14 DAY TRIAL // US-based company BLU Products has just released its first Android smartphone to offer 4G LTE support. Although BLU launched a plethora of affordable handsets in the United States in the last few years, the company did not have any LTE-enabled phones in its portfolio.
Luckily for those looking to purchase a cheap 4G smartphone, BLU Studio 5.0 LTE has just arrived in the US and is now available for purchase via Amazon. Potential customers can grab the handset for only $205 (€155) outright in any of the four colors available: white, pink, green, and orange.
Keep in mind that while the smartphone comes with LTE support, BLU Studio 5.0 LTE will only be compatible with T-Mobile and MetroPCS 4G networks, as well as T-Mobile and AT&T’s HSPA+ networks.
Even though it’s been confirmed to support LTE band 4, BLU Studio 5.0 LTE does not seem to be compatible with Verizon’s 4G network. This hasn’t been confirmed yet, but on the phone’s webpage Verizon isn’t mentioned at all.
Anyway, aside from the fact that it comes with 4G LTE support out of the box and that it’s priced very low in comparison with other mid-range handsets, BLU Studio 5.0 LTE has a lot more goodies to offer to those who can afford it.
Although the smartphone has been confirmed to ship with the Android 4.3 Jelly Bean operating system on board, BLU states that the Studio 5.0 LTE will be getting an upgrade to Android 4.4 KitKat as soon as possible.
When it comes to hardware, BLU Studio 5.0 LTE seems to be just the average mid-range Android smartphone. The device is equipped with a 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, an Adreno 305 graphics processing unit, and 1GB of RAM.
That’s more than enough to run most of the apps and games included in the Google Play Store, so there’s no reason not to take it into consideration as a great Android deal.
On the inside, BLU Studio 5.0 LTE seems to pack only 4GB of storage, but thanks to the microSD card slot attached, users will be able to further expand internal memory up to 32GB.
It’s also worth mentioning that BLU’s mid-range smartphone sports a 5-inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen display that supports qHD (540 x 960 pixels) resolution.
There’s also an 8-megapixel photo snapper on the back with autofocus, LED flash, and video recording, as well as a secondary 2-megapixel camera on the front.