As smartphones get re-engineered to enhance their aesthetics with features such as slim bezels, thin frame, glass/ceramic body and others, they become more fragile. But there are persons who desire their phones to be rugged while still having all the functions of a smartphone. Blackview satisfies the need of that segment with the BV series. The rugged phone maker sent in a unit of the Blackview BV9000 for review a couple of months back. Here you have it.

BlackviewBV9000 isn’t a relatively new model as it was launched a long time ago alongside the BV9000 Pro. The models are separated by just a few hardware features. I’ve had this phone for more than 4 months and it is always with me whenever I have to hit the road to a remote region or rough terrain or while it rains. So my take on the BV9000 won’t be based on assumptions but on practical results.

DESIGN

You won’t have to take a second look at the device to conclude that the device is a rugged phone as a result of its mammoth size and weight.

The rugged phone comes with a cool rubberised body with some metal plates to add some aesthetics. The metal band and rubberized backplate held up pretty well over time. I’ve noticed that if you scratch the rubberized surface, you can polish minor scratches away with a cleaning cloth, which is pretty cool. However, any scratch to the metal backplate remains there permanently but it won’t scratch easily except on hard surface like the floor. The backplate tends to provide protection to the rear cameras and fingerprint sensor which it wraps around.

The BV9000 comes with an IP-68 rating meaning that it is water and dust resistant. The device has the SIM tray slot at the top edge while the charging port is at the bottom. Both are covered with a rubber seal designed in such a way as not to allow water in. The port also has rubber seals around it as well as the SIM slot holds tightly when it is slotted in. Also, the rugged body assures that the phone will survive a few accidental drops. The phone did drop accidentally on a few occasions, sometimes from the hands of my kids. The rubberised body gives that feel of cushion effect to any damage that may occur. I also did put the phone under running water and even inside a bucket of water and it still worked fine. Even under the rain, the phone works fine, including the display but as usual, the fingerprint sensor won’t respond well.

I found the display to be very good overall. While the sunlight legibility is not the best, it’s pretty good. I also love the loudspeaker that can get really loud and the sound quality is pretty good for a budget device. Other features include the LED notification light and a hybrid dual sim card slot. I found the fingerprint scanner to be quite accurate even though the display could light up a bit faster. The device has its volume rockers, power button and a shortcut button at the right side of the display. The shortcut button can be set to take the user directly to launch a particular app with one, two and three presses.So,you can add three different commands.

Finally, the phone lacks headset jack, which means that you always need to bring a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter with you but the phone ships with an adapter in the retail box. You also get an earphone, USB-C cable, OTG cable, a screen protector and a fast charge charging adapter.

HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE

When it comes to hardware, the Blackview BV9000 Pro is one of the most powerful budget rugged phones out there.

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.

SPECIFICATIONS

The BV9000 packs a 5.7-inch display with FHD+ resolution and 18:9 aspect ratio. It offers a triple camera setup featuring a 13MP+5MP camera combination at the back and an 8MP front shooter for selfies. The device is a MediaTek MTK6757CD Octa Core 2.6GHz processor (Helio P25), under the hood. The chipset is paired with 4GB of RAM while there are 64GB and 128GB storage options. In addition, the phone runs Android 8.0 Oreo, has dual-SIM support and crams a non-removable 4180mAh battery under the hood.

USER INTERFACE

The gadget has been very quick consistently despite the fact that I’m not a gigantic aficionado of redesigned icons in the UI. I wish Blackview stayed with stock Android yet that is effectively fixable utilizing a third-party launcher.

IMAGE QUALITY

I also like that the Blackview BV9000 is one of those rare budget phones from China that can take decent daylight pictures even on the cloudy days. The portrait shots are also surprisingly good in comparison to most of the budget Chinese phones I’ve recently tested. Selfies look pretty good but the video quality using both main and front cameras does not impress, even after receiving a few software updates. Check out some of the camera samples.

TEST NOTES

I didn’t have any connectivity issues with this phone and battery life has been consistently good. I was usually able to get about 7 hours of screen-on time which is a good result.

CONCLUSIONS

In conclusion, I strongly hold that the Blackview BV9000 is a solid rugged phone on a budget. The phone has performed very well over time with awesome user experience.  The design is great, it attracts a lot of attention wherever I go and the battery can take you several places without fear of running out of battery power. Even the camera output is pretty decent for such a model. However, the lack of a headphone jack is quite frustrating, making it impossible to listen to music and charge the phone.

Overall, the Blackview BV9000 is still one of the best options in this price range and I recommend you check it out if you’re shopping for a rugged phone on a budget.

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