Have you got a BLU Win JR? If so, post your opinion here!
I'll share mine.
First Impressions: Since I usually buy my phones from AT&T, I have to say that this box was much nicer than the ones that I normally get. The box kinda felt heavy, but I suspect that that's all of the stuff that they packed into it. I'm not going to repeat verbatim what Daniel said in his unboxing, but I will say that I am very impressed that it came with headphones. They're not fantastic and I'm going to keep using mine, but they're not..... well, they're kinda bad. But hey, for a $90 phone, can't complain. If this were my only phone and I didn't already have a pair of headphones, I'd enjoy them. #firstworldproblems I guess. It also comes with a flexible case.
The phone feels very nice in the hand, however, I recommend putting on the case. I mean, you don't HAVE to, but IMO, the feel of the phone is a lot better when you put the case on. It feels less "cheap", the buttons are easier to press, and it just feels a little better to hold. I didn't appreciate how the charger port is up at the top. To me, it just feels weird. I also thought that the default screen protector felt.... interesting to say the least. Mine had two air bubbles, but it's honestly better than I would've been able to do by myself since I suck at screen protectors, so I'll give them a pass.
I booted the phone and I kinda like the boot up screen a little more than Nokia's. It's probably because I've seen it a hundred times that I just enjoy whatever change, but I thought it was kinda nice.
*disclaimer: I am rating the smoothness of the OS and performance of the app after immediately downloading the developer preview, then doing a hard reset. I will note, however, that the phone feels as smooth after the hard reset as it did when I first booted it up*
Smoothness: So coming from a 1520 with a SD 800, I was expecting to notice a lot of lag, but I must give Microsoft and BLU credit and say that this phone is actually surprisingly smooth for it's price range. I did notice some momentary lag when pressing on the letter to quickly jump between apps, but other than that, it wasn't that bad. Apps and games of course weren't as snappy, but I think that's because I use my 1520 day to day and am just use to the speed. If I used this phone over time, I would never notice the lag.
Games: Now for games, I wanted to try what I thought was a pretty unoptimized game so I could judge the phone at it's worst as opposed to one nice game and hundreds of crap games, so I tried Subway Surfers (well, that and I needed a game that could fit in 1.2 GB of storage). It seemed.... ok I guess. It didn't necessarily feel bad, per se, and it was definitely more than playable. I guess the best way that I can describe it is you know how when you're playing a PC game and it's just a few frames below 30FPS? Like, there's not an obvious lag, but you can kinda feel it? I guess that's the best way to describe it. It lagged after the game was over, but other than that, it went fine. Overall, for a $90 phone, it wasn't bad at all.
Short takes on a few other specs:
-Display is pretty good. Much better than the 520 IMO.
-Camera is.... well, it reminds me of a high-end from 2006 with the speed (it was slow all-around) and the picture quality, but for $90, not too bad. Plus, it had flash AND autofocus, so that's nice.
-I really like the capacitive buttons. Even though the 830 doesn't have lights behind the keys, this one does *glances at Microsoft*. The haptic feedback feels decent too, although a little more vibration than I would like.
-It has an ok front facing camera, but nothing that great.
-You get about 1.2 GB of storage after installing the developer preview and installing app updates. Out of the box you get 1.5 GB.
I haven't had a chance to try out an SD card since I don't have a tool to remove mine (lost it and I legitimately don't have something to pop it open), so I'll update the review when I go to my friend's house because he works for AT&T and I know he has one because I actually have a 64GB SD card, so that would be a nice test. Although, I suspect that people who buy a $90 phone probably aren't going to need that much space in the first place. It's like buying a computer with an Intel Celeron and 2GB of RAM and getting a 2 TB hard drive, it just doesn't make much sense for the majority of people.
Overall, while I will keep using my 1520 and will probably upgrade to the HTC One for Windows when my contract is eligible, I will say that I could probably get by with this phone and would definitely recommend it over the 530.
Pros:
-Lots of accessories in the box
-feels nice to hold
-is very affordable and a good value
Cons:
-shots are not fantastic. I would say that both the 530 and the BLU Win Jr have their own pros and cons. Nokia's for quality of shots (although those are nothing special either) and the Win Jr pretty much everything else.
