I was looking for an inexpensive "mid ranger", I had an HTC One M7 (Google Edition), then it died so I was using a cheap Lumia 640 on Windows but decided to jump back to Android.
Only had the Blu for a couple of days, but I'm pretty impressed. It's really thin and the "leather" like back helps the grip, much more than my super-slippery Lumia 640.
I put it on the included charger as soon as I opened the box, I don't know how much of a charge it started with but it took about 2 hours to bring it up to full.
It then took me another couple of hours to get all my apps installed, get all the Google stuff set up and get it configured to my liking.
Couple of things, the screen is pretty incredible, I compared it side-by-side with my HTC One M7 and the Blu screen is definitely better, very sharp, the higher quality photos look almost 3D because they're so sharp.
The color rendition is outstanding in my opinion, I have zero complaints about the screen, I'm not sure how any phone could have one better. Also, the screen can be made very bright, brighter than any other cell phone I've ever used. The auto dimmer works very well, I hardly notice it but the screen is always at "just right" brightness.
The Blu is also fast enough, it's a bit faster than the HTC One, just a little of the typical Android stumble as I scroll through long web pages.
There's hardly any junk or bloatware at all on it, seems very stock Android 5.1 to me. There's the Blu launcher or I downloaded the Google launcher, actually the Blu works better but you don't get the Google Now page or whatever they call it when you swipe right.
Also, the phone is very thin, I'm surprised at how thin it is. This one weighs 142 grams with a 64GB microSD card installed. I also didn't realize, this is a dual SIM phone, I never needed that feature but it's there.
The touchscreen seemed sensitive but there's a setting for low, med and high and I changed it to medium and it seems better.
The phone is also very easy to hold in one hand, although I'm not a good one-hander anyway with phones.
Speaker is in the back, the volume doesn't go as high as I'd like and conversations are a bit muddy, which is a disappointment. But people on the other end say it sounds fine.
Battery life seems a little disappointing so far, I can actually watch it decrease in 1% increments as I sit there with it. I uninstalled Facebook app and also the dumb Google Inbox, both of which are said to eat battery life, so we'll see. The Lumia 640 had unreal battery life, literally days.
I also uninstalled the home screen wallpaper and am just using pure black. I'll keep an eye on battery life, maybe I'm just not used to Android battery life because it's been a while (although I use an Nvidia Shield K1 and Asus MeMo Pad 8 tablet every day).
Not sure what else to add, I don't like huge phones and the Blu screen is about 5 mm taller than the HTC One, but I could probably go a little bigger both height and width next time.
I am absolutely not a fan of expensive phones, the technology changes and evolves so fast that it doesn't make sense to me to spend a lot, plus the action nowadays is in the low/mid range, there are some fantastic phones out there that are way better than high end phones of just a couple of years ago -- like my HTC One M7, which was like a $625.00 phone when Google first released it.
Anyway, if anyone has questions I can answer, let me know. So far, very much liking the Blu Life One X, definitely a steal at its list price of $149.00.
EDIT: Also, it received an update from Blu the second time I turned on the phone. The only thing I notice is that sometimes if I go to move an icon, the phone won't take a long press, it immediately opens the icon. But if I open some other app, then close it and go back to the home screen, the long press then allows me to move the icon. Not sure what's up with that, I'll keep an eye on it.
UPDATE: It's now been about a week of hard use, I'm really liking this phone. The screen is incredible, really, the best phone screen I've used. I used the settings to tweak the screen a bit, making the colors slightly more vivid. Text and photos are extremely sharp, really nice.
I also deleted a couple of apps -- like Android Central -- and use the mobile websites instead, and that really helps battery life. I also changed the battery display to remove the percent and only show the battery icon. I discovered I was too focused on watching the percentage numbers, which change and make it seem like the battery is draining way faster than it really is. But removing the apps and using mobile web definitely helps.
I'm trying to use the "Smart Lock" system, where you can set it to not require a password when you're at home or a specific location. But it seems inconsistent; sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. It seems to depend on where I swipe on the screen. Haven't quite mastered this yet. It also lets you set a trusted Bluetooth device as a "companion" to allow password-free login. Haven't tried that.
I bought a phone blocking app that works fine, after getting some spam nuisance calls. On my Windows phone, blocking is built into the system, really easy to use and I missed that. I also downloaded Google's new texting app (I can never remember the names of these things) and it's ok, but not as good as the built-in texting app in the Windows phone. Oh well...
