In this Orbic Maui review, we revealed the essential advantages of the phone, like the battery life. We also assessed some flaws you need to know.
Orbic Maui smartphone was released in 2020. There are already a lot of budget phones in the market today. Yet this particular model also tries to get a place in customers’ hearts.
The advantage of owning Orbic Maui lies in its cheap price. We see a decent lineup of specs in a glance. The processor is a 1.3GHz chipset from Qualcomm. And it comes with a pretty recent version of Android, Android 10.
The battery is quite sizable at 3,000mAh. It powers a 5.45-inch HD+ display and 8MP rear camera. We didn’t spot a fingerprint sensor on the back.
This Orbic Maui review will take a look into the phone’s specifications with more depth. We also provide an analysis of the phone’s advantages and weaknesses.
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Key Specs
Orbic Maui specifications:
- Weight: 141g
- Dimensions: 149.8 x 73.66 x 8.89mm
- OS: Android 10
- Screen size: 5.45-inch
- Resolution: 1280 x 720
- CPU: 1.3GHz Quad-core, Qualcomm Snapdragon 215
- RAM: 2GB
- Storage: 16GB
- Battery: 3,000mAh, Non-removable
- Rear camera: 8MP
- Front camera: 5MP
Design
Orbic Maui is a device with a combination of lightweight, but bulky. It feels like nothing is being carried on, but when you hold it, you can sense its thickness. The exact dimension itself is 149.8 x 73.66 x 8.89mm, which confirms our suspicion. As for its weight, it’s only 141g.
This is clearly a cheap phone, as you refer to the design and material choice. The phone is made of plastic. The color choice only comes in black, both in frame and casing. The design is quite plain and unexciting. It won’t make onlookers turn their heads twice upon spotting the device.
The display doesn’t conform to the full-screen trend as in popular phones nowadays. The square-shaped screen has a sharp corner, and it leaves a large space around as bezels. On top of the screen, lies the front camera and a speaker.
The back cover is probably our most favorite part out of the overall design. The casing is matte black, which hides reflections and makes the phone look a bit more premium-looking.
There are not many items you find here, just the camera and a couple of logos. The simplicity is what we like here. Build quality is average, though. After all, it’s still a budget device.
Read also: Orbic Maui User Manual
Display
Orbic Maui has a relatively small screen (5.45-inch) compared to other phones which tend to be over 6-inch. It also has an average resolution and is categorized as an HD+ screen. There’s no additional feature like scratch-resistant on the display. If you own this phone, adding a screen protector is a good idea.
The 5.45-inch can feel too small for some people. It is still good for watching movies, but falls short when it comes to splitting the screen. Stacking two apps at once is tricky because there’s not much space especially if you also need to use the keyboard. Orbic Maui is not an ideal phone for multitasking like this.
The screen still gives ample space for full-screen gaming and streaming. The best quality you can get is HD+. Although it’s technically a high-definition screen, it’s actually an average screen quality. On YouTube, the choice of video quality tops with 720p videos. No access available for Full HD videos.
However, for a phone at this price, an HD+ quality is making sense. It’s not too bad for a sharp-looking display and there’s no problem related to dead- and rough pixels. At the same time, it keeps the manufacturing costs low, therefore consumers can buy the device cheaply.
Camera
For cameras, you get an 8MP lens back camera with Orbic Maui. Don’t expect flashy features like dual-camera (or more) with this device. The sole companion of the back lens is an LED flash. On the other side, there’s a 5MP lens for selfies.
With this setup, Orbic Maui certainly doesn’t have the photography edge among competitors. It’s not something surprising for us, though it’s not rare we’ve seen better specs on this price range. Overall, Orbic Maui’s camera quality is slightly below average.
The picture quality is not the best, but good enough for capturing everyday moments for social media. Moreover, Orbic Maui makes it easy for you to share pictures with several clicks only. We think the main purpose for cameras on this phone is social-related. It’s certainly not for hobbyists.
The camera also struggles at night. There’s an LED flash, but it can only help so much. It’s great for portrait shots where the object is close to the camera but underperforms when taking a landscape picture. You’ll find lots of noise too in the photos you take.
