Are you looking for an unlocked smartphone with a bargain basement price tag? Well if your answer is yes then a fairly new company by the name of Blu Products is hoping that you’ll give their handsets a look.
Blu is a manufacturer out of Miami, Florida that has chiefly made their bones in the Latin American market, although in the past few months they have released a couple of devices here in the states. Having most recently given us the Vivo 4.65 as a followup to the “popular” Vivo 4.3, Blu has turned their focus to a new set of phones that will certainly draw some attention from the very budget conscious among us, the Blu Studio 5.3 II and the Blu Tank 4.5. Both devices come in at sub $200 with mid range specs.
Here is the Blu press release:
“BLU Products maintains our determination and promise to continue developing worthwhile smartphone devices available unlocked, and contract-free to consumers in the US, at affordable pricing,” said Samuel Ohev-Zion, CEO of BLU Products. “We have achieved that in releasing two remarkable new devices, both at sub $200 retail pricing, with the latest technology, high-end performance and incredible build quality our customers can be proud of.”
The Blu Studio 5.3 II is the more “fancier” device of the two and comes with it the following specs:
- 5.3-inch IPS display with qHD (540 x 960) resolution and 208ppi pixel density
- 4GB of internal storage expandable to 32GB via micro SD card
- 2200mAh battery
- 8-megapixel rear camera with auto focus capable of recording up to 720p HD
- 2-megapixel front camera
- 1GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 processor
- PowerVR SGX Series 5 graphics
- Dual-band (850/1900MHz) 3G HSDPA connectivity
- Dual-SIM support
- Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
The second device is called the Blu Tank 4.5 and as you can guess this device is built to withstand a beating. In addition to being IP67 certified (dust and sandproof and able to withstand being submerged in up to 1 meter of water for up to 30 minutes), the Tank carries with it these specs:
- 4.5-inch qHD (540—960) display with 245 ppi pixel density screen
- 4GB of internal storage expandable to 32GB via micro SD card
- 1760mAh battery
- 5-megapixel rear camera with an LED flash
- Front-facing camera for video calls
- 1GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 processor
- PowerVR SGX Series 5 graphics
- Dual-band (850/1900MHz) 3G HSDPA connectivity
- Dual-SIM support
- Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
Aside from the IP67 certification of the Tank, the most intriguing thing about these phones is the dual SIM. That’s something we don’t see very often here in the states. But if you’re looking for an affordable unlocked device and can’t muster up the extra $100 for the 8GB Nexus 4, I’m sure that you could do worse than either of these offerings from Blu.