BLU Vivo 5
Hands On with the Blu Vivo 5 and XL
Blu is not only a fast-growing company, they're a fast-changing one as well. Most Blu phones to date have been cheap, plastic, and loaded with plain Android. At CES this year, Blu had a bit of a coming out party as a more aspirational brand. Their new Vivo 5 and Vivo XL have AMOLED displays, premium designs, advanced features, and a new, custom Blu skin on top of Android. Yet they stay true to Blu%u2019s mission of providing affordability, topping out at $200. We spent some time with the new models.
Blu Vivo 5 Has Unibody Metal Design
Blu today announced the Vivo 5 and Vivo XL affordable Android smartphones. Both have a premium design, and similar specs. The Vivo 5 (pictured on the right) is Blu's first phone with unibody metal design carved from a single block of aluminum. Both phones sport a 5.5-inch HD AMOLED display, 1.3 GHz octa-core MediaTek MT6753 processor, 13-megapixel camera, Type-C USB connector, and 3,150 mAh battery. The phones ship with Android 5.1, upgradeable to Android 6. Besides design, the two phones differ in a few other areas. The Vivo 5 is 6.9mm thick, while the Vivo XL is 7.5mm. The 5 has 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of memory, while the XL has 2 GB of RAM and 16 of memory (both have a memory card slot.) Finally, the XL supports LTE bands 2, 4, 7, 12, and 17 - for full US network support - while the Vivo 5 only supports LTE bands 2, 4, and 7. The Vivo 5 will sell for $199 unlocked next month, while the Vivo XL will go for $149 this month. Both will be sold via BestBuy.com and Amazon.com.
