Review of Wholesale Blu Phones

Times are changing, and so are the rules about cell phones. The market for more affordable wholesale phones is steadily growing, and with it, our willingness to be locked into 2-year contracts rapidly declining.

Consumers have actively been looking for better alternatives to expensive, locked phones for years, but it’s been tough for up-and-coming companies to establish themselves in an existing market dominated by billionaire giants. But then one company did just that.

Blu was founded in 2009 after CEO Sammy Ohev-Zion, a 17 year veteran in the distribution industry, realized the growing demand for affordable yet quality phones. Since its inception, more than 10 million Blu devices have been sold world-wide, and that’s not at all surprising. At about one third of the cost of other major competitors, Blu’s sleek design and large screens appear to be a worthy adversary. But how do these phones really stack up? We wanted to know, so we first reviewed the specs and then the phones themselves.

The comparison chart below is based purely on the technical features of each product.
(specs from www.gsmarena.com)

With the display type and resolution comparable to the iPhone 6, Blu is off to a decent start. While the Galaxy S6 clearly knocks the competition out of the park here, we’ll give Blu a chance to redeem itself later with user experience.

	Blu Life One	Blu Life 8 XL	iPhone 6	Galaxy S6
Weight	120 g (4.23 oz)	149 g (5.26 oz)	129 g (4.55 oz)	138 g (4.87 oz)
Display Type	IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors	IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors	LED-backlit IPS LCD, capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors	Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Resolution	720 x 1280 pixels (~294 ppi pixel density)	720 x 1280 pixels (~267 ppi pixel density)	750 x 1334 pixels (~326 ppi pixel density)	1440 x 2560 pixels (~577 ppi pixel density)
Memory	8 GB, 1 GB RAM	8 GB, 1 GB RAM	128GB, 1GB RAM	128GB, 3GB RAM
SIM	Dual SIM (Micro-SIM, dual stand-by)	Dual SIM (Micro-SIM)	Nano-SIM	Nano-SIM
CPU	Quad core, 1200 MHz, ARM Cortex-A7	8-core, 1400 MHz, ARM Cortex-A7	Dual core, 1400 MHz, Cyclone ARMv8-A 2nd gen., 64-bit	8-core, 2100 MHz, ARM Cortex-A57 and ARM Cortex-A53 , 64-bit
Front-camera	3 megapixel	3 megapixel	1.2 megapixel	5 megapixel
Talk Time	Up to 26 h (2G) / Up to 15 h (3G)	Up to 30 h (2G) / Up to 18 h (3G)	Up to 14 h (3G)	Up to 17 h (3G)

The biggest and most noticeable difference within the technical specifications here is built in storage and RAM. Because we were aware that Blu offered Dual Sim capabilities, we weren’t initially worried about this, however, we did later come to realize that the internal and external sim cannot be used in conjunction. But with a comparable processing unit, camera capabilities and noticeably good talk time, we were excited to pass this phone to a couple of our employees to try for themselves. After a week of examination, we were happy to have a consensus for both the Life One and Life 8 XL.

• Based on our initial analysis, it was of no surprise that a majority of testers reported concerns with storage space and RAM. However, since both Blu phones support expandable memory via an external microSD card, most were easily able to forgive this lack of built-in space.
• To our surprise, although we suspected that lagging might occur when playing high resolution games or streaming videos, we received no reports backing up this hypothesis.
• All of our users commented on the bright display and large screen, and we found that although the resolution specifications for both phones were lower than other comparisons, they noticed no obvious differences which would keep them from purchasing the phone based on display alone.
• Additionally, this phone has a great battery life, which means you can enjoy hours of seamless streaming on a beautiful screen for one third of the cost.

Our overall impression of Blu is great. These phones have a lot to offer for the price, and we strongly recommend them for consideration, whether you’re shopping on a budget, looking for a second more affordable phone, or researching a first phone for a child. Today’s Wholesale Closeout is proud to be a top distributor of Blu products; check out our inventory here!