Seven New Blu Phones Announced, Including 3 That Are Lollipop Upgradable

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Seven New Blu Phones Announced, Including 3 That Are Lollipop Upgradable

Blu usually does this; the US based vendor often launches devices in batches rather than having a launch for each one. Today, the company announced a total of seven devices, out of which it promises three will get updated to Lollipop. As you would’ve expected, none of the phones really are flagship killers or anything of that sort, but rather mid-range phones that look good, and don’t burn a hole in your pocket. Lets take a look.

The Vivo Air is a 5.1mm thin octa-core smartphone, with a 4.8-inch 1280 x 720 pixel display, 1GB of RAM, an 8 mega-pixel rear camera and a 5 mega-pixel front camera besides a 2100mAh battery. From what we can tell, the phone is manufactured at Gionee facilities; the Chinese company offers the device with the ‘Elife S5.1′ moniker. A rebrand was launched in the UK too, recently. The Vivo Air will retail for US$199 starting this month.

Moving on, the Blue Studio Energy is a battery-centric phone with a massive 5,000mAh battery, which should take you through a couple days of heavy use. Other than that, there’s a 5-inch 720p display covered in Gorilla Glass 3, a 1.3GHz quad-core CPU, 1GB RAM, 8 mega-pixel rear camera and a 2 mega-pixel front facing camera. The phone will retail for US$179.

The Blu Life One and One XL are variants of the One series, and come with 5-inch and 5.5-inch screens respectively. Both phones come with Snapdragon 410 SoCs, 1GB RAM, 8GB ROM, 13 mega-pixel rear cameras and 5 mega-pixel front cameras, and have the same 1280 x 720p resolution despite the difference in screen size. While the Life One comes with a 2420mAh battery, the One XL has a 2820mAh cell. Also, something that should make the devices more of a bargain is the fact that Blu promises an update to Lollipop, minus a timeline. The Life One and Life One XL will be available for purchase for US$179 and US$199 respectively.

The Studio X and the X Plus that Blu announced today come with 5-inch and 5.5-inch screens with a 1280 x 720p resolution. Both come powered by the popular MediaTek MT6582 quad-core CPU along with 1GB RAM and 8GB ROM and have 8 mega-pixel rear cameras and 2 mega-pixel front shooters. While the Studio X has a 2100mAh battery, the X Plus comes in with a 2600mAh unit. Both of these devices are among the ones promised to get Lollipop updates. While the Studio X is priced US$129, the larger cousin of the device will go for US$159.

Last but not the least is the affordable Blue Studio G. It comes with a 5-inch FWVGA display along with the same MediaTek MT6582 processor that features on the Studio X series. However, there’s just 512MB RAM on this one paired with 4GB of on-board storage. Besides, it has a 5 mega-pixel rear camera and a 2 mega-pixel front facing one, and a 2000mAh battery that should last through one work day. The device gets a US$89 price tag.