Hey guys, I’m Roland, the Techusiast, and I’ve been using the Unihertz Luna for about
two weeks, and here’s how it went.
Let’s take a look!
If you’re not familiar with the Unihertz brand, you should know that the company is
well-known for developing devices that stand out, and the Luna proves that.
The phone looks nothing like a traditional midranger, and it borrows a lot of design
aesthetics from the infamous Nothing Phone One and the latest iPhone series.
The Luna has flat sides, a massive display, and it's rather chunky.
The Luna weighs 298 grams, which is 35 grams heavier than my foldable Galaxy Z Fold 4.
It’s taller and wider than most premium flagships, and it’s also thicker at 10.4mm.
However, despite the large and bulky design, I actually think it looks pretty good.
I love the way it looks, I just wish it was easier to hold, and much lighter.
Sadly, the Luna isn’t a one-handed device, and the large size will almost always require
you to use both hands to stabilise and use the phone.
I would say I have large to medium-sized hands, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure
out a comfortable way to use the phone.
It’s fair to say, I didn’t exactly have an excellent experience, but the Luna was
completely usable with two hands.
The back of the phone is translucent and contains four LED strips.
The outer edge of the phone can get illuminated and diffused all around the edges, but let’s
just say that it’s a bit patchy.
The light can’t reach the corner beside the camera island, giving it a less-than-desirable
look.
That said, the LED makes the phone stand out, and it’s probably the main reason you clicked
on this video.
Overall, the Unihertz Luna looks good but doesn’t handle great due to its heavy and
large size.
It’s not exactly the most ergonomic smartphone.
That said, Unihertz deserves some praise for not sacrificing the build quality, and the
Luna is made of glass and metal, making the device feel premium.
The Unihertz Luna is powered by the MediaTek Helio G99 chipset, and it provides a midrange
performance, similar to the Snapdragon 695.
However, it lacks 5G connectivity and it only supports 4G LTE.
The phone has 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, making it great for using multiple apps simultaneously.
There’s no expandable storage, but at least you get a fingerprint scanner embedded in
the power button, an IR sensor, a 3.5mm headphone jack on top, and two customizable buttons
on the left side.
In terms of performance, the Unihertz Luna can tackle everyday tasks, workflows, and
apps, but it’s far from a gaming smartphone.
I found that more demanding games often made the phone hot, and the frames also dipped.
It’s fair to say, it’s not a gaming smartphone, but luckily games are still playable once
you turn down the settings.
The phone performed well when I browsed the web, sent messages, and used a few social
media apps to keep up with friends.
Everything worked flawlessly, but it’s worth keeping in mind that it’s not a performance
champion, and it can slow down every once in a while under heavy loads.
Moving over to the display, you won’t be surprised to see that the screen measures
6.8 inches.
The Luna sports an IPS LCD panel with Full HD+ resolution.
It’s flat screen, and there are no curved edges, and the bezels are also fairly small
on the sides.
The bottom does have a small chin, but I don’t consider it a deal breaker for a phone that
costs this much.
When it comes to the actual display quality, let’s just say, it’s less than stellar.
While I haven’t had any major issues with the colours, it’s fair to say that it’s
not the most colour-accurate panel I’ve ever seen, and the viewing angles are also
nothing to brag about.
The most frustrating thing out of all these wasn’t even the colour or the viewing angles,
but the brightness.
The Luna is too dim, regardless of whether I’m inside or outside.
I often found the phone hard to use as I constantly had to fight with the brightness slider, which
I always had to max out when I went outside.
It’s normally fine when I’m using the phone in a room full of lights, but it can
be challenging on a hot sunny day.
Consuming media was fine most of the time, and the Luna was enjoyable for watching videos
and movies, and games also looked good.
In general, the display works well and gets the job done, but the content will not be
easily visible if you want to use the phone outside in the sunshine.
The software of the Unihertz Luna is pretty standard and basic.
It comes with stock Android, and I found the user experience pretty decent, as far as features
and navigation goes.
The phone runs Android 12, and it has split screen, dark mode, and all the features that
we have come to expect from this nearly two year old operating system.
The reason I’m highlighting Android 12 isn’t just a coincidence.
You see, The Unihertz Luna was released recently, and as much I like stock Android, it’s an
old operating system, and it’s a shame that it’s not updated to Android 13 already.
The fact that the Unihertz Luna launched with Android 12 isn’t a good sign, and I have
doubts about the phone’s future as I haven’t seen any announcements or timelines that would
suggest it's going to get updated.
Inside settings, you can customise the two hardware buttons, located on the left side.
The settings let you set up to six applications using a short, long press and double tap features.
I’ve set my top button to open Twitter, long press to toggle the flashlight, and double
press to take a screenshot.
