BLU Life 8 XL Review

Introduction

Always on that challenge to gain momentum, Miami-based BLU Products has been working tirelessly to infiltrate the thick US smartphone market with its portfolio of affordably priced, unlocked smartphones. In some cases, they’re able to turn heads with devices like the incredibly thin BLU Vivo Air and the battery longevity of the BLU Studio Energy, but with their latest offering in the BLU Life 8 XL, they’ve fashioned together a phablet-esque smartphone with an astonishing $130 outright price point. Similar devices like the Alcatel Onetouch Idol 3, Asus Zenfone 2, and Huawei P8 Lite have been notorious for being value conscious as well, so it’ll be interesting to see if BLU’s latest offering can keep up with the trends – or just sizzle in disappointment.

The package contains:

• BLU Life 8 XL
• microUSB cable
• Wall charger
• Stereo headphones
• Quick start guide
• Product and safety information

Design

It looks good until you hold it, where it becomes evident that it’s been put together flimsily.

One of the issues with any value-priced smartphone is build quality, which is something that the BLU Life 8 XL falls into predictably. While it looks good from a far glance, thanks in part to it being available in brightly colored plastic body options, and that its profile measures in at a skinny 0.30-inches, that ‘cheap’ feel becomes instantly noticeable the moment we pick it up in our hand. Don’t get us wrong, it’s undeniably refreshing and youthful in spirit, but its flimsy construction and hasty build quality makes us question how it puts up long term – more so when some of the seams around its edges aren’t glued or tightly held together.

Outlining the sides of the BLU Life 8 XL include its power button, volume control, microphone, 3.5mm headphone jack, noise-cancelling mic, and a small notch that let us remove its rear cover – exposing its battery, micro-SIM slot, and microSD slot.

Display

Don’t expect a mesmerizing display here, seeing that there are a lot of poor qualities in tow.

Looks alone, the 5.5-inch 720 x 1280 IPS display indicates that we’re dealing with a phablet-esque size here – conjuring up a somewhat low pixel density count of 267 ppi. Even though it’s still sufficient enough to make things out without the need to be super close, it just lacks the sharpness that other screens offer.

Companies like to say how their particular displays are unique and superior, as in the case here where BLU specifically mentions the Life 8 XL employing “BLU Infinite View” and “BLU Nex Lens” Technology – to make it look good from any angle. Well, that’s hardly the truth because of its overly cold 8500K color temperature, weak viewing angles, and inaccurate color reproduction. At the very least, its 510 nit luminance gives it a potent glow in even the brightest of conditions.

Similar to its build quality, the display here is painfully subpar – and staring at it reaffirms just that! While it’s effective for most things, it just doesn’t have the polarizing qualities that make other panels enthralling to look at.

Interface and Functionality

We like it’s a mostly stock experience, except for the part it’s Android 4.4 KitKat instead of Lollipop.

What’s nice with most of BLU’s smartphones is that they generally run stock Android, which is what we’re given here with the BLU Life 8 XL. However, it’s just a disappointment that it’s running Android 4.4.4 KitKat, instead of Lollipop. Considering that it’s mid-2015, it’s almost unfathomable for any company to think it’s a good idea to launch with KitKat.

Getting over the shock of this, the experience is at least very much like most smartphones – so expect the usual tight integration of Google’s service and homescreen personalization. The features, obviously, are the usual staple we’ve come to expect from Android, but it doesn’t have the depth that other customized experiences offer.

Processor and Memory

Consistency is just an issue here, as it struggles with intensive operations.

Not all octa-core processors are the same, something that’s made more poignant seeing this phone in action – a 1.4GHz octa-core MediaTek MT6592 with 1GB of RAM and the Mali-450 GPU. Sure, it’s responsive enough for the simple things, but it crumbles under the pressure with more processor demanding things. Therefore, it doesn’t make for a great gaming experience.

The 8GB of internal storage doesn’t leave any leeway for a lot of things, but at least it can be expanded with its microSD card slot.

Internet and Connectivity

If you can live with HSPA+ connectivity, then you won’t be too bothered by the web surfing experience with the BLU Life 8 XL. Yes, the 5.5-inch real estate allows pages to fill the entire screen without a whole lot of scrolling – and it handles rendering pretty well too.

