The company Blackview is known for producing all sorts of budget phones but their rugged devices series is one of the most popular on the market. The reason for that is the company manages to find a good balance between design, rugged properties, great specifications and of course, the price. Learn more in the Blackview BV9000 Pro review.
VIDEO REVIEW
UNBOXING
The phone ships with all the usual items and some extras include a screen protector, a pair of earphones, USB OTG cable, 3.5mm to USB C adapter, and micro USB to USB c adapter.
DESIGN and DISPLAY
It is obvious that the BV9000 Pro is a rugged phone since it is thick and heavy but I have to say this is one of the best-designed and well-built rugged smartphones, just like my previously reviewed Blackview rugged phones. The build quality is excellent as the phone uses mostly metal and rubber in its construction. I love some extra features like a highly customizable smart key.
We now have 18:9 aspect ratio display that I found to be pretty sharp and vibrant both indoors and outdoors. The phone has the IP-68 rating meaning that it is water and dust resistant. Also, the rugged body assures that the phone will survive a few accidental drops. Unlike the BV8000 Pro, there are flaps that cover the ports to avoid water damage.
Just above the display, we have an 8MP shooter for selfies. It is great that we have a multicolor and customizable LED notification light. Gone are the capacitive keys, which are now implemented on the screen.
As for optics, we now have a dual camera setup that I will cover a bit later in the review.
You can access two SIM card slots and the microSD card slot easier, you don’t need to remove the backplate like on a previous generation model.
I found the fingerprint scanner to be quite accurate even though the display could light up a bit faster.
Unfortunately, there is no headset jack but the sound quality via the supplied adapter is pretty good. Finally, the loudspeaker is one of the loudest I’ve ever heard and the quality is quite good but the sound could be more balanced.
HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE
When it comes to hardware, the Blackview BV9000 Pro is one of the most powerful budget rugged phones out there.
The phone ships with an octa-core MTK6757CD chip (2.6GHz), 6GB of RAM and 128GB of expandable storage.
The gaming performance is just great. All the 3D games work without any issues even if you play them on the very highest graphics settings, which is very impressive for a budget phone. Finally, I didn’t notice any overheating issues.
USER INTERFACE
As far as user interface goes, we are looking at a heavily customized Blackview’s skin that is built on top of Android 7.1.
I’m glad that this time around they kept the app tray and there are customization options and extra features. You can customize the navigation bar, LED notification light, use some gesture controls that work fine or choose from quite a few fingerprint gestures if you wish so. Overall, it would have been nice to have Android 8 out of the box but I’m happy with the day to day performance as the phone is really fast and smooth even after installing plenty of apps.
BENCHMARKS
IMAGE QUALITY
The overall image quality is pretty good even if you take pictures on a cloudy day like I did. Sure, some of the shots could be more detailed but I at the end of the day, this is still a budget phone and I’m happy with the results.
The portrait shots are also surprisingly good in comparison to most of the budget Chinese phones I’ve recently tested.
The night image quality, however, does not impress.
On a positive note, selfies taken with the 8MP camera look pretty good.
The phone can shoot videos in 4k and 1080p. The 4k video quality does not really impress as it could be much more detailed. There are also quite a few video artifacts going on and there is no continuous auto-focus.
720p selfie video quality could be better and the sound recording quality is just awful.
Download full resolution camera samples
CONNECTIVITY
I didn’t have any connectivity issues with this device as the call quality and signal reception are pretty good, and even the GPS lock speeds and accuracy were okay. The phone has quite a few sensors including a gyroscope, so you will be able to use the device with VR headsets.
BATTERY LIFE
The Blackview BV9000 Pro ships with a built-in 4180mAh battery that performs just great. I could constantly get over 7 or 8 hours of screen-on time but your mileage may vary, depending on the usage.
Finally, the phone ships with the fast charger that can fully charge the battery in about 1.5 hours.
CONCLUSIONS
Blackview BV9000 Pro is a great-looking and well-crafted device that was built with the power users in mind who usually work in harsh weather or environmental conditions.
The phone is very fast on the daily basis, it can handle most of the 3D games, daylight image quality is pretty good and the battery life is great. However, the phone lacks the headset jack and video and sound recording quality could be better.
I still believe that Blackview BV9000 Pro is one of the most powerful and one of the best budget rugged phones out there, despite a few shortcomings.