It’s pretty easy to customize to your liking, and it can give you quick shortcuts to your
favourite features and apps.
When it comes to the lights on the back, the Luna has a dedicated LED lights option in
settings.
It lets you change the brightness of the LEDs, enable the lights for notifications, and turn
on the visualisation for media playback.
Users can also set up the Ambient Light feature that allows them to sync the lights to the
content displayed on the screen, which could provide a more immersive experience when playing
games or watching movies.
Aside from that, the lights can be toggled to be always on, and there are also seven
patterns users can choose from; where each pattern has a different color and style.
Users can also create their own and select their own colour, and I quite like the features
Unihertz provides out of the box.
Overall, the software experience isn’t bad, and I like that Unihertz didn’t pack the
Luna with any bloatware.
The phone runs well, and it has all the Android 12 features that we all know and love.
However, it’s a shame that it’s not running Android 13 with a more up-to-date security
patch.
I’m hoping that Unihertz manages to keep the Luna updated in the future, but as it
stands, I don’t have a lot of confidence in that actually happening.
As for the rest of the device, it’s pretty barebones, but there are some great features
that let you customise the LED lights and the two hardware buttons.
They’re both great additions that can help you get more out of this phone, and the general
performance was also great without any major issues.
The Unihertz Luna comes with three cameras on the back.
There’s a 108MP primary, a 20MP night vision camera, and a 2MP macro sensor.
The primary lens take decent images during daytime, but the photos tend to appear oversharpened,
and there’s too much contrast.
The dynamic range is also a hit-and-miss, and the colours are either oversaturated or
too washed out most of the time.
If you don’t mind tweaking some of the images, the photos can be Instagram-ready in just
a few taps, but if you’re looking for the perfect point-and-shoot camera, this certainly
isn’t it.
The image quality takes a deep dive once we take some photos in low-light and at night.
The camera struggles to focus, there’s a lot of noise and blown-out lights and other
artifacts.
It’s not the best camera for capturing photos at night, but that’s what the night vision
camera is for, right?
Well, it’s certainly a good party trick, and it definitely works.
I’ve captured some of these images in complete darkness, and it’s quite impressive to see
this technology on a smartphone at a price that doesn’t break the bank.
The selfie camera is almost always blown out in direct sunlight and in bright conditions,
and the colours are washed out.
The sharpness also takes a hit, although there’s enough detail on the primary subject.
It’s certainly usable, but like the main camera, it might require a little bit of work.
Overall, the camera on the Unihertz Luna isn’t anything special.
It doesn’t quite reach my expectations for devices at this price range, although it does
decent photos during daytime.
If you’re looking for a point-and-shoot camera smartphone, this isn’t it, but it’ll
take okay photos most of the time, that is, if you’re willing to put some work into
it after the shoot.
The Unihertz Luna comes with a 5,000 mAh battery cell inside, which feels rather small when
we see how absolutely gigantic the phone really is.
Having said that, I guess it can be justified as the LED lights probably take up a considerable
amount of space inside, that likely contributes to the massive size and heavy weight of the
device.
The Luna can last about a day on a single charge with the lights on, and about two days
if you conserve the battery.
It’s not a battery champion, and I also noticed that it can drain quite a bit overnight
for seemingly no reason, with the LEDs turned off.
Charging the Luna is easy and straightforward.
The phone came with an 18W power adapter which is pretty standard for devices in this price
range.
A full charge takes a while, but I’m glad that it was at least provided inside the box.
Overall, the battery of the Unihertz Luna isn’t bad, and it can comfortably last a
full day on a single charge, that is, if you turn the LED lights down a bit – which are
super bright, even on the lowest settings.
So, here comes the question.
Should you buy the Unihertz Luna?
The thing is, the Luna isn’t a bad phone, but it’s not a great one either.
It lets you play games, multitask and get work done, but it doesn’t have an impressive
camera, and the lights alone don’t make the entire smartphone.
The Luna also ships with outdated software, and it’s questionable whether it’ll receive
Android 13, or Android 14 later in 2023.
Having said that, if you’re after a device that stands out and looks different, by all
means, the Unihertz Luna will do a great job.
However, if you’re after a smartphone that’s more manageable and easier to handle, and
comes with a more up-to-date software with the promise of receiving more updates, the
Samsung Galaxy A23 and the Google Pixel 6a are far better deals.
The Galaxy A23 might not have an amazing camera quality, but the phone is thinner, smaller,
and provides an equally impressive performance.
The Pixel 6a can often be found for even less than $300 in the US, now that the Pixel 7a
is available, and it’s ideal for anyone looking for the best camera smartphone on
a budget with flagship-level performance.
And there you have it.
I hope you found this video useful.
Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a like if you enjoyed this video.
With all that said, thank you for watching.
I’ll see you next time.