Smartphone Review Ndtv – Bluboo has created one of its best smartphones and given it a huge battery, all for less than $150 USD.
The Bluboo S8 Plus shares a name with another popular smartphone, and it also shares some design cues from that device, but it’s not the same. The Bluboo S8 Plus sports an 18:9 display, with some relatively small bezels and a very large battery, but is that enough to make it your next smartphone?
Smartphone Review Ndtv
The Bluboo S8 Plus has a 6-inch 1440 x 720 display, giving it an “HD+” resolution. This is an IPS panel made by Sharp as well. Inside, there is an octa-core MediaTek MT6750T processor (four Cortex-A53 cores at 1.5GHz, and four Cortex-A53 cores at 1.0GHz). It is paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, there is also a micro SD card slot available for storage expansion on the Bluboo S8 Plus.
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Bluboo joined the dual camera trend, using a 13-megapixel sensor as the main sensor on the back and a 3-megapixel sensor supporting it. The front camera is a 5 megapixel shooter. There is a dual LED flash on the back, plus autofocus is available. Here, too, there is no phase detection or laser autofocus in the camera. For connectivity, it supports WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac at 2.4GHz and also 5GHz frequency. There is also location tracking via A-GPS, GPS and GLONASS. With Bluetooth 4.1 on board, and as far as sensors are concerned, it uses a G sensor, a proximity sensor, an ambient light sensor, a geomagnetic sensor and an accelerometer. Finally, it runs Android 7.0 Nougat, as well as a 3600mAh non-removable battery.
With the Bluboo S8 Plus, the company has included plenty of paperwork, as you’d expect, along with a clear TPU case. But what’s interesting here is that Bluboo includes two USB-A to USB-C cables, as well as two headphone dongles. It’s great to have here, in case you lose one, you still have another one you can use. There is also a wall adapter, which is an EU adapter, for those thinking of importing this to the US.
At first glance, you’d think the Bluboo S8 Plus is actually a Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus. The antenna lines are the same, the ports are the same (except the headphone jack is missing), and even the speakers are in the same place. But the Bluboo S8 Plus is slightly thicker, and you won’t notice it unless you have both devices with you. The Bluboo S8 Plus is made of glass, which makes it quite fragile. The back is curved at the edges, which makes it feel really good in the hand, and there’s also that camera bump. Bluboo has used a vertical camera here and a fingerprint sensor just below it.
On the left side of the S8 Plus, you’ll find two volume control buttons. Therefore, instead of using one rocker to adjust the volume, Bluboo opted for two separate keys, which actually makes the whole affair easier to use given the overall design. On the right side of this Android phone, there is a power button. At the top you will find the SIM card tray, which is a dual SIM tray, or the second SIM card slot will work as a micro SD card. And of course, at the bottom, there is a USB-C port and a speaker. The left side of the USB-C port, however, is empty, which makes us wonder why Bluboo couldn’t add a headphone jack there. Since the phone is not that thin, then there should be plenty of space inside for one. However, there is no headphone jack here, which is another 2017 trend that this phone follows.
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In the hand, the Bluboo S8 Plus feels really good. It’s a glass panel, basically, and with curved edges on the back, it fits better in the hand, without it sliding out. Although it’s a 6-inch device, it’s only slightly larger than the Samsung Galaxy S8 (really between the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus), so it’s not a huge device, despite the large display, which is the advantage of the 18:9 ratio It.
On paper, the resolution here seems very low, just 1440 x 720 pixels. It’s actually HD+ and not the resolution we’ve seen on many 18:9 devices this year. But it’s here on the Bluboo S8 Plus, and it’s not as bad as it sounds, even when stretched across 6 inches. We couldn’t see individual pixels on this display, and it still got very bright, almost too bright in some cases. But it also gets very dim, which is a bit surprising, because it’s an IPS display, and usually such panels don’t have a large scale for brightness. Good to see here though.
However, the color in this panel is where it changes. The color is not that great. If you increase the brightness, almost to maximum, you will see some colors disappear. This is something we haven’t seen on a mobile display panel in a long time. It’s an IPS panel, so the blacks aren’t as deep and actually look more gray than black. As long as you don’t keep it at maximum brightness all the time, it should be fine.
This is another area where the Bluboo S8 Plus suffers. There is an octa-core processor from MediaTek here, which has four cores at a frequency of 1.5GHz and four at a frequency of 1GHz. So it’s not the fastest device out of the gate, sure, but it does stutter occasionally. Especially if you have several apps open, which is actually quite strange considering the fact that the device has 4GB of RAM, which should be enough for Android Nougat. Now it doesn’t always lag or stutter, but it does occasionally. It’s tolerable, and it’s also hard to tell when it’s going to lag, as it also happens sometimes when there aren’t actually any other apps open.
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Gaming performance on the S8 Plus is also tolerable. Don’t expect to play some heavy titles on this phone, which require a lot of graphics power to get things done. Because it won’t happen, unfortunately. So, if you’re looking for a phone that can do great gaming, you might want to look elsewhere. Considering it’s a $149 smartphone, you can’t expect it to go over $700, especially when it comes to gaming.
Bluboo also takes a cue from Samsung with the fingerprint sensor here. It’s part of the camera module, which looks very similar to the Galaxy Note 8 module but rotates, so the fingerprint reader is actually in the right place (read: where you can actually reach). Ideally, we would like the fingerprint sensor to be quite far from the camera, so that it does not touch the lens when trying to unlock the device, as this will inevitably happen and stain the lens. But when it comes to using the fingerprint sensor, it works and works well. Now it’s not the fastest fingerprint sensor in the world, but it’s pretty accurate. It just fails to recognize my finger if I’m misaligned or at a different angle when I set it up. So definitely not a deal breaker.
Bluboo S8 Plus is an unlocked GSM smartphone. So we used it on T-Mobile throughout the testing process. This device works on EDGE in the US only, there is no support for 3G or 4G LTE networks in the US. It’s actually common among smartphones aimed at the Chinese market, like this one. For reference only, the supported groups are listed below:
Having said that, we were able to use the Bluboo S8 Plus on the T-Mobile network to make calls, and everything worked as expected. There’s no HD Voice or VoLTE support here, so calls are made over T-Mobile’s legacy voice network and work just fine. Surprisingly, the Bluboo S8 Plus supports WiFi calling, so you can make calls over your WiFi network if you don’t have a great signal from your carrier. And it’s nice to see, especially on an unlocked device.
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When it comes to benchmarking, we ran AnTuTu, Geekbench 4 and 3D Mark on the Bluboo S8 Plus, and the scores weren’t particularly high, but about where you’d expect, given the hardware used. In Geekbench 4, it scored 621 in the single-core test, and 2659 in the multi-core test. In AnTuTu it got a score of 42,393. Now that sounds very low, obviously, but we’re also talking about a much slower processor, compared to what you find in more expensive flagship devices, so the score should be lower. Finally, on 3D Mark, it scored a pretty respectable 391. Of course you do