Gadgetory

there are a few unlocked smartphones available for under $200 which support 4G LTE networks within the US blue is aiming to change that though with the redesigned Life One series so is the life one a good option for those wanting the fastest speeds available on a tight budget this is Bailey Stein with Android authority and this is my for review of the Blu life one the Blu life one is available in two variants one with the 5-inch display and another with a larger 5.5 inch display this is the review for the five inch model although the one XL Edition shares the same specifications except with a larger display larger battery and slightly thicker profile the phone is available in a few different color options each with a sandstone finish and metal side housing in the hand the life one is both thin and light at 7.5 millimeters and 125 grams put simply the life one that only feels great but also looks great the rear cover can be removed to access a micro SIM slot or a micro SD nano SIM slot you can't use a micro SD card and a nano SIM card in this same slot unfortunately but the option for expandable storage up to 64 gigabytes is one that cannot be overlooked the 24 20 milliamp battery is sadly not user replaceable the power and volume buttons which are on the right side of the phone have excellent tactile feedback there is a considerable amount of bezel on the front of the device although I did appreciate the same sandstone finish being used for their display frame in addition to the blue branding above the display there is a 5 megapixel front facing camera to the right of the earpiece and a notification LED to the left the life one's 5 inch 720p display looks nice with good viewing angles it can be difficult to see under direct sunlight however and there is a noticeable amount of backlight bleeding the display is coated in Corning Gorilla Glass 3 but if you're still worried about scratching the display you can always apply the included screen protector powered by the quad-core Snapdragon 410 64-bit processor clocked at 1.2 gigahertz the life--one does seem a bit sluggish at time it's definitely an improvement over the 400 but the phone still suffers from occasional scrolling stutters the one gigabyte of ram isn't enough for using more than a few apps at once and I'm worried about how the phone will handle the more memory hungry Android 5.0 lollipop the Adreno 306 GPU is enough to play most games but you shouldn't be surprised to see drop frames and slow load times and some higher-end games the life one does include the usual GPS 802 11 and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 it also supports 4G LTE on AT&T and t-mobile in addition to fully supporting HSPA+ on both networks the rear speaker is pretty loud although it does sound a bit distorted I really would have liked to see front-facing speakers but I really can't complain considering the phones price the 13 megapixel Sony IMAX 135 rear camera produced mostly good-looking shots images taken outdoor and broad daylight looked pretty good and color reproduction is pretty accurate it did have some minor exposure issues but I think the camera is pretty good overall the camera app provides quite a bit of control with options to change white balance ISO exposure contrast saturation and sharpness as expected battery life on the life one is pretty good despite the battery capacity of 20 420 milliamps the Snapdragon 410 is one of the most power efficient processors available and users shouldn't have any problems getting the phone to last through a full day of use during my battery life test I started my day around for him and the battery lasted until about 6:40 p.m. with nearly two hours of screen on time that day was with pretty heavy usage however as I use tethering for about an hour and GPS for about 30 minutes in addition to that I was using both the AT&T and t-mobile networks for the majority of the day the Blu life one ships with Android 4.4.4 kitkat but will be upgraded to Android 5.0 lollipop in July I'm quite honestly not a fan of the included launcher nor the custom icons but that's about where the software customization ends there are some weird setting icons as well as the default opera web browser but the phone software otherwise suits those wanting a stock experience one thing that I did want to note is that you actually can't change the lockscreen wallpaper I tried changing it directly through the default launcher and the Google now launcher but there is no option to change both the homescreen and the lock screen just the homescreen I figured that the setting was just buried but changing it through wallpaper under display and the Settings app also did not yield any results the blue life one is available with 8 gigabytes of storage starting today June 10th for a hundred and forty nine dollars on Amazon Blue is offering special pricing during the first week however making this phone $99 make sure you order during the first week if you want to take advantage of that discount overall the Blu life one is an excellent phone for the price it has a beautiful design good camera and great battery life on the other hand the display is of a lower resolution the performance could have been better and the preinstalled a flan sure is a departure from stock android for 149 dollars though the blue Leghorn is a good value with 4G LTE support an even better value at $99 if you're looking for a good ultra cheap smart phone the Blu life one will not disappoint thank you for watching this video and please make sure to give it a thumbs up below if you found it helpful or informative also please make sure to subscribe to the channel if you'd like to see more content and feel free to leave a comment below finally be sure to visit the Andrew authority website for additional coverage as we are your source for all things Android