This GSM-based smartphone is more than capable of being a global trotter, but you’ll need to remember that it lacks the radio for LTE connections – so you’ll end up living with HSPA+ connectivity. Beyond that, it’s armed with the usual set of connectivity features that include aGPS, Bluetooth 4.0, and Wi-Fi. For its price point, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it lacks NFC.

Camera

The camera serves its purpose, however, it underperforms with video recording and low light capture.

Armed with an 8-megapixel rear camera with an LED flash, it might not seem like an intimidating combo, but as we all know too well, the megapixel number is never a defining factor with a camera’s quality. Meanwhile, the 2-megapixel front-facing camera is something that suits this particular type of phone.

Accessing the camera app, it’s pretty generic with its layout, as most of the interface is dominated by the viewfinder – while switching between its modes and manual controls are done via the icons on the left side. For the most part, snapping something is a simple process, but in our experience, you’ll need to be extra still for night time photos.

Don’t expect much out of this phone when it comes to taking photos, just because the results are far from pleasant. Generally speaking, almost every phone can handle taking outdoor photos when it’s bright outside, but photos from the BLU Life 8 XL are simply subdued looking – both in detail and color composition. In fact, indoor shots tend to have hazy looking details. However, its HDR mode manages to do a better job by boosting the exposure appropriately – while also adding post-sharpening effects to spiffy up the looks. However, it has a habit of distorting colors in the process.

Under low light scenarios, details becomes murky and the entire scenery is just too dark to make out anything. Plus, it’s very prone to blurring, so actions shots are tough to capture.



Likewise, its 1080p video quality leaves more to be desired. We’re even shocked at how it can pass for high-definition video, especially when details are slim and faint to distinguish.

Multimedia

Playing videos is not a problem, it’s just the subdued look of the screen that lessens the experience.

In addition to Google Play Music, BLU throws in its own music player as an alternative, which unsurprisingly enough, is pretty generic and barebones – to the point of feeling retro, back when Android was still in its infancy. Commanding an audio output of 75.8 dB through its internal speaker, it lacks the dynamic audio range and robustness that music needs to sound poppy and robust.

Video playback isn’t an issue whatsoever here, since all sorts of 1080p videos run smoothly. What’s striking, though, is just the subdued tone of how videos look through the screen – it just doesn’t do justice for the experience.

Call Quality

Phone calls are handled decently, so you can generally expect audible tones.

Listening to voices through the earpiece, we can make out most words uttered by our callers without too much fluff, more so when they’re audible and have some substance behind them. On the other end of the line, however, our callers mention that our voice is accompanied with a slightly hissy and robotic tone. With those qualities in mind, it points to nothing more than an average call quality experience here.

Battery

Nothing extraordinary, its battery delivers average results.

Underneath the surface, the BLU Life 8 XL is packing a modest sized 2920 mAh battery. In our experience, its longevity isn’t anything extraordinary, mainly because it provides us with an average of one-day with normal usage.

Conversely, our battery benchmark tests reveals there’s nothing to spectacular here either – where it achieves a mark of 6 hours and 40 minutes, a very average mark. Unlike other affordably priced smartphones we’ve seen from the competition, the BLU Life 8 XL requires 169 minutes to get its battery charged back to 100%. That’s just longer than we’d like to wait for!

Conclusion

Superficially, BLU has an enticing thing in the Life 8 XL, which is attached with a $129.99 outright price point. That alone earns adulation, especially in a market where phones bought outright can easily reach over $500 to own. Despite its eye-catching price point, the low cost is indicative of its performance, quality, and construction.

What we have here folks, purely simple and whatnot, is a downright cheap phone that offers the bare functions of any Android smartphone. If you have patience, you’ll tolerate its sluggish performance with gaming. If you don’t care about the quality that comes from cropping photos you’ve taken with the camera, this might suffice. And if you don’t mind charging the phone on various occasions throughout the day, then its battery life will be tolerable.

Directly comparing to some of the recent affordably priced Android smartphones we’ve reviewed is tough, especially when its specs are regarded as inferior to the aforementioned phones from earlier. It all just boils down to the obvious here, which is nothing more than it being a cheap phone. And nothing more than that! To tell you the truth, you’d be better off spending the extra $100-$150 to pick up something more acceptable and better performing – such as the Asus Zenfone 2 or Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3.

Software version of the review unit:
Android Version: 4.4.4
Baseband Version: 20107091
Kernel Version: 3.10.28-g8a4d7c1
EMUI Version: EMUI 3.0