2017 seems to be the year of budget bezel-less phones and Bluboo has made quite a few of them. We have definitely seen this design before but the phone has decent specs for the price and more. Learn more in our review.
VIDEO REVIEW
UNBOXING
As always, make sure to check out all the links and show notes in the video description down below. Currently, the phone retails for less than $150.
DESIGN and DISPLAY
In terms of the looks, we have already seen this design a lot of times as we have a display that takes almost the entire space of the front of the phone. The panel itself is really good overall.
The build quality is very good too and I have to say that the phone looks really nice in white but you can also get a black color option.
We have a dual-camera setup on the back, inconveniently placed 8MP interpolated shooter on the front and nice buttons on the side.
The fingerprint scanner is quite accurate but the display could light up faster. Also, the phone does not have a headset jack and it lacks a notification LED light. Finally, the loudspeaker quality does not really impress.
HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE
The phone ships with really good specifications for the price but in reality, you may find the phone struggling even while playing some older 3D titles like Asphalt 8 on the highest graphics settings. You can play most of the games on reduced graphics but I also found that the phone gets hot quickly.
BENCHMARKS
USER INTERFACE
The phone runs Android 7 which is great but I’m not a huge fan of the fact that Bluboo removed the app tray and customized the icons in a cartoonish way. On a positive side, the phone has quite a few features and customization options to play with and most importantly, it runs fast and fluid.
My favorite features include the ability to customize the navigation bar or simply use the home key. Also, I use a few gesture controls but they are not always reliable. Finally, you can use the fingerprint gestures, which work well.
IMAGE QUALITY
The overall image quality is just average. Sure, some of the pictures will look okay on social media but pictures could definitely have more detail, sharpness and the color reproduction is not always accurate.
Selfies image quality does not impress either.
1080p video quality is just average and the selfie videos are shot only in 480p, meaning that the quality is bad.
DOWNLOAD full resolution camera samples
CONNECTIVITY
As far as connectivity, I would rate the call quality above average and other options work just fine.
Also, the phone has a gyroscope for VR compatibility.
BATTERY LIFE
You should expect to have a pretty much standard battery life on this phone. I was able to get about 5 hours of screen-on time.
However, it takes over 2.5 h to fully charge the phone with the supplied charger.
CONCLUSIONS
Bluboo S1 is yet another budget bezel-less phone that aims to deliver a lot of value for the price. For about $150, you indeed get a nice-looking phone that works well on the daily basis, has decent battery life and has quite a few features in the UI.
Just like on most of these budget phones, you should not expect to have stellar image quality. Also, this phone does not perform well handling 3D games.
Still, you get quite a lot for the price of the phone. Hopefully, my list of pros and cons helped you out and if it did, please like the video, drop me a comment down below if you have any questions and please subscribe for more content like this.
Here is an extra discount for our readers: before pay your order(pending payment status), add a message “YH34” in the shopping cart, select no warranty service, then the seller will change the price for $135.99 after a while.
