BLU Advance 5.0 - Unlocked Dual Sim Smartphone - US GSM - Black

I cannot be happier with this phone. I was taking a trip overseas and figured I wanted a local smartphone while I was here. I looked around for a while and BLU had really good reviews so I figured I'd take a shot. I checked to make sure it worked in the country I was going to on a couple of sites and it seemed like a go so I bought this one. I was not looking for too much in terms of features. I need to call, text and use a couple of apps. I've been using it for three days and no troubles at all. Best of all the quality seems fantastic, the screen is super nice, colors are great, buttons work fine.First, the price point is insane. I can't believe this thing is only sixty bucks. I can barely tell the difference between this and a top of the line phone. I don't sit around taking selfies all day (I have a life) so the camera quality is no big deal to me, I have not even tried it so I can't say good or bad either way. Learning to use the phone is really no big deal. At first you have to get used to the system but I know that within a week I'll be using this like I had it for five years.There are two sim slots, full size and mini, so buying a sim card or chip was super easy. Plugged it in and the phone was working. It's like I never missed a beat switching hemispheres. Top notch and worth the money. When I'm done I'm going to leave it here as a gift for a friend and they are looking forward to their new phone.

So.. I had been using a Samsung Galaxy S2 for a few years.It had been a trusty friend, but it was acting up really bad.(can someone please explain to me how solid state devices behave any differently over time)I had already re-flashed, used many different ROMs, even back to stock, and the phone was just too unreliable.I am in a financial bind, so cost for a new phone had to be very low.I did the Craigslist thing, it looked like I would not be able to find a decent phone for less than $100 used.On a whim, I shopped Amazon, and found these Blu phones.Well, again, sticking to a low budget mindset, I picked the cheapest phone available: Blu Advance 5.0I read ALL of the reviews. And frankly, I think some folks just got bad hardware. I decided to take a chance.Starting with the basics:The phone feels solid. Feels good in your hand. The screen, has its weaknesses (lowysh resolution, smudgy, and hard to see in bright light), but overall, a bright, clear, high contrast screen.Battery of 1800Mah, I figured 1-2 days, depending on use. (I was right)Not much for accessories in the box, but hey, I paid $59, got the phone delivered to me SAME day... brand new (not some used 2yr old phone off craigslist), One regret I have was not including a screen protector in the purchase.. it would have been free delivery too.Turning it on:I am a geek..lets get that out of the way. But when I buy electronics I try to start as an average user would. And so I followed basic steps, and soon my phone was up and running.The phone was zippy enough out of the box, and I began installing my stuffOh.. the limits:Soon enough, I started running out of internal space.Out of the 4Gigs of internal storage, looks like only 1.3 are "userspace". Of the 1.3Gb, 650Mb are left for installable apps. The other 650Mb are already taken with userspace apps like Chrome, and the few bits of software already installed on the phone.Around the 4th app installation my phone choked out.. I had 130Mb left.Trust me, I played around as much as I could with the native Move2SD tool. But there are just too many apps that will NOT move to SD. They are flagged as immovable, and thus, App2SD (native Android method) will not work.I used the phone for about 3 days with these very tight restraints(telling myself to just be a normal user), and when I installed Google Maps, I realized that not only the app itself refused to move to SD, but if you wanted OffLine maps, they had to be downloaded to the onboard storage. There is no setting for downloading them to the SD card. That was the last drop.There has to be a way:I have been rooting and replacing firmware on every phone I have touched for a decade. I am no stranger to the process. I will not post rooting instructions on Amazon, but once I rooted the device, I was able to transform this entry level phone into a mid level device. My girlfriend has a Galaxy S6, And there are things that work better on my phone now. (proven by benchamrks and empirical observation).The solution:I did NOT replace the stock firmware.. just rooted the phone.Once the phone is rooted, I usd an SD Card and lnk2sd to "link" internal apps to the SD card.I used an 8Gig Class 10 Kingston SD card... though the process/solution WORKED, it was SLOW. It is the price you pay, I figured, for using a cheap phone.Oh a whim again, I decided to check out throughput/bandwitdh results for MicroSD cards... and boy.. there is SUCH A DIFFERENCE from card to card.I mean, small random writes/reads are the biggest factor when using a MicroSD card as your "primary disk". The throughput numbers posted by the SD association (the the inherent Classes) only take into account LARGE contiguous Reads and Writes.Turns out that my Kingston only pumped 0.17Mbps for random writes. Yikes!( [...] )After some research, I purchased the Samsung Evo Plus 32Gig for $11 at my local Best Buy.The Difference was BRUTAL.Apps that were just too slow, or quit at random when moved to the SD card were now FAST.. ZIPPY.My phone had been transformed.The only real limit that cant be broken now is the RAM size. It is fairly low at 768Mb, but I will live with that. It really only affects the number of concurrent apps. No single App I use demands more than that.Numbers:Turns out that the Evo Plus is faster than the internal storage.. doubt it? Run the benchmarks.On the best case scenario (contiguous Read/Write), the internal memory pumped 65/10.5Mbps. While the Evo pumped 67/16.5Mbps for the same test.It means that the internal "sd card"/storage is actually inferior to the "external" SD Card.I was floored with the Write difference.I cant find a benchmarking app to measure small/random reads/writes. i am tempted to write one. But from empirical observation, I doubt the Evo is slower, if anything, it appears faster again.Closing:So.. there you have it. This is a good phone. I have talked on it (handset, headset, speakerphone, and bluetooth), , played games on it, did a battery test... all ion all, it is a better phone than my S2, and I doubt that an average user would feel it is any worse than the $200-$500 phone in his pocket today. For $59, this is a bargain for sure.To the folks who complained of hardware related issues: get a replacement from Amazon.Have a great day folks! Enjoy your phone.

