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BLU Dash 4.5 offers quad-core Android 4.2 action for $139 unsubsidized
Cheap smartphones are getting more common, but the BLU Dash 4.5 is redefining the term budget. For $139, unlocked and unsubsidized, you can own an Android 4.2 Jelly Bean handset with a 1.2GHz quad-core chip from MediaTek, 512MB of RAM, 5-megapixel camera, 4.5-inch 854 x 480 pixel display and 21Mbps HSPA+ support for both AT&T and T-Mobile. Though it's not the thinnest device in the world at 11.9mm (0.47 inches) thick, we're willing to ignore that given the price tag. It's $10 cheaper than our current favorite budget smartphone, the Nokia Lumia 520, and you can buy it from online retailers today. We've found an unboxing video in Spanish -- if you're interested, it's just after the break.
Mobile Miscellany: week of May 13th, 2013
If you didn't get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week brought a new handset from Sony to the US and UK, updates to Nokia Creative Suite and three new (and very inexpensive) smartphones from Blu Products. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore all that's happening in the mobile world for this week of May 13th, 2013.
BLU Products to use stock Android from now on, gives Vivo 4.3 new colors and Jelly Bean
BLU Products most often draws attention by launching a smorgasbord of new phones. Today, the company is more interested in rethinking the devices it already has. Starting with a just-launched Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update for the Vivo 4.3, the company is moving to stock Android for every new device and firmware upgrade in the hopes of improving battery life and streamlining the interface -- a distinct break from the growing trend toward hyper-customized experiences. Whether or not vanilla Android is your bag, the Vivo 4.3 is also receiving a minor hardware update through new colors. Pink, yellow and white variants of the dual SIM phone are now shipping from Amazon and other retailers for $229 each. Although we'd most like to see a full-fledged sequel to the older phone, we can't object too much to a spring tune-up.
BLU Life Series phones include quad-core CPU, Android 4.2, start at $229 unlocked
Coming this April, BLU Products will have three new smartphones vying for your hard-earned dollar. The trio of dual-SIM handsets, known as the Life View, Life One and Life Play, will be sold unlocked on Amazon and will range in price between $229 and $299. As a nice touch, Android 4.2 will be common among the bunch, as will backside-illuminated sensors on the cameras and the quad-core, 1.2GHz MediaTek MT6589 (Cortex A7) SoC. Likewise, each smartphone will also feature an HD IPS display. The Life View ($299), the largest of the bunch, includes a massive 5.7-inch display, a 12-megapixel rear / 5-megapixel front camera, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable storage and a 2,600mAh battery. Meanwhile, the more reasonably sized Life One ($299) includes a 5-inch display, a 13-megapixel rear / 5-megapixel front camera, similar storage specs and a 2,000mAh battery. Lastly, the sleekest of the three, the Life Play ($229), includes a 4.7-inch display and measures 7.9mm thick. Here, you can expect to find an 8-megapixel rear / 2-megapixel front camera, 1GB of RAM, 4GB of expandable storage and an 1,800mAh battery. You'll find the band support for each of the three phones in the PR after the break, but needless to say, you'll be safe on AT&T (and in many areas, T-Mobile).
BLU Products' unlocked Vivo 4.65 HD available in January for $300
Arguably the straight to DVD release of the smartphone world, BLU Product's Vivo 4.3 is getting a second act in the form of the Vivo 4.65 HD. Aside from the 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED display it's named after, this up-and-comer ships with Android 4.0, a 1.2GHz A9 dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera. If you can get past less than stellar specs -- and resist waiting for the Nexus 4 to be back in stock -- BLU's future flagship can be yours outright for $300 sometime in January.
Team Fortress 2 14-inch Sniper statue sure is a 'beaut
The fourth mega TF2 statue from Gaming Heads is the BLU Sniper Exclusive, and boy is she pretty. The BLU Sniper Exclusive is 14 inches from the base to the top of its arrows, and since it's the exclusive version, it comes with the Razorback battery-powered tribal shield. There are only 350 of these bad boys, and they cost $235 each. They'll be available in Q3 2013, though pre-orders start today.Gaming Heads also has the Medic, Soldier and Heavy in standard and exclusive versions. If you haven't already started saving up, maybe do that now.