-I'm not sure what kind of support they'll give this phone in terms of updates, but they seem to update their Androids kinda frequently and since all they have to do for this phone is push out firmware, I'm optimistic that these phones will see future support from BLU, although I'll personally only give it a 60% chance that it will. So while I'm kinda sure that these phones will get future support, you definitely know that the 530 will.
UPDATED September 23rd
So after using it as my daily driver for a few days (as I often do when I get a new phone), I thought I would share some "second impressions".
1) So it may be that I'm use to the 1520's massive 6 inch screen and SD 800 processor, but for the first few days of using this phone, I found it very frustrating to type on. After a few days, I was able to get use to it, but I was kind of frustrated. I will note, however, that I found swiping to be a lot better experience for me compared to typing. If you're use to big phones, I would recommend swiping until you get use to the size.
2) call quality was ok. It wasn't terrible, and is pretty much what you expect from a $90 phone.
3) So I'm not sure what was in it, but I got a firmware update yesterday. Since BLU didn't respond, I'll chalk it up to "bug fixes", but I will try to keep a note of any future changes I find.
4) I'm not sure why BLU only said that you can use 32GB of SD storage, but it was able to read my 64GB card, recognize that I had 64GB, and was able to read the fact that I had over 32GB of storage used. Now, I'm not sure how else to test it, but to the best of my knowledge, I think that this pretty much confirms that it goes higher than 32GB.
5) When there's light, the shots aren't actually too bad, but Jesus help you if you need to take a low light shot. I felt like I was back in 2005. Now, I will say that they're better than the 520,530, and 630, which don't even have a flash, but if someone needs you to take a low-light shot, you're in trouble.
6) So after trying out a few more (and better optimized) games, I found that the most games perform pretty well. For the majority of games, I didn't get the "just under 30fps" feel.
So after trying it out, I've put the SIM back in my 1520 and am going to use it as my daily driver for the conceivable future, but if it ever breaks, I would definitely not mind having this as a second phone.
I'll share mine.
First Impressions: Since I usually buy my phones from AT&T, I have to say that this box was much nicer than the ones that I normally get. The box kinda felt heavy, but I suspect that that's all of the stuff that they packed into it. I'm not going to repeat verbatim what Daniel said in his unboxing, but I will say that I am very impressed that it came with headphones. They're not fantastic and I'm going to keep using mine, but they're not..... well, they're kinda bad. But hey, for a $90 phone, can't complain. If this were my only phone and I didn't already have a pair of headphones, I'd enjoy them. #firstworldproblems I guess. It also comes with a flexible case.
The phone feels very nice in the hand, however, I recommend putting on the case. I mean, you don't HAVE to, but IMO, the feel of the phone is a lot better when you put the case on. It feels less "cheap", the buttons are easier to press, and it just feels a little better to hold. I didn't appreciate how the charger port is up at the top. To me, it just feels weird. I also thought that the default screen protector felt.... interesting to say the least. Mine had two air bubbles, but it's honestly better than I would've been able to do by myself since I suck at screen protectors, so I'll give them a pass.
I booted the phone and I kinda like the boot up screen a little more than Nokia's. It's probably because I've seen it a hundred times that I just enjoy whatever change, but I thought it was kinda nice.
*disclaimer: I am rating the smoothness of the OS and performance of the app after immediately downloading the developer preview, then doing a hard reset. I will note, however, that the phone feels as smooth after the hard reset as it did when I first booted it up*
Smoothness: So coming from a 1520 with a SD 800, I was expecting to notice a lot of lag, but I must give Microsoft and BLU credit and say that this phone is actually surprisingly smooth for it's price range. I did notice some momentary lag when pressing on the letter to quickly jump between apps, but other than that, it wasn't that bad. Apps and games of course weren't as snappy, but I think that's because I use my 1520 day to day and am just use to the speed. If I used this phone over time, I would never notice the lag.
