I tested Umidigi’s $100 5G smartphone so you don't have to: decent specs but iffy security

Spoiler alert: I wasn’t able to connect to a 5G network, as the company promised.

When you look at the specs of Umidigi’s smartphone G9, some of them may appear a little too good to be true for a $100 device.

The 5G smartphone has a triple camera setup with a 50MP main shooter, a two-day-lasting battery, a fingerprint sensor, and a large screen with a decent refresh rate, albeit in a low resolution.

In addition, you also get a charger and a case, allowing you to use a fully equipped device right away with no extra expenses.

While the smartphone experience isn’t flawless, after two weeks with the device, I found that it delivers pretty good performance considering its price. However, there are some trade-offs and potential risks one should consider before deciding to buy such a phone.

Where is my promised 5G network?

If you haven’t heard of Umidigi, this Chinese company is known for making budget-line smartphones and tablets that typically have bigger batteries and come with near-stock Android.

The G9 is currently the cheapest smartphone on the market with 5G connectivity.

Yet, to my great surprise and disappointment, I wasn’t able to use the 5G network on my device at all.

I live in Lithuania, an EU country in Eastern Europe. My carrier provides a 5G network, and I often see a 5G icon on my personal device. But the best I could get with Umidigi’s G9 was LTE – an upgraded 4G network.

Needless to say, the missing 5G connectivity made me very skeptical about what the company puts on the box. To clarify things, I inquired to Umidigi representatives about the missing 5G network, but I didn’t get an explanation.

Not an original design

From a design standpoint, the G9 has a solid build, though it isn’t particularly unique.

While testing, I accidentally found another smartphone that looked very similar to the G9. As you can see in the picture below, Redmi’s Note 13 line also has this triple camera setup with a plastic circle around the flash. Given G9’s price, an unoriginal design probably shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Inside the smartphone, there’s a nearly stock Android 14, which means it doesn’t have a bunch of pre-installed apps like Samsung’s smartphones, which often perform similar functions to Google's.

The smartphone has a large 6.7-inch IPS LCD 1600×720 screen with around 260 PPI density. The screen isn’t bright, the colors aren't vivid, and it is difficult to see things on it in sunlight.

On the plus side, the smartphone has a 90 Hz refresh rate, which is quite good for a budget device.

What about the speed?

One of the things I was most curious about the G9 before trying it out was its performance. Would it be fast enough to complete daily tasks, or would I have to patiently wait every time I switched to a more resource-demanding app?

At first, I was quite surprised with the speed, as the smartphone could quickly switch between apps. I was even able to play a few games on the smartphone, such as Asphalt Legends Unite and the latest version of Call of Duty without major lags, though the low-quality screen impacted the overall experience.

After some time, though, I started to notice lags when switching certain web pages or apps. The slowness was quite apparent when I turned on the camera and tried to switch between various modes and settings.

As one might expect, the $100 device doesn’t come with Qualcomm chips. Instead, the G9 features a chip made by the Chinese company Unisoct, which doesn’t have a track record of making the most secure system on a chip (SoCs).

Unisot’s T765 chip has an octa-core CPU that delivers quite good performance for a budget device. For those who are interested in benchmarks, the G9’s CPU scored 724 in single-core and 1844 in multi-core performance, which puts it somewhere near Samsung’s budget model, the Galaxy A52, released in 2021.

The G9 has 6GB of RAM and 128GB of inner storage, 6GB of which are used as so-called virtual RAM allocated from inner memory. While virtual RAM may make the device run slightly faster, it’s worth remembering that virtual memory is much slower compared to regular RAM.

Camera and the battery

The most unexpected feature of the $100 smartphone was the default camera tool that automatically tells a person’s race and age when the camera is pointed. I found it to be quite fun, and nearly everyone I showed the feature to was curious to see what their age was.

Sometimes, in good lighting conditions, it can determine a person’s age quite accurately, though if the lighting is poor, it can even get your race wrong. In case you are wondering, the age detection tool in the picture made me one year older than I actually am.

Overall, my experience with the camera was mediocre. The G9 is equipped with a 50MP main shooter with a quite decent 1.8 aperture, which looks good on paper. There is also a 3MP macro camera for close shots, a 2 MP depth sensor, and an 8MP front camera for selfies.

You can make good-looking shots, but you need good conditions, such as just enough light. Otherwise, pictures look dark, and if there is slightly too much light during the shot, the colors look unnatural. And there is no HDR that could help “correct” your colors.

Below, you can see the same pictures taken with the G9 and iPhone 13.

Since the smartphone does not have image stabilization, a slight movement of your hand will spoil the picture completely.

Inside the smartphone, you can find some tools such as recording videos in slow-motion, Night mode, and some other features along with manual controls.

One of the best things about Umidigi’s device is its battery life. Large-capacity batteries are quite common among budget smartphones, and the G9 is no exception.

In my experience, the 5000mAh G9 battery lasted more than two days, though I have to admit that I sometimes used my personal device alongside the G9 to use certain apps.

You can charge the G9 with 18W support in around 2 hours.

What about security updates?

Last but not least, we come to one of the main points – the security of the device.

While searching for information about Umidigi, I found posts on Reddit in which users claimed that some of the previous Umidigi devices supported only a few updates after the launch.

I emailed the company to ask how long the smartphone will receive OS and security updates, but the company didn't provide a response. I suppose you can read something between the lines in the absence of an answer.

Without support for updates, your device will quickly become insecure and prone to vulnerabilities.

In addition, I found a recent post suggesting that Unisot's SoCs have vulnerabilities. It wasn’t the first time the security of Unisot's chips has been questioned.

The final word: is it worth the risk?

If we forget the fact that this 5G smartphone does not offer 5G connectivity, I would say that the device offers quite a reasonable performance for its price.

You can mostly complete your daily tasks and even play some games without significant lags. You can also take some good pictures in nearly ideal conditions. And the phone has 128GB of storage for your files and a long-lasting battery.

However, you have to take into account two things. One is that a cheap smartphone will probably not be very durable. The other is that your smartphone will not receive security updates very soon after you buy it.

So, are these features for a cheap price worth the potential security risks? This is something you’ll have to answer for yourself.