This phone is exactly what you pay for plus more- my HTC One M7 died on me spontaneously after a few years and I needed to grab a quick phone to hold me over.THE GOOD:The screen is very bright and vibrant, the interface is very snappy and I do not perceive any lag in the system. The default settings, installation guide, and BLU's default apps all work very well and perform correctly. This phone is compatible with GSM-type networks (T-Mobile and AT&T are the main carriers that use this signal) and allows for 2 SIM cards. BLU provides you with the ability to choose which sim card to default to for SMS (texting), phone calls, and data usage which is really nice if you are running two cards.The phone comes with some decent quality wallpapers (if you're into that sort of thing)- some are a little grainy but that's a nitpick. I ran some tests with respect to phone calls and text messages. Response time, call quality, and notification responses seem to be really well executed. Overall, this is a great phone for the price.THE BAD:The only thing holding me back from a 5 star review are the updates. When I originally got the phone, I immediately checked for system updates. After the update, if I pressed the power/lock button or the phone locked itself by inactivity the screen could not return to power. It just sat there remaining black. I took out the battery, restarted the phone. Again, same problem. It's not that the phone shut off- the top left of the phone blinked and made noise when I received a text, but I could not get the phone to return to the home screen. I even had my roommate test call me while the phone locked itself and the call goes through, but the screen remained black.In addition, I could not send text messages without the other person initiating the conversation. Regardless of how the phone number was formatted in Google Contacts or by manually entering the phone number, it would warn me that the phone number was no valid. However, telephone calls could be initiated by either party.Frustrated, I ended up restarting the phone again (at this time, it was the 4th or 5th consecutive time- I was trying to pinpoint the root cause) but this time restored the phone back to factory settings. The phone reset, rebooted, and then hung on the BLU startup screen. I let it sit there for 3-4 minutes in case it was performing some reset operations but it never advanced past this screen. Once more, I took out the battery and restarted the phone.This, fortunately, seemed to relieve the problem. I was able to reset my phone settings and Google account. I tested the power button a few times and everything seemed to be in working order. This phone works great- but PLEASE be weary of updating this phone too hastily. If it isn't broken, I would HIGHLY recommend not upgrading this phone. Leave the software/firmware/kernel versions at the factory settings unless instructed to do so.This is the software version I am currently running (no problems):Network: T-MobilePhone: BLU Advance 5.0Android: Android 5.1Kernel: 3.10.72+ android@user-PowerEdge-R720 #2Build: ALPS.L1.MP6.V2_6580.WE.LCustom Build: BLU_D030UX_V03_GENERIC 08-01-2016Updating past these system versions seemed to completely brick the phone for some odd reason. I attempted to search for the problem on Google and other android forums and I could not find any information. I am not aware if this is an isolated case, a problem with the 5.0 model of the phone, or a widespread problem with this brand. Please keep this in mind when choosing this phone- especially if you are the kind of person who likes to run everything bleeding edge.

This phone is very good for the price. The screen is good and the phone is nice and thin. Phone storage is only 4 gb so if you plan to store massive amount of apps that only allow you to save to the internal storage this might not be the phone for you. I rarely store much on my internal storage anyway so this phone is perfect for me. A few apps I installed on my phone internal are Max go, Norton and Fx app. These apps do not allow me to install to the sd card. I used a 32 gb micro sd card to install facebook, adobe and many other apps. I plan to store thousands of songs on the phone. The sound is good on this phone. I might switch to a 64 gb sd card. The screen is set on bright and it will use a lot of battery so make sure you change it to a lower setting. I did and the battery last much longer. I love the graphics I watched a movie, the pictures are clear and streaming smooth. I will be waiting for manufactures to make a nice case to protect this phone.

