BLU Vivo XL3 hands-on

Even though it's been available over at Amazon since last month selling for the attractive sub-$200 price, the BLU Vivo XL3 is just getting its official introduction just now – with an even more enticing limited time price point! We got the chance to quickly check out this brand spanking new Android 8.0 Oreo running smartphone, which for the price, features one impressive, jaw-dropping design.

Speaking of its design, the BLU Vivo XL3 does the charming thing by following the trendy glass meets metal construction that everyone appears to be jumping on nowadays. It's not a bad thing, especially here because it helps to exude a premium feel that you wouldn't expect to find in a smartphone priced so aggressively low. The phone feels slick to the touch due to the glass surfaces, which also dazzles in the light at various angles. For the price, it doesn't feature a water-resistant construction, but hey, at least it's packaged with a handy finger print sensor and 3.5mm headphone jack!

Up front, the BLU Vivo XL3 is sporting a 5.5-inch HD+ display with that all too trendy 18:9 screen aspect ratio. Needless to say, it's more than detailed for most things, but we have to admit that it's on the dull side with its color reproduction. In fact, at the brightest setting, the screen appears substantially washed out – and it doesn't help either that viewing angles are weak. Then again, this is a necessary compromise to meet its price point.

Internally, the BLU Vivo XL3 is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek 6737 processor coupled with 3GB RAM. Not surprisingly, it performs rather decently with most basic functions, like scrolling in the web browser and switching between apps, but we're not raising our hopes about it performing just as well when it comes to gaming.

One common problem amongst BLU's line of smartphones is the lack of timely software updates. With the BLU Vivo XL3, however, it's running BLU's custom skin on top of Android 8.0 Oreo. Now, while that's certainly a relief to find it running a recent build of the platform, it'll be interesting to see whether it's kept up down the road. With BLU's skin, it's an acquired taste that draws from elements of stock Android, but at least the bloatware is kept to a minimum out of the box.

Other notable standouts also include the 3000 mAh battery it's packing, the 13-megapixel camera on the back, and the 13-megapixel snapper on the front as well! If you look hard enough, too, you can also spot the front-facing LED flash next to the earpiece, which is something again we typically don't see in these kinds of budget smartphones.

All told, its MSRP of $189.99 looks mighty tempting on paper, but for a limited time, it'll be slapped with an introductory price of $109.99 on Amazon for a 24-hour period right now – while supplies last, of course. If that's enough motivation for you, then swing on over to Amazon's web site right now to scoop up this deal. Sure, it's already a convincing package at $189.99, but at $109.99, it pretty much will seal the deal for many people!