BLU Advance 4.0 Unlocked Dual SIM Phone (White)
- Unlocked Dual SIM Phone, Dual Core 1.3 GHz Processor
- 4.0″ High Resolution WVGA Display
- 3.5 mm Audio Jack, FM Radio, MP3 Player, MP4 Player Micro SD Slot up to 32GB
- Android 4.2 Jelly Bean
- 4GHSPA+ 21 Mbps 850/1700/1900: Nationwide AT&T: Cricket Wireless, Tracfone, Straight Talk, Net10, H20 Wireless, 420 Wireless, Black Wireless, Consumer Cellular, Pure TalkUSA, Red Pocket, Telcel America. T-Mobile: MetroPCS, Lyca, Speedtalk, Go Smart, Simple Mobile, Net10, Straight Talk, Solavei, Ultra Mobile, Telcel America, Walmart Family Mobile.
BLU Advance 4.0 A270a Unlocked Dual Sim White
List Price: $ 89.00
Price: [wpramaprice asin=”B00HPTMCRI”]
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Would be perfect except for the screen,
To introduce myself, I had a Samsung Skyrocket S2 that decided to die on me at the end of last month, and then my backup phone (a cheap Chinese phone) decided to start dying too. There’s a phone I want to spend some money on coming out in the next few months, but I need something to get by and to act as a backup phone when I do make that purchase, so after some searching I settled for this one. I listen to a lot of music on my phone, read email, do some app development of my own as a grad student, and occasionally watch videos on Youtube or use GPS to find some place I’ve never visited before. All in all, barring development I’m a fairly gentle phone user but I also have some tech savvy to form a useful opinion. When I looked up info on the Advance 4.0, I was able to find specs but not much in the way of useful reviews, so I tried to be as thorough writing this as possible.
Design: The Advance 4.0 is bulky for a 4″ phone – it’s nearly as large in length and width as my 4.5″ Samsung S2 Skyrocket, and it’s thicker too. The outside of the case is smooth plastic – it isn’t slippery in the hand but it does attract fingerprints more than any other phone I’ve had. However, the phone does come with an Otterbox-like case and a screen protector, and I’d recommend using both. Inside under the battery are two SIM slots and an SD slot. The SIM slots are easy to use and well-labelled but the SD slot frankly scares me. It’s flimsy and easy to bend and doesn’t offer much protection to the card in the slot. Add that to being under the battery and this isn’t a phone for someone who likes to use multiple SD cards. However, all of this is to be expected with a phone in this price range, and getting a case and screen protector included is a great deal.
Performance: The MediaTek chip and 512mb of RAM in this phone might not be impressive compared to a flagship phone, but for day to day operation they perform admirably. Multitasking is generally quick, Youtube and Google Maps load quickly and the phone is loaded with what is basically stock Jelly Bean, which is great. There’s no extra junkware to get rid of and the Play Store is ready to go. I should note that I am not a phone gamer, but if you want a cell phone that can play high-end games this is probably not the phone for you. Social games and the like should work fine (I only tried Angry Birds, hardly a tech demo game).
Connectivity: The Advance 4.0’s antenna is quite strong – I had trouble getting signal in my basement with my S2, but get 3 bars with this phone. Bluetooth connectivity is similarly impressive – I was able to pair my headset immediately and had signal with my phone in one corner of the house all the way to the garage on the other side – 45 feet away through walls. Data connectivity is flawless – both on wifi and 3g (the phone is compatible with HSPA+) are capped by my provider and ping was good per Speedtest. 3g tethering also works well – assuming your provider lets you do this.
Battery: The Advance 4.0 comes with a 1600mah battery, which with the MediaTek chip should last a very long time. To test, I unplugged the phone at 7AM yesterday, and for the entire day streamed music via wifi to my bluetooth headset – a double drain on the battery. I also downloaded a variety of apps and podcasts and browsed the web some. Then I left the phone on overnight, continuing to download more podcasts while I slept. When I plugged it in at 7:30 this morning it still had 25% battery left. For a budget phone this is outstanding. I wouldn’t normally listen to 12 hours of music like that, so there’s no way I’m going to kill the battery unless I forget to charge it for two days.
Screen: … and this is where the wheels come off. The screen on this phone is just short of abysmal. It’s not that it’s an 800×480 screen – I’ve had that resolution on other phones and they looked much better than this one. The colors are distorted unless you are looking directly at the phone. This isn’t the usual complaint that reviewers have about viewing angles – you literally can’t be tilting the phone at all or it’s no good. In addition, even if you are looking directly at it images and videos are grainy and just don’t look right. However, for normal phone navigation and app use it’s adequate. If you wanted to watch anything on your phone, you will be disappointed. I’m lucky that my top use for a smartphone (streaming music) doesn’t require much use of this screen.
Conclusion:
With a phone in this price range, something always has to give. You either get an a phone that’s still running Gingerbread, specs that are subpar, or a battery that can’t make it through the day. In this case it’s the screen, but even that is really only so bad if you want to watch videos. I expect later this year there will be a lot of competition for budget phones, but if you need a phone right now and only…
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|Great performance, great price!!! (but secondary camera really sucks =P),
PROS:
+ Convenient price, I was looking for a phone with longlasting battery.
+ Android 4.2 … same performance as other expensive phones like Samsung
+ 5.0 mp camera… I’ve made great photos!!!
+ Wireless conection works fast without any problems;
+ Decent speakers… I also use it for listening music from YouTube
CONS:
+ Front camera (secundary) really sucks… I prefer dont use it
+ Something everybody should know (it happens in all smartphones, all marks, its a “massive” fraud): description talks about 4 GB internal memory storage but the phone only shows 1.24 GB. The sellers never say that Android software decrease significantly available memory, so you are obligated to buy a SD card.
+ An Android system defect: it’s designed more like minitablet than a phone… when you’re in a call and look for some data in your phone, its difficult get back to the call for hang up.
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