BLU Life One (2015) General Discussion

[TheNewSandwich]

Hey all,

I recently got a BLU Life One (2015) for my wife and I and, while I'm generally satisfied, there are few things that have me puzzled and wanting to discuss with other owners. I figured this would be a good place to connect. I'll start things off:

-App crashing: I use BeyondPod to listen to podcasts and I've noticed, without fail, if I try to use Chrome, BeyondPod will close every time. From what I've found, this is a mechanism to free up needed RAM. Has anyone had similar issues? Have you found a work around?

-General slowdown: Most of the time this phone feels snappy, with only a little slowdown here and there. For $99, the phone far exceeds my expectations. However, there will be times where the phone will slow to a crawl with no apparent reason for doing so. I've found that turning off automatic updates helps a lot because it lets you start the updates at a non-peak usage time.

-Sound controls: Why would they hide these sliders under all the menus? There are apps/widgets to solve this problem but that's just one more thing running on a phone that isn't designed for multitasking.

These are a few of the points of frustration I have but I'll post more oddities and fixes as I use the phone more. I know there are other things but they aren't coming to me at the moment.

Do you have the BLU Life One (2015)? Have you noticed anything worth mentioning? I hope this post grabs some attention because this is an awesome phone for the price and it would be nice to have a place to talk with other owners. Hope to hear from the community soon!

Sent from my BLU LIFE ONE using Tapatalk

 

[Bamzor]

I was able to get 2 at the $99 price (now $150) My wife and I had s3's, Teens have Iphone 6's and galaxy S6. We were still using our S3's and are our backup phones now. I really hope Blu can pull it together and give us a good above average smartphone. LTE is the main reason I looked at it... I'm happy so far!!
I am unfamiliar with a phone operating with 2 operating systems Chrome or Opera. I tried to see if Opera would uninstall easily, but didn't see the option??? Should we have both?
I am noticing some intermediate slow down then it picks back up quickly. Usually opening FB app. Right now I have most apps running off the phone not the sd card.
I did notice in one of the Amazon reviews someone explaining how to adjust settings and enjoyed the speed it provided.
I have done several hours of messenger video app talking with my wife. I am very happy with the quality of the front camera for video chatting.

 

[AndyinNola]

I also snared one at the $99 price. Been using it as a GSM test bed alongside an Alcatel Idol 3 and Lumia 640. Given its compromises in RAM and CPU and lack of Band 12, I think it's an impressive handset. Has run off T-Mobile, AT&T Go Phone and Cricket with nary a hiccup. I've used it in dual SIM mode, and appreciate the flexibility, about acknowledging that you can't have an SD card and SIM 2 installed simultaneously.

I'm not sure I'd purchase at $149, given the new Motorola G, but for $99 it's been a solid value.

Sent from my 6045I using Tapatalk

 

[TheNewSandwich]

Glad to see some others out there picked this phone up. I can agree with everything said so far. There is still some disappointment with the general speed of the device but for $99, I can't really complain. One thing that is top notch on this phone is design and build quality. It really feels like a premium device. I'm wondering how it will hold up with lollipop.

Sent from my BLU LIFE ONE using Tapatalk

 

[TheNewSandwich]

Oh about Opera, unfortunately that ones there to stay. I honestly haven't used it so I can't say if its worth your time. Personally, I'd stick with Chrome.

Another quick note, my wife has moved back to a HTC One M8. The lagginess and slow downs were too much for her.

Sent from my BLU LIFE ONE using Tapatalk

 

[cusanelly]

Hi guys.

I have one and, so far, have been working really well. There is something i have to say, i'm not a social media person, i have accounts on social media, however, i don't have the social media apps installed on my phone, probably this is something that makes my phone out of crashes or not working really slow?. I don't know, however, from my point of view, i know that the Blue Life One just have 1gb of RAM, so i try to avoid to have to many services running in the background.

The OS uses half of the RAM, i have whatsapp, trello, evernote, cyberghost, hotspot shield and skype running as a service and this use almost 35% of the RAM left.
I disabled all google services, except Maps and Gmail. I like Chrome, but, Chrome use to much RAM, so i uninstalled it.

I rooted my phone, so that give me the advantage to uninstall app that don't need, for example, Chrome, you can uninstall Opera if your phone is rooted, however, you can disabled it and that will work.

So, that's part of the things i have been doing with the phone and have work for me. I think the best way to keep this phone working really well is to avoid running too many services at time.

Hope this helps and it's really nice to see a general discussion about this phone.

 

[TheNewSandwich]

Hi guys.

I have one and, so far, have been working really well. There is something i have to say, i'm not a social media person, i have accounts on social media, however, i don't have the social media apps installed on my phone, probably this is something that makes my phone out of crashes or not working really slow?. I don't know, however, from my point of view, i know that the Blue Life One just have 1gb of RAM, so i try to avoid to have to many services running in the background.