The one thing really and only thing so far that bugs me is the speaker. I like to use the phone on speaker and the speaker on this one sounds muddled, I have a hard time understanding what the other person is saying. That's ridiculous, considering the tiny 2 mm single hole on my Lumia 640 had much better and clearer sound. There's a much wider horizontal opening on the back of the Life One X so the speaker should be much better. BLU needs to work on that and then they'd have pretty much perfection.
Only one other thing, the phone seems just a touch narrow and long, which is OK for one-handers I guess (I'm a two-fister) and I thought I didn't want anything bigger, but now that I see this great screen, I wish the phone was larger, maybe a 5.5".
Also, the phone is incredibly thin, every time I pick it up I'm amazed at how thin it is. They did a great job on that. The fake leather plastic back also gives a pretty good grip; could be better but it's OK, much better than the slippery bar of soap that is the Lumia 640.
Will report back if I learn anything new.
UPDATE 2: OK, couple of weeks now, still really liking everything about this phone EXCEPT: the speakers. The sound is really muffled, I have a hard time hearing what people are saying, whether I'm on the speaker or ear speaker. Plus, the volume just doesn't go high enough.
I've tried it with and without the sound clarifying feature on and off and it's maybe a tiny bit better with it off. This is really the most disappointing aspect of this phone, so much so that it's probably going to drive me to find another brand.
I mean, how hard is it nowadays to include a half-way decent speaker so you can hear a phone conversation? I have to get everyone to repeat about every other sentence, it's really bad. I'm a big fan of cheap phones, but this is a big issue for me. Hope I can hold out until the Alcatel Idol 4 comes out, that seems interesting, it has dual speakers -- rare on phones today.
UPDATE 3: OK, final post. I'm returning this to Amazon, I just can't live with the sound quality. I'm not a fussy guy by any means, but this is so bad I can't hear people talk, it's very muffled sound through the speaker and ear speaker. So I figured I'd take advantage of Amazon's return policy.
I didn't want to spend the money, but ordered a Motorola Moto X Pure Edition instead, very sorry the BLU phone didn't work out for me because I like everything about it but the sound.
Just for kicks, I threw my SIM in my old $59.00 Lumia 640 (last time I looked, they're $29.88 at Walmart now) and the sound is like 5 times better. Very clear through the loudspeaker or ear speaker, no problems at all. So if I can get a good speaker through the tiny hole in the 640 for $59.00, BLU really blew it (!) with their terrible speaker in the Life One X.
Only had the Blu for a couple of days, but I'm pretty impressed. It's really thin and the "leather" like back helps the grip, much more than my super-slippery Lumia 640.
I put it on the included charger as soon as I opened the box, I don't know how much of a charge it started with but it took about 2 hours to bring it up to full.
It then took me another couple of hours to get all my apps installed, get all the Google stuff set up and get it configured to my liking.
Couple of things, the screen is pretty incredible, I compared it side-by-side with my HTC One M7 and the Blu screen is definitely better, very sharp, the higher quality photos look almost 3D because they're so sharp.
The color rendition is outstanding in my opinion, I have zero complaints about the screen, I'm not sure how any phone could have one better. Also, the screen can be made very bright, brighter than any other cell phone I've ever used. The auto dimmer works very well, I hardly notice it but the screen is always at "just right" brightness.
The Blu is also fast enough, it's a bit faster than the HTC One, just a little of the typical Android stumble as I scroll through long web pages.
There's hardly any junk or bloatware at all on it, seems very stock Android 5.1 to me. There's the Blu launcher or I downloaded the Google launcher, actually the Blu works better but you don't get the Google Now page or whatever they call it when you swipe right.
Also, the phone is very thin, I'm surprised at how thin it is. This one weighs 142 grams with a 64GB microSD card installed. I also didn't realize, this is a dual SIM phone, I never needed that feature but it's there.
The touchscreen seemed sensitive but there's a setting for low, med and high and I changed it to medium and it seems better.
The phone is also very easy to hold in one hand, although I'm not a good one-hander anyway with phones.
Speaker is in the back, the volume doesn't go as high as I'd like and conversations are a bit muddy, which is a disappointment. But people on the other end say it sounds fine.
Battery life seems a little disappointing so far, I can actually watch it decrease in 1% increments as I sit there with it. I uninstalled Facebook app and also the dumb Google Inbox, both of which are said to eat battery life, so we'll see. The Lumia 640 had unreal battery life, literally days.
I also uninstalled the home screen wallpaper and am just using pure black. I'll keep an eye on battery life, maybe I'm just not used to Android battery life because it's been a while (although I use an Nvidia Shield K1 and Asus MeMo Pad 8 tablet every day).
