Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First, let me tell you, I’m a Blu fanboy! I love their products and that they stand apart from the competition by providing quality unlocked devices at a budget price. Typically, you can purchase an unlocked GSM (T-Mobile, AT&T, etc.) phone for anywhere from $80 – $250. While the price is budget they provide a ton of value. Second, I purchased this phone with my own money and this review is not pre-approved by anyone prior to posting. Pros: Price Looks good Good screen Performance Cons: Speakers Camera Lacking 5G Design: We look with our eyes first and no one wants to walk around with a handset that screams budget. This isn’t like elementary school and I’m being forced to walk around in Bobos. Instead you’re treated with design language that references Apple and Samsung. Yes, the back is plastic, but it looks really nice. There are two colors, but only the Graphite version was available at launch. Blu has stated that Moonstone, a pearlescent silver/purplish color, will be available sometime in October, approximately a month from now. There’s a rectangular glass-covered set of cameras (4 to be specific) on the back as well as the fingerprint sensor, which is IMHO the best place to put it. The front of the phone is mostly screen with a hole-punch in the top center of the screen. There are two buttons on the right hand side, a power button and a volume rocker. Nothing unusual. And it also has a headphone jack, which I’m glad they kept. Display: Speaking of the screen, you’ll find a 6.7″ LCD screen and Blu boasts 91.4% screen-to-body ratio. Basically, like most iPhones and Samsung devices you’ll find today. The G91 had moved the hole-punch to the left corner and I think I liked that a little better. However, I’ve been watching a ton of content on the screen and I really haven’t noticed it that much. The display is FHD+ so it’s a little more than 1080p. The colors are vivid and can be adjusted. The screen refresh rate is 60 which is not surprising at this price. Movies and Instagram look great on this device. Performance: Performance is where Blu shines with their phones. Over the last 3 years they’ve taken steps to make sure their phones are just as snappy as midrange and even premium handsets. They’re rocking the MediaTek Helios G90 process. It’s a mild step down from the G90T in the G90 Pro, but you won’t notice a difference as they’ve bumped up the memory to 6GB. I didn’t experience any issues in normal use or gaming. I’m not a huge phone gamer, but I tried Fortnite and Asphalt 9 and the games loaded fairly quickly. The 128GB of storage was great for this as well. Audio: Sound is fine for phone calls, but a bit lackluster through the external speakers. Everything sounded great through headphones. I don’t have a lot to say other than this seems to be one of the areas that took a hit when it came to the budget for the phone. Cameras: Finally is the cameras I mentioned above. There are 4 cameras on the rear and 1 on the front. The rear cameras are a 5MP wide angle, 48MP main, 2MP macro, and a 2MP depth sensor. You won’t get the quality of Google’s pixel camera or even some of lower spec’d Samsung and iPhones. If you want great photos you will need to either pick a more expensive phone or shoot in the RAW (which is supported… WOOT!) and edit the results yourself. The latter is a great feature that is not present in even some premium phones. I’m not saying the photos aren’t fine for average users, but if you’re used to a little more automation you may be disappointed. The macro lens could have been left off as 2MP does not provide much of an end result at all. The front facing selfie camera is fine in bright lights, just don’t expect much from it either. Summary: I really want to love this phone. My main issue is that I’ve been waiting for it since the Blu G91 was released. I expected more. The G90 Pro was a huge step up from the G90. It included the G90T processor from MediaTek, wireless charging, and “LiquidCooling” technology, whatever that was. None of these things was included in the G91 Pro. They stepped down the processor, have no mention of the “LiquidCooling", and missed something huge… 5G. I know it sounds weird, but with game streaming with services like GeForceNow and Stadia adding more content I would think a gaming phone would want a high speed connection. Price may have been a factor, but OnePlus has put out a similar priced device with 5G and 90Hz display. I think that we’ll see amazing things in the near future from Blu, but this isn’t quite it. Mainly they just wanted to put out a device for 2021 with Android 11 and more memory. Mission completed, but it’s hard to celebrate when some of the long-desired features didn’t quite make it into the Pro handset.