

UMiDigi S5 Pro – The Verdict

It’s not the perfect phone by any means, but it’s as close to it as you can get for the asking price. If you’re looking for great gaming & productivity performance, a sleek glass build, excellent battery and a solid mid-tier camera then the S5 Pro has you covered!

If you don’t need the G90T performance and want to save some cash, then check out the UMiDigi F2 or the Best Budget Phones 2020 Edition for more options under £150/$170.

Do we recommend the UMiDigi S5 Pro?

With its current asking price of £269.99 on Amazon, it’s a good deal! Prices vary wildly between retailers with UMiDigi often going on sale, so make sure to shop around for a great deal.

What’s in the box?

Inside the box is a quick start guide, type-c charging cable, 18w fast charger, type-c to 3.5mm headphone jack, textured plastic case and SIM Pin.

UMiDigi S5 Pro – Full Tech Specs