Not sure what else to add, I don't like huge phones and the Blu screen is about 5 mm taller than the HTC One, but I could probably go a little bigger both height and width next time.
I am absolutely not a fan of expensive phones, the technology changes and evolves so fast that it doesn't make sense to me to spend a lot, plus the action nowadays is in the low/mid range, there are some fantastic phones out there that are way better than high end phones of just a couple of years ago -- like my HTC One M7, which was like a $625.00 phone when Google first released it.
Anyway, if anyone has questions I can answer, let me know. So far, very much liking the Blu Life One X, definitely a steal at its list price of $149.00.
EDIT: Also, it received an update from Blu the second time I turned on the phone. The only thing I notice is that sometimes if I go to move an icon, the phone won't take a long press, it immediately opens the icon. But if I open some other app, then close it and go back to the home screen, the long press then allows me to move the icon. Not sure what's up with that, I'll keep an eye on it.
UPDATE: It's now been about a week of hard use, I'm really liking this phone. The screen is incredible, really, the best phone screen I've used. I used the settings to tweak the screen a bit, making the colors slightly more vivid. Text and photos are extremely sharp, really nice.
I also deleted a couple of apps -- like Android Central -- and use the mobile websites instead, and that really helps battery life. I also changed the battery display to remove the percent and only show the battery icon. I discovered I was too focused on watching the percentage numbers, which change and make it seem like the battery is draining way faster than it really is. But removing the apps and using mobile web definitely helps.
I'm trying to use the "Smart Lock" system, where you can set it to not require a password when you're at home or a specific location. But it seems inconsistent; sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. It seems to depend on where I swipe on the screen. Haven't quite mastered this yet. It also lets you set a trusted Bluetooth device as a "companion" to allow password-free login. Haven't tried that.
I bought a phone blocking app that works fine, after getting some spam nuisance calls. On my Windows phone, blocking is built into the system, really easy to use and I missed that. I also downloaded Google's new texting app (I can never remember the names of these things) and it's ok, but not as good as the built-in texting app in the Windows phone. Oh well...
The one thing really and only thing so far that bugs me is the speaker. I like to use the phone on speaker and the speaker on this one sounds muddled, I have a hard time understanding what the other person is saying. That's ridiculous, considering the tiny 2 mm single hole on my Lumia 640 had much better and clearer sound. There's a much wider horizontal opening on the back of the Life One X so the speaker should be much better. BLU needs to work on that and then they'd have pretty much perfection.
Only one other thing, the phone seems just a touch narrow and long, which is OK for one-handers I guess (I'm a two-fister) and I thought I didn't want anything bigger, but now that I see this great screen, I wish the phone was larger, maybe a 5.5".
Also, the phone is incredibly thin, every time I pick it up I'm amazed at how thin it is. They did a great job on that. The fake leather plastic back also gives a pretty good grip; could be better but it's OK, much better than the slippery bar of soap that is the Lumia 640.
Will report back if I learn anything new.
UPDATE 2: OK, couple of weeks now, still really liking everything about this phone EXCEPT: the speakers. The sound is really muffled, I have a hard time hearing what people are saying, whether I'm on the speaker or ear speaker. Plus, the volume just doesn't go high enough.
I've tried it with and without the sound clarifying feature on and off and it's maybe a tiny bit better with it off. This is really the most disappointing aspect of this phone, so much so that it's probably going to drive me to find another brand.
I mean, how hard is it nowadays to include a half-way decent speaker so you can hear a phone conversation? I have to get everyone to repeat about every other sentence, it's really bad. I'm a big fan of cheap phones, but this is a big issue for me. Hope I can hold out until the Alcatel Idol 4 comes out, that seems interesting, it has dual speakers -- rare on phones today.
UPDATE 3: OK, final post. I'm returning this to Amazon, I just can't live with the sound quality. I'm not a fussy guy by any means, but this is so bad I can't hear people talk, it's very muffled sound through the speaker and ear speaker. So I figured I'd take advantage of Amazon's return policy.
I didn't want to spend the money, but ordered a Motorola Moto X Pure Edition instead, very sorry the BLU phone didn't work out for me because I like everything about it but the sound.
Just for kicks, I threw my SIM in my old $59.00 Lumia 640 (last time I looked, they're $29.88 at Walmart now) and the sound is like 5 times better. Very clear through the loudspeaker or ear speaker, no problems at all. So if I can get a good speaker through the tiny hole in the 640 for $59.00, BLU really blew it (!) with their terrible speaker in the Life One X.
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