LOVE this phone. I had a Samsung Galaxy that was a couple years old and didn't want to spend a fortune on a new phone. I had bought my daughter a Blu phone last year and decided to try one for my self. At this price point it is an excellent phone. It does everything I need and I am very happy with it. I also bought a 16gb card for media and app storage, knowing that internal storage was limited.*** EDIT, When I went to transfer media to my phone from my computer I ran into an issue. I had to go to Microsoft and download an MTP update to use the usb connection properly. This was because windows 10 is still a little glitch-y and nothing to do with the phone, which worked fine with my daughters computer that was running windows 8.1.****Edit, The SD card slot stopped working. Couldn't store pics, apps, or access the sd card. I had to return/exchange the phone. The process of exchange was actually easy. I downloaded the return labels. They sent a new phone, and once I received it, I put the old phone in the box, taped on the return labels and took it to a UPS store. The replacement works fine, and I still really like this phone.**Edit. Replacement phone has SD card reading problems as well. I have to reboot daily. Or more often to a access anything stored on SD card, pics, music, apps, etc. Phone storage is very limited so having a working sd card is important. It is very inconvenient when you go to take a picture then realize you have to reboot or the picture won't save.I also have trouble with the low screen bug. If you turn brightness down too far, the screen goes black and won't light up. You have to turn off/on and keep phone 'awake' until you can adjust brightness back up.

I don't live on my phone, so simply needed one with a bit more intelligence and larger screen than I had with previous GO type phone. Being Amazon pushed this one and it had the simple features I needed at a cheap price, I bought it. It has good points and bad for sure.Good is price. Was easy to set up with a new carrier. Easy to get SIM card in. Looks nice. About as large a size as you can conveniently hold in hand or slip into some pockets. Android is not too bad to use, but not as smooth and friendly as IOS. Lots of apps out there for it.Down side to this phone are more than there should be, but again its all about price. If you don't add a memory card for storage, you will find you are out of space real quickly. More of these issues for me are things outside my initial requirements, but they may be important to others. Most disappointing item is the camera. It never focuses well nor does it get the F-stop correct so all photos are certainly not keepsakes. I stopped using it for anything except quick picts for sake of remembering something. Then there is Google. Granted Android is their OS, but every time I do something, they want to monitor it and collect it. I'm afraid to take this phone into the bathroom now. I have an Amazon Fire which is Android based, but Amazon did a good job of cleaning out much of that stuff. Yes, Amazon collects stuff as I roam and use apps, but I come to Amazon to shop so I expect they will monitor such stuff. Slowly, I am rooting out as much Google stuff as I can. Returning to the reasons I bought the phone (making calls, texting, GPS, and larger screen), I am not adding other apps or using additional features... except for my Starbucks app. Last issues are OS issues. Have found too much prompting to do things or change things and many apps do not operate consistently between themselves. Simple contacts app lacks some fields of info I want to collect that other similar apps allow. It makes it difficult to add persons to Groups. I hate to have to always be hunting Youtube (google) to find out how to do something simple in these apps.I'll keep it cus I don't need to be tethered to my phone and its an appliance to fit my needs rather than my lifeline to the world.12/10/2016 - UPDATE. I give up! This phone even for a cheap "get what you paid for" phone is unusable. Not certain if its the hardware, but the Android they use on it makes the phone unreliable and subject to random applications loss. It updates whenever some Android god decides it needs it. The result is purchased or downloaded apps can simply disappear and require reloading. The use of the optional SD card is a joke. Everyone, including Amazon, require their apps to stay in main memory. There is only 4GB in this phone so after the OS, Amazon apps, and of course Goooooogle apps crammed in there, your phone is totally constipated. Few apps will let you move them to the SD card. I have a 8GB card and all I can get over there is about 500Mb. Then the system runs out of memory so you can't play music or take photos or receive text messages. After all that, about all you can do is make phone calls.So, after struggling for about 5 months with this thing, I am tossing it out and going back to an iPhone. It will be a used/refurb cus, yes, I don't want to pay for one phone for the rest of my life. IOS may not be perfect, but its solid and not so bandaided together.

Duradero.

This phone is a unbelievable value. I've had all Iphone products, Samsung, Nexus 6 etc and this phone is not them. However, this phone resets the bar on what the others should be. Will this phone do 99% of what just about every user demands? Dual sims work flawlessly, runs all the apps in the PlayStore. You won't be able to just install everything your hearts desire, you'll have to manage storage memory. There is a slot for a up to a 64 gb card for media and apps that allow you to move them to the SD card, but you'll see that few apps can be moved to SD card anymore (not the phone's fault). The screen is not HD or Retna but it's 100% acceptable. Good viewing angles, clear, bright, etc. I've had phones that had poor displays and you couldn't see the screen if you tilted the phone, this is not the case with this phone. Battery life is really really good. I run dual sims (work/personal) and I'm 60% when I go to bed. Build quality is much better than I expected, very solid. Call volume is a bit low, but this seems to be a common issue with Android, not the hardware.For $60 you will not be disappointed. You'll probably wonder what an extra $600 for a high end phone really gives you.My family member also has a Blu phone, different model, and it's been 100% for 1.5 years. She loves it and laughs when she tells people she paid less than $100 for it.