Games: Now for games, I wanted to try what I thought was a pretty unoptimized game so I could judge the phone at it's worst as opposed to one nice game and hundreds of crap games, so I tried Subway Surfers (well, that and I needed a game that could fit in 1.2 GB of storage). It seemed.... ok I guess. It didn't necessarily feel bad, per se, and it was definitely more than playable. I guess the best way that I can describe it is you know how when you're playing a PC game and it's just a few frames below 30FPS? Like, there's not an obvious lag, but you can kinda feel it? I guess that's the best way to describe it. It lagged after the game was over, but other than that, it went fine. Overall, for a $90 phone, it wasn't bad at all.
Short takes on a few other specs:
-Display is pretty good. Much better than the 520 IMO.
-Camera is.... well, it reminds me of a high-end from 2006 with the speed (it was slow all-around) and the picture quality, but for $90, not too bad. Plus, it had flash AND autofocus, so that's nice.
-I really like the capacitive buttons. Even though the 830 doesn't have lights behind the keys, this one does *glances at Microsoft*. The haptic feedback feels decent too, although a little more vibration than I would like.
-It has an ok front facing camera, but nothing that great.
-You get about 1.2 GB of storage after installing the developer preview and installing app updates. Out of the box you get 1.5 GB.
I haven't had a chance to try out an SD card since I don't have a tool to remove mine (lost it and I legitimately don't have something to pop it open), so I'll update the review when I go to my friend's house because he works for AT&T and I know he has one because I actually have a 64GB SD card, so that would be a nice test. Although, I suspect that people who buy a $90 phone probably aren't going to need that much space in the first place. It's like buying a computer with an Intel Celeron and 2GB of RAM and getting a 2 TB hard drive, it just doesn't make much sense for the majority of people.
Overall, while I will keep using my 1520 and will probably upgrade to the HTC One for Windows when my contract is eligible, I will say that I could probably get by with this phone and would definitely recommend it over the 530.
Pros:
-Lots of accessories in the box
-feels nice to hold
-is very affordable and a good value
Cons:
-shots are not fantastic. I would say that both the 530 and the BLU Win Jr have their own pros and cons. Nokia's for quality of shots (although those are nothing special either) and the Win Jr pretty much everything else.
-I'm not sure what kind of support they'll give this phone in terms of updates, but they seem to update their Androids kinda frequently and since all they have to do for this phone is push out firmware, I'm optimistic that these phones will see future support from BLU, although I'll personally only give it a 60% chance that it will. So while I'm kinda sure that these phones will get future support, you definitely know that the 530 will.
UPDATED September 23rd
So after using it as my daily driver for a few days (as I often do when I get a new phone), I thought I would share some "second impressions".
1) So it may be that I'm use to the 1520's massive 6 inch screen and SD 800 processor, but for the first few days of using this phone, I found it very frustrating to type on. After a few days, I was able to get use to it, but I was kind of frustrated. I will note, however, that I found swiping to be a lot better experience for me compared to typing. If you're use to big phones, I would recommend swiping until you get use to the size.
2) call quality was ok. It wasn't terrible, and is pretty much what you expect from a $90 phone.
3) So I'm not sure what was in it, but I got a firmware update yesterday. Since BLU didn't respond, I'll chalk it up to "bug fixes", but I will try to keep a note of any future changes I find.
4) I'm not sure why BLU only said that you can use 32GB of SD storage, but it was able to read my 64GB card, recognize that I had 64GB, and was able to read the fact that I had over 32GB of storage used. Now, I'm not sure how else to test it, but to the best of my knowledge, I think that this pretty much confirms that it goes higher than 32GB.
5) When there's light, the shots aren't actually too bad, but Jesus help you if you need to take a low light shot. I felt like I was back in 2005. Now, I will say that they're better than the 520,530, and 630, which don't even have a flash, but if someone needs you to take a low-light shot, you're in trouble.
6) So after trying out a few more (and better optimized) games, I found that the most games perform pretty well. For the majority of games, I didn't get the "just under 30fps" feel.
So after trying it out, I've put the SIM back in my 1520 and am going to use it as my daily driver for the conceivable future, but if it ever breaks, I would definitely not mind having this as a second phone.
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