Meanwhile, the front camera is a standard selfie taker. Nothing much to be celebrated over its features. It serves a similar purpose as the back lens, that it’s more for everyday moments than for taking pro-like photos.
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Storage
Orbic Maui comes with 16GB internal memory with an option for expandable storage. The biggest SD card you can install on the phone is the 256GB one. In terms of size, 256GB is more than enough for a low-spec phone like this.
Back to the internal storage, 16GB is considered a bare minimum on a smartphone. Out of that capacity, around 10GB is available for users to save their data. It’s not a lot, to be honest. And it seems like you will have to upgrade the storage eventually, whether you like it or not. However, this is not a big problem since SD cards are generally cheap.
Performance
Orbic Maui runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 215 processor. This chipset clocks the performance at 1.3GHz. A slightly better version than the ultimate basic Snapdragon 210, Orbic Maui should run better than other cheap phones.
However, in reality, there are not many improvements between the 210 version and the 215 version. These are both low-cost CPUs, and each comes with hiccups, lags, and other performance issues. In this Orbic Maui review, we found that the biggest hurdle is when the phone multitasks.
The RAM capacity is 2GB. It could be lower but thankfully we got a decent-sized capacity here. Else, the performance can suffer even more badly.
Still, Orbic Issue is clearly not for rigorous phone usage. It’s better to not open too many apps in the background, as it could put a heavy burden on the CPU and RAM. Otherwise, the phone can not only be laggy but also freeze and unusable. When that happens, it can test users’ patience a lot.
Doing one task at a time is a good strategy. When doing that, you can stream YouTube videos smoothly. It’s also applicable to chats, social media, and internet browsing. When playing games, clean the RAM and close other apps. This is the kind of compromise you will make with Orbic Maui.
With this phone, you get the latest Android 10. It’s a more lightweight and optimized version of Android than its predecessor. Using Android 10 is a smart move because the phone can take advantage of all the optimizations.
The user interface is intuitive and easy to use. As per usual, Google apps are ready and pre-installed. There’s not much customization and bloatware that would burden the CPU.
Some standard sensors are available on this phone, including accessibility features. The Android comes with Google Smart Assistant, where you can do tasks with voice commands. Orbic Maui also comes with multi-language support and hearing aid compatibility.
Connectivity
Orbic Maui is a 4G phone, claiming to provide crystal clear calls with VoLTE. It is a prepaid phone, so you know you will only spend as much as a certain predetermined amount you have set. On top of the mobile data, you will also be able to use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
There’s an issue related to coverage. This phone is slow when you bring it outside an urban area. For that reason, it’s best to find a more reliable network provider. Orbic Maui seems to struggle with network connections.
As a result, there’s also occasional difficulty using the GPS for navigation. Especially when navigation also uses cell towers besides satellites, finding ways to go to a certain place can be frustrating.
It’s the Wi-Fi that seems to be free of problems. In some cases, it is the only way to browse the internet and stream movies smoothly. Wired data transfer is also good since this phone uses the new USB Type-C technology.
Battery
Orbic Maui comes with a 3,000mAh battery, which in our opinion, is big for a phone this small. As a result, the battery can power the phone for a long time. Orbic Maui records 10 hours of talk time on a single charge. It can stay on for 5 days on standby. Generally, one full day is the typical battery life you can expect from Orbic Maui.
The charging on this phone is done through a standard USB port. Charging time is average too. No additional features are attached to the charger, such as wireless charging or quick charging.
Is the Orbic Maui a good phone?
Orbic Maui emphasizes being a phone to stay connected, but without unnecessary extras. From this perspective, the phone does its job disappointingly. There are occasional problems with call quality and networks. The performance is not the best either. It’s your job to determine whether the flaws are something worth compromising.
The phone is selling at $69,99. It is affordable but we think it’s a tad bit overpriced when considering the quality. On the flip side, the highlight feature of this phone is the long-lasting battery. Its big capacity allows you days of standby time and helps you stay connected all day. That pretty much summarizes our Orbic Maui review.
Orbic Maui Pros
- HD+ screen
- Big battery
- Affordable price
Orbic Maui Cons
- Limited performance
- Low-quality camera
- Issues with network