The OS uses half of the RAM, i have whatsapp, trello, evernote, cyberghost, hotspot shield and skype running as a service and this use almost 35% of the RAM left.
I disabled all google services, except Maps and Gmail. I like Chrome, but, Chrome use to much RAM, so i uninstalled it.

I rooted my phone, so that give me the advantage to uninstall app that don't need, for example, Chrome, you can uninstall Opera if your phone is rooted, however, you can disabled it and that will work.

So, that's part of the things i have been doing with the phone and have work for me. I think the best way to keep this phone working really well is to avoid running too many services at time.

Hope this helps and it's really nice to see a general discussion about this phone.

Hey Cusanelly,

I've noticed some weird behavior with certain apps being installed on the SD card as well. I'm not sure if it is unique to this device or if perhaps it is related to KitKat. I noticed that any app that required a sign in was requiring a sign in basically every time I launched it. That got really frustrating with apps like OneDrive and music streaming services. The only solution I was able to come up with was moving them to the phone. That's fine if you only have a handful of apps but if you have a bunch, it could be an issue with the 8GB of storage.

What did you use to root? I've been pondering this for the same reasons. Clean house and do some optimization. Thanks!

 

[Dascot09]

Rooting: I used Kingo to root my Life One, it's very easy to use.

My phone is developing an annoying habit of freezing if I have too many apps open (although many apps are on the SD card and linked "Link2SD" app). When that happens I lose nearly all of the folders on my home screen. apparently this is because the bootup doesn't get a fast enough response from the SD card. HOWEVER, that is supposed to be fixed by using Link2SD....... stay tuned, as they say, for more updates on this.

 

[anon(5348756)]

-App crashing: I use BeyondPod to listen to podcasts and I've noticed, without fail, if I try to use Chrome, BeyondPod will close every time. From what I've found, this is a mechanism to free up needed RAM. Has anyone had similar issues? Have you found a work around?

Hey, I know this thread is a bit old, but since I read about your problem I figured I'd give you my 2 cents. The app isn't crashing at all, it's a memory leak in Android (4 and 5, supposedly fixed by 5.1.1). Your app isn't crashing at all, the problem is that whether you close apps manually or not, the system doesn't always liberate that memory and it remains occupied (hence the leak). When the phone runs out of memory, it drops apps from memory, like your podcast player.

I only know because I tweeted at the BeyondPod devs and this is what they told me. Coincidentally, I had just bought Pocket Casts that day since I was tired of the app closing while I was using Google Maps on my Moto E LTE, and it keeps happening. The only way it won't drop the app is if I leave GMaps in the background and keep the podcast app open (sort-of workaround, but I can't see map directions then, I have to rely on audio).

I just bought a Blu Life One X this weekend for the ridiculous $99 and I fully expect the problem to remain as it's 5.1 and not 5.1.1, but even then, having 2GB RAM should alleviate the dropping issue as long as Android liberates memory when I manually close apps.

I hope this helps!

 

[1Selfmindles]

Its not operating on two os it has two internet browsers and to be honest opera isn't all that bad

 

[tabspb]

Sorry I don't do podcasts. But I have managed to keep the speed with the phone. First is the SD card. Unfortunately not all apps will transfer to it. However, in the settings/apps/ there is a scroll sideways. First one will show your "downloads", swipe right and then there's "SD card" another swipe shows what's "running" and the next swipe is "All". In the All section you can click on each app and a dialog box comes up showing Force Stop/Show Notifications/Uninstall and Clear Data. In there you can lighten the load of your phone by applying some of these. Uninstall is obvious but the default (check mark) beside Notifications is a huge deal. Anything you're not interested in can be unchecked but the app will still run perfectly (i.e. less intrusion coming your way). Clear Data can empty the trash can, so to speak, of areas you have viewed in firefox/chrome/app ads and so on. If you want to keep an app around but suspend it (i.e. purchased and don't want to use) you can "force stop" and it will add another swipe category to the right called "Disabled" which you can go into and enable at anytime. And then there's the famous "Clear Cache" which if you see on most apps but i only notice that being in the "Downloaded" portion of the apps list. Clearing it is again like emptying the trash. Nothing I have noticed has been affected and I do that all the time.

Sometimes the overall menu is dreadfully uninformative on options and sometimes there's layers to get to something.
I am interested in knowing a few things if anyone can answer:
1. You mentioned "automatic updates". How do you turn them off? I'd rather download at work than download on home wifi. It's free and cheaper.
2. All of the sudden after every phone call I get a really pesty advertisement. So I can't get rid of it unless I tap to download, view or no thanks. This is exasperating each time. Is there a way to turn that off? Huh how rude. Who needs that, ever!
3. Why does the "ok Google" have to be at the top of every page. Is there a way to just have it on the home page and free up all the other pages. It used to be a widget option. It is annoying especially if you don't use it often not to mention it occupies valuable space.

Thanks Android Central for all the great feedback people give. I've learned alot.