BLU Products intros Vivo 4.3, says it's 'world's first' dual-SIM smartphone with Super AMOLED Plus
It feels like it was only yesterday that BLU was keeping us slightly occupied with its Studio 5.3 and TouchBook 7.3 devices, which, as you may or may not know, left us with somewhat of a bittersweet taste in our mouths. Still, the past is the past, and now the company's back for more with the recent revelation of its Vivo 4.3 handset; one the company's loudly dubbing as the "world's first dual-SIM smartphone with Super AMOLED Plus." Regardless of any global, self-induced titles, the 4.3-inch Vivo appears to offer some interesting features of its own, including that aforementioned Super AMOLED Plus screen, a 1GHz, dual-core Cortex A9 CPU, dual-SIM capabilities and a tweaked flavor of Android 4.0. What's best, however, is BLU plans on selling the Vivo 4.3 unlocked in the US next month for $250, while additional availability is "soon to follow" through Latin America and some parts of Asia.
BLU Studio 5.3 and Touch Book 7.0 hands-on
You know handset vendors like Samsung, LG, HTC and Motorola. You've probably even heard that manufacturers such as Pantech, Sharp and Acer produce phones as well. But have you ever heard of BLU? If you haven't, don't worry -- you'd be in the ranks of the 99 percent. Calling itself the "leader of the Latin America market with vision to expand worldwide," the outfit is nothing if not confident about its stature in developing countries. In the US, however, it's a completely different story: here, BLU is a virtual unknown: a low-profile brand, selling unlocked phones and tablets via e-tailers at bargain-basement prices.Our friends at Negri Electronics hooked us up with the BLU Studio 5.3 ($260) and BLU Touch Book 7.0 ($230) for a short time, giving us the chance to play around with them for a little bit. Rather than doing a full review on both items, we felt it was more appropriate to first give the product lineup a formal introduction to the site. BLU, meet Engadget. Engadget, BLU. Let's dive in.
Blu e-cigarettes help you make friends, light up when you're near another Blu smoker
Oh, that old adage: smoke, be cool, make friends. Die. Well, e-cigarette manufacturer Blu is now trying to resurrect that image, albeit perhaps without so much of the death bit, by making its packaging more sociable. It's new "smart packs" are equipped with radio sensors that detect when a fellow Blu smoker comes within 50 feet, causing your box to light up and vibrate. This is meant to encourage you to go over and make conversation, like "Hi, so, er... you also spent $80 on a pack of battery-powered smokes. Is that fur real?"
ASUS' 12x BW-12D1S-U external Blu-ray writer: world's fastest, until the next one
Fed up with the simply unacceptable performance of your external Blu-ray writer? Of course you are. ASUS feels your pain, and it's looking to ease it with the soothing balm of the BW-12D1S-U, a new 12X, USB 3.0 burner. The highly capable (and highly complex, we're surmising) BW-12D1S-U offers realtime 2D to 3D conversion, 1080p video output and support for the usual complement of HD audio formats. But does it have a jewel-like, almost ominous translucent blue power button, you ask? Indeed it does, not to mention a sleek black finish and the ability to operate horizontally or vertically. The outfit has yet to put a price on having the fastest writer on the block, but don't even pretend that you wouldn't pay it. Whatever "it" ends up being.
Cheaper Blu-ray? Sony, Panasonic, and Philips say it's coming, honestly
Look, we don't really "get" people who aren't willing to buy the latest and greatest thing regardless of the price and / or current economic state, but evidently there's a rather large sector still clinging to their antiquated DVD format. Blu-ray proponents Panasonic, Philips, and Sony are looking to change all that by knocking down the tab a few notches. The trio has revealed plans to form a single licensing firm for Blu-ray, which they anticipate will lower the cost of the license -- and therefore the retail price -- by "at least" 40 percent. They expect it'll amount to $9.50 for read-only BD player, $14 for a burner, 11 cents for read-only discs, 12 cents for BD-Rs, and 15 cents for BD-RE rewritable discs. In its current form, hopeful BD makers have to seek out each company individually. The group also hopes a single licensing entity will help them spot unauthorized BD devices, so watch out, suspicious mom and pop Blu-ray stores.
Studios, CE firms bankroll $25 million Tru Blu ad campaign
The stakes are high for Blu-ray this holiday season. As we've stated before, it's the first such season where it's not competing directly with HD DVD, and coincidentally enough, also the first in which it is competing (at least to a small degree) with HD streaming. To that end, a number of studios and consumer electronics outfits have agreed to fund a $25 million marketing campaign dubbed Tru Blu, which involves airing persuasive commercials on channels that "attract heavily male audiences." With Blu-ray deck prices expected to reach the $150 area come Black Friday, we'd say BD still has a good chance of being successful this winter, but it's going to need every ounce of gusto it can muster.
