Gadgetory

it's fair to say the blue has focused primarily on ultra affordable smartphones but their latest entry is an undeniable exception with flagship level specifications and is still affordable $349 price tag the Pier XL is one of Blues most intriguing phones yet this is Bailey Stein with Android authority and this is my for review of the blue pur XL the pur XL is a big phone actually it's huge it's about the same size as the Nexus 6 and while its curves do help with handling there is no getting around the fact that this is one large device that's not necessarily a bad thing depending on what you're looking for but do keep in mind that you'll probably find one-handed use a bit challenging the back cover has a matte plastic finish and while it does resist fingerprints quite well I noticed that my unit collected scuffs when I set it on a xiaomi power bank which was odd and unexpected unlike many other comparable devices the blue pur excels back cover can be removed revealing dual micro SIM card slots and a micro SD card slot the aluminum band running along the edges of the phone contributes to a more premium feel and makes the sides easier to grip the corners do feel a bit sharp and had an unfortunate tendency to dig into my hands what is both on the thicker and heavier side at 9.3 millimeters and 207 grams it does feel like a very solidly built device with even weight distribution unlike the Moto X pure edition which feels more so top-heavy in my opinion the power and volume buttons on the top right side of the device are positioned perfectly an offer excellent tactile feedback there's also a camera shutter button which can launch the camera app even when the device is locked one minor detail that I did notice was that although the device does vibrate briefly when pressing the button while the screen is on it does not while the screen is off that would have been nice when the phone was in my pocket giving me a heads up when I've accidentally launched the camera app coming to the front of the phone you'll find three very lightly outlined capacitive keys there's also a notification LED on the top to the left of the eight megapixel front-facing camera the phones six inch quad HD Super AMOLED display looks very sharp with deep blacks and saturated colors my units display does seem to be on the cooler side but thankfully blue has included an option to change the color temperature to be a bit warmer sadly that does make the display look a bit too warm and I really wish that the color temperature would have been correct out of the box well it's generally bright enough for indoor use it still can be difficult to read in direct sunlight in comparison to similar devices when it comes to performance the pure XL shines with a mediatek helio x10 octa-core processor collect at two gigahertz overall the phone feels very snappy with little egg it's easily one of the fastest phones that I've used in recent memory in addition to its powerful processing package the pure XL also includes three gigabytes of RAM gaming performance was also good on the pure XL thanks to the power vrg 6200 I was able to play most games with minimal lag which hasn't always been the case with other devices using the G 6200 included is support for 802 11ac Wi-Fi GPS and Bluetooth 4.0 and unlike on the oneplus 2 it also has NFC while there is us 4G LTE support do keep in mind that it's missing support for band 5 for AT&T and then 12:14 Mobile which may be a problem for some users I was unable to receive 4G LTE in my home coverage area with 18t for example those wishing to store large and/or many files on their phone will be happy to know that Blu has included 64 gigabytes of internal storage a number that we rarely see at this price point even if that's not enough you can always expand the storage via a microSD card up to an additional 64 gigabytes the pure XL does have high fire do and DTS surround sound through the 3.5 millimeter headphone jack while the audio does sound good I didn't really notice a difference when compared to other phones the dual stereo speakers on the back of the device are plenty loud with little to no Distortion they are rear facing which is a bit unfortunate but the quality of the speakers is still above average for this price with a 3,500 milliamp hour internal battery you would think that the pure Excel would provide excellent battery life unfortunately my battery life tests showed slightly below average results likely due to the larger six inch quad-hd display when I set the screen to about 50% brightness with Wi-Fi off for the majority of the day I was able to get the phone to last for an average of about 15 hours with about 2 hours and 45 minutes of screen on time well those are far from terrible numbers I was expecting a bit more considering the battery capacity the pure excels rear camera is the best camera in a blue smartphone to date it's a 24 megapixel shooter with optical image stabilization phase detection autofocus and a two-tone LED flash although the megapixel count isn't necessarily a good indicator of image quality the pure XL performs very well in good lighting conditions well it may not be as good as the cameras found in the galaxy s6 or iPhone 6s I think it's a great performer for the price low light performance was where things started to fall below average delivering unsatisfactory results if you're in the right lighting conditions though you can get some very sharp images with great color reproduction on the surface the camera app looks pretty basic until you open the modes menu and switch it to professional that grants you access to exposure compensation ISO white balance shutter speed and focus settings all available from a single menu overall it's a very nice app that lets you shoot quickly in automatic but also one that allows you to drill down into more specific settings when you want more control out of the box the pure excel runs a semi stock build of android 5.1 lollipop some of the UI elements are unchanged like the lockscreen volume controls Notification Center and multitasking view but other areas have seen sharp departures from a material design language the pre-installed the carefree launcher sadly does not include an app drawer the touch pal 2015 keyboard is rubbish and most system apps have seen complete redesigns I'm quite honestly unsure of the direction that blue is taking when it comes to software as it seems that each of their phones has an entirely different experience it's not all bad however as the software does include nifty features like smart gestures app permissions and a few general setting options for adjusting things like the notification LED with that said there's also a few bugs for example the notification panel seems to flicker when pulled down every once in a while the multitasking cards do seem to have some preview scaling issues and the fingerprint reader on my unit doesn't even work when trying to unlock the device I've tried emailing blue about this issue but I haven't been able to get it working even after following their directions I'm thinking that it's just a software bug as the fingerprint reader works pinewood adding fingerprints and using it when the device is unlocked my biggest concern for this device is whether or not it will be updated to future versions of Android like the recently released Android 6.0 marshmallow although Blue has said that they are making software updates a priority the jury is still out on whether they will decide to update this device in the future when they released the life--one and life 8xl in june they promised lollipop updates in july even publishing renders showing lollipop screenshots but failed to deliver they haven't provided an updated timeline and it's still unclear whether they are working on these updates or not regardless it worries me greatly on whether or not they are actually committed to supporting their products beyond release at $349 the blue pur XL is entering a perhaps unfamiliar market for blue one that is much less forgiving than the sub $200 price category despite this the pur XL is still a very solid option available now on Amazon in either black or gold while the pure XL does have its flaws limited 4G LTE support disappointing battery life and software that may never be updated I generally enjoyed my single month with the phone of course it's great display excellent performance and very good camera are all very good reasons to buy this phone if you're looking for a phone with a better software experience and support however you'd be much better off by purchasing a nexus 6 Nexus 5x ZTE axon or a Moto X pure edition or style for all around 350 to $450 thank you for watching this video and please make sure to give it a thumbs up below if you enjoyed it also please make sure to subscribe to the channel if you'd like to see more content finally be sure visit the Android Authority website for additional coverage 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