[Device Reviews and Information] Alberto96:
Review (part 1)

Introduction

This is the HAFURY UMAX.

Hardware

Being the first Hafury (CUBOT under another name basically) Device ever released, it is normal to not expect superb specs. This phablet is powered by a Mediatek MT6580A SOC clocked at 1.30GHz together with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of ROM. It features a 13MP (interpolated from 8MP) rear camera and a 5MP (interpolated from 2MP) front camera.

Unboxing

Packaging comes with some accessories: 1x Micro-USB Cable, 1x 5V/1A USB Charger, 1x Quick Start Guide, 1x Compliance Regulation booklet, and the Smartphone (of course). A TPU Cover is included, and a plastic screen protector is pre-applied.

Talking about the dimensions, being a phablet, it is normal to have to deal with this sizes. It is 16.5x8.39x1.05cm, with small enough bezels, and weights 224g.

As regards the design, the device is pretty average for the front, nothing really special, but the back cover is great, similar to the one used on the OnePlus One.

On the front side there is the usual 2.5D Curved Display and the upper front side of the device features a Front-Facing Camera supported by a Flashlight, an Earpiece, and the Sensors hole that includes Light, Proximity and Gesture Sensors. A small, almost invisible, Notification LED is here. It supports only one color: blue.

On the lower front side there is the touch-keys zone, with Recents, Home and Back buttons.

On the back side there is the removable back cover, easy to remove, and as already said, with a nice pattern.

The upper rear side of the device features the slightly protruding Camera Sensor supported by a Dual-LED Flashlight.

On the lower rear side there is the Model Name together with some other certification logos.

Device

Screen

Screen Quality is as good/bad as you would imagine from an HD-only panel that is so big, the pixel density is low so you can't expect superb sharpness. It features a decent color reproduction though.

The Light Sensor seems to provide a proper auto-brightness management. This is its maximum brightness. Average.

Viewing Angles match IPS screen capabilities, with no major issues.

Camera

Compared to other budget devices, this one features some decent camera sensors. A Samsung 8MP sensor for the Rear Camera and a GalaxyCore 2MP sensor for the front camera. Unfortunately though, the result isn't as good as expected. Photos are noisy and the HDR mode doesn't make any noticeable difference to the photo.

Here is a photo shot without and with HDR mode, can you find the difference?

Macros are great though, unlike some other devices, so the auto-focus management has been properly calibrated.

Flashlight is powerful enough to support low-light shots, nothing to complain about.

As regards Video Recording, 1080p videos seem to face some issues with the frame-rate, not smooth at all.

Thanks to the front flashlight, the front camera sensor is able to take some decent shots even in low-light conditions, definitely something appreciated by selfie lovers.

Audio

Something that i don't understand about this device is the speaker. In such a big device, it isn't such a great move to use a standard small sized speaker, and a result, the volume isn't pretty high. Luckily though, the quality isn't bad, just a standard smartphone speaker with no low frequencies.

As regards the Microphone, it works decently well in any case (in-call, VOIP, etc...), and the earpiece is loud enough to be used in any condition.

GPS

Unlike most MT6580 devices i have tried, this is the only one that wasn't able to impress me about GPS reception. The signal is medium but the amount of satellites isn't that high, and i wasn't able to lock any satellite indoor.

Indoors on the left, outdoors on the right.

Telephony, Mobile Network & WiFi

This device doesn't support 4G networks, so you have to use your old 3G HSPA+ (42MBps max) connection to use your Mobile Data plan.

Signal Reception is accurate, but 3G coverage is just perfect here where i live so that's something i would have expected. Just like what happens with other devices, 3G Network Speed is low, thanks to my crappy Mobile Network that has lower than average 3G performance.

Something important to say about this device is the networks compatibility, with all bands you can need for an almost worldwide coverage.

WiFi 5GHz isn't supported here. With my 2.4GHz network, i was able to reach almost 10mbps, connected at 65mbps, with higher upload speed than the download speed O_o. WTF?!?! This is definitely a software issue.

Battery Life

As always, i have measured the real battery capacity using my USB Tester, and it seems that the real battery capacity is slightly lower compared to the declared value (declared 4500mAh, real ~4300mAh).

This is the PCMark Work 2.0 Battery Benchmark, outstanding battery runtime.

As regards battery charging times, the 5V/1A charger doesn't allow any fast charging. More than 3 hours are required to charge the device completely, a bit disappointing. Even with a faster charger you won't get any improvement, this is a software limit.

Software

Just like what they did with CUBOT devices, also Hafury ones offer a pure-stock Android experience, in this case based on Android 7.0 Nougat with latest security patches and great overall performance considering the CPU/GPU power.

Just like all Mediatek Devices, also this one features all kinds of additions such as MiraVision, Scheduled Power On/Off and so on...

Something new about this device is Duraspeed directly made by Mediatek, that, based on what the app description says, it is able to increase app performance sacrifying background processes resources. I would call it a Game Mode, but for my tests i haven't used it. (for best accuracy)

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