Apple to add LED BLU displays to all MacBooks in 2009 says paper
Word on the street -- and by "street" we mean "the internet" -- is that Apple will begin exclusive use of LED BLUs for displays in all of its MacBooks come 2009. According to the Chinese-language paper Economic Daily News, the computer-maker's Taiwanese supplier of LED backlight units, Kenmos, will increase shipments in the coming year of the brighter, longer-lasting, better dressed components. Of course, the paper could be making this all up to toy with our emotions and break our little hearts... but why would they do that?
SIM2, Dolby showcase 46-inch HDR display prototype
Well, would you take a look at that. Right on cue, Dolby and SIM2 are collaboratively showcasing a 46-inch 1080p display built around the former firm's high dynamic range technology. The HDR-enabled LCD HDTV boasts 1,836 LED-based backlight units (designed / developed by SIM2), a full 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, brightness level greater than 4,000 cd/m2, an "infinite" contrast ratio, 16-bits of luminance and a Xilinx Virtex field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) chipset. Additionally, the prototype employs a design created by Giorgio Revoldini, and while we can't imagine hearing of a release date anytime soon, the two firms aren't wasting any time putting the new set on a world tour to presumably wow onlookers. Hey SED, you taking notes here?
Buena Vista reveals plans for 50GB Blu-ray movies
Buena Vista Worldwide Home Entertainment added to its enhanced winter Blu-ray release slate today, as Invincible and Pearl Harbor were joined by Touchstone Pictures' Enemy of the State and Flightplan. The company revealed the latter three will all be on dual-layer 50GB discs, as Buena Vista joined Warner, Fox and Paramount in announcing plans for the much-delayed discs this winter. Invincible will include a Blu-ray exclusive HD extra, "Recreating the Vet", while the three others mirror their DVD counterparts, plus an exclusive "Blu-ray Showcase". Flightplan will also add a Blu-scape short "Jet Stream". The two Disney movies are due December 19th, while Enemy of the State and Flightplan will still be released November 21. We're not sure what took them so long, but the Blu-ray camp is obviously trying to make 50GB releases a regular part of the high-def landscape. All of these titles have been added to our Google Release CalendarsHD DVDBlu-ray
The results are in: You embrace Blu-ray! (Some of you)
We decided it was time to take the Blu-ray inquiry out of limbo and officially close the poll. As you can see, over 1,400 readers had something to say about it. So, what do you think about Blu-ray? More than half of you embrace the strategic move by Sony to include the next-generation format in the new console. This speaks a lot to the kind of people we have interested in the system: those who opted for the first choice are willing to take the price spike for the new medium.On the other end, over 30% said they should have the right to decide for themselves. Two versions of the console would cut the cost considerably, but leave Sony more vulnerable to HD-DVD by not smuggling Blu-ray in with every PS3.At any rate, thanks for voting! And if you harbor a burning desire to know what the community here thinks and have an interesting question to ask the audience, let us know.
With our powers combined... Blu-ray + HD-DVD [UPDATED]
Some want it, others don't. Either way, Sony is going to get Blu-ray into your home one way or another. That's their plan anyway, thanks to the PlayStation 3. Like we've said before, it's not just about the games this time and Sony is in it for the long haul.That's what makes this little bit of information so intriguing. What would happen if a Blu-ray partner like Samsung, who is technically not supposed to mess with HD-DVD, decides to foster a partnership with Toshiba in an attempt to make a hybrid player? Everyone is talking format wars with HD-DVD and Blu-ray going head-to-head. But what happens when you have a machine that can play both?Having a dual-player would essentially take the "war" out of the formats. And with Sony trying to smuggle their medium into homes via the next-gen PlayStation, how is this move going to affect their strategy? It gets even more interesting with talks about making an HD-DVD/Blu-ray hybrid disc to go along with it. The kicker is this: Sony knows the PS3 is a good deal, as a Blu-ray platform, as they're trying to appeal to non-gamers with it as well. But would non-gamers still want to invest if they can have their cake and eat it too with a hybrid machine that can play both formats?[UPDATE: Well, looks like you can cut through this rumor like a knife through warm butter. Check this out for the skinny on the mess. So all of the above is more of a hypothetical scenario. Yeah, that's it-]
Rumor control: of controllers and hard drives
One of the most important E3 followups that's been going around has to do with the rumor claiming that the cheaper PS3 setup won't support wireless controllers or a removable hard drive. This would naturally have some people clamoring for clarity.Thankfully we can dismiss this misinformation with a bit of confidence as it appears Sony's press release states that both systems will come with wireless Bluetooth controllers.As far as the second part goes, the removable hard drive bay can actually be seen on the left of the console (or bottom when vertical). It just goes to show you: don't believe everything you read on the internet. Until we hear something else official, count the rumors as BS.
