BLU Advance 5.5 HD -Unlocked Dual Sim Smartphone - US GSM - Grey

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.

Blu Advance 5.0 HD reviewSept. 19, 2016On Sept. 4, my Samsung Galaxy S6 was washed, which forced me to look into a replacement phone. I decided against going with another on-contract phone and scoured Amazon for a good off-contract option. I initially looked at Motorola phones, such as the Moto G and X, but decided that was more than I wanted to spend at the time. I then came across the Blu series of phones.I was apprehensive about buying a $60 phone from a maker I was unfamiliar with, but upon seeing the positive reviews I went ahead and bought the phone. Since it arrived I’ve been nothing but impressed with what it can do for less than $100 after using it for almost two weeks.The phone runs a very close to stock version of Android 6.0, which is great to see. The only bloatware I noticed was the Amazon Shopping app. I even had to hunt down the standard YouTube app from the Play store when I was setting the phone up. All that is good when you consider the phone only has 8GB of internal storage, though I did add a 32GB memory card.Battery life is outstanding for me. I take it off the charger every morning around 6:45 and when I get home around 6:30 it usually has around 30 percent battery life left. The phone’s battery is not that big in terms of milliamps, but I think the efficiency of Android 6.0 is what makes the difference.With this being said, I don’t use my phone for work during the week except for when I’m on my lunch break. The phone does take awhile to charge, as it lacks any form of quick charging. I find it takes just over two hours to charge from dead to 100 percent.The camera is satisfactory to me. I’m not attaching pictures, but many other people have. Specs wise it’s a little behind a flagship phone from Samsung or Apple, but the pictures I’ve taken have looked fine to me.The screen is 720p, with a pixels per inch of just under 300, which is behind other flagship phones, but still a usable display. It gets fairly bright and can even be seen outside. I have no issues with the screen considering the price of the phone.Call quality seems the same as on my Galaxy, but I do notice the phone sometimes does not work with my 2013 Ford Escape’s Bluetooth. Sometimes when I press the button to say the voice command to make a call the phone pauses but does not actually make the call. It’s a minor inconvenience and I’m not sure who’s fault it is: the maker of the car’s Bluetooth (Microsoft) or the phone’s. The phone shows I’m connected to AT&T’s 4G network most of the time. I’ve seen some people say the phone lacks 4G connectivity, but from what I’m seeing that is not true.I thought the 1GB of RAM might be limiting with this phone, but so far it has not been. The phone shows I’m using an average of about 78 percent of the RAM. To compare, an iPhone 6S has 2GB of RAM while a Galaxy S6 has 3 or 4GB of RAM, depending on the model. The 1GB of RAM does not make the phone feel sluggish as the menus still come up quickly and apps launch in a satisfactory timeframe.Another note is I find the keyboard difficult to type on. I’m not someone who texts that much, but when I do I’m constantly hitting the wrong keys. I’ve even installed other keyboards, but find the results the same. The touch sensor does seem to be fairly low in its sensitivity level when scrolling through apps or web pages, but I’m not sure if that affects texting. Your mileage may vary.To give some perspective, I’m a 26-year old who works at a university in the financial aid office. I do not use my phone for work at all and uses it mostly to read Reddit posts, watch YouTube, follow Twitter links to news stories and manage fantasy football teams. I don’t play games on my phone at all really. I consider myself to be a power user, but not in the same way as someone who plays games on their phone for hours per day. I use mine mostly for media consumption.Overall I’m very impressed with what this phone does for $60. If you’re someone looking for a new phone on a budget, perhaps for a grandparent, child or as a replacement to a lost or broken phone, the Advance 5.0 HD will do the job. In fact the first time I showed it to my fairly tech-savvy friend, he initially thought it was an iphone.