BLU Studio 5.3 Unlocked Phone/Tablet Written and Video review

[dragon2knight]

Hi all! I'm new here but love to do reviews(some say I'm a review junkie...could be true,lol). I have just finished a review of the BLU Studio 5.3 unlocked Android 2.3.5 GSM phone. As the name suggests, yes it does indeed have a glorious(ok,really nice)5.3" 800x480 screen. While not HD like its only competition,the Samsung Note, it still has nice color saturation and no jaggies that I could see.
The hardware is very solid as well,with a decent 5.0mp rear facing camera and a so-so VGA front facing one...at least it has one,so thats a good thing. It sports Blutooth, A-GPS, and a much better than its specs may seem MediaTek 633mhz processor...before you go off and think: OMG thats the slowest phone on the market!!..please also consider it has a really nice PowerVR 531 GPU to help it out. I get some pretty good 3D gaming on with this phone,and everything I use it with neither slows down or lags even in the slightest. The HUGE 2500mah battery also makes for a long and productive experience with the Studio as well, I couldnt kill the battery off in two plus days of heavy usage,nice.
Video playback is awesome, especially youtube playback, and all of the features that you expect a modern Android phone to do are present and accounted for. I find the Studio can replace all of my current devices I use daily effortlessly. It has a nice music player, web surfing is great with good flash performance, the camera has a good amount of customization allowing for decent pics...everything I used to do with different devices is covered well enough by the studio.
All told,for the paltry price of around $260.00US for this phone, you really cant go wrong here. It's a Dual sim phone,with one 3G slot and one 2G(EDGE) slot,so it can be use with either T-Mobile(EDGE in the US) or AT&T(or Red Pocket,which I use,for 3g)....or both at once. I highly recommend this to anyone looking for a no contract phone that does the job of several dedicated devices for a reasonable price.Let me know what you think about it

[dragon2knight]

Wow,a lot of folks looking at this,but no one commenting? I honestly would love to know your opinions on this phone,even some comments about the company that makes it if you have some experience with them. Inquiring minds wanna know,lol.

[samevo8]

How did you get the CPU MHz info? I've been looking at websites, talking to vendors, and emailing Blu itself and there have been some differences in regards to CPU clock speed. Blu tells me 800MHz. The vendors I've talked to say 650MHz.

Also, have you found a way to check the 3G/UMTS bands? One vendor says for sure it's 850MHz/1900MHz/2100MHz. Blu customer support says it's only 850MHz/2100MHz.

Thanks.

[dragon2knight]

How did you get the CPU MHz info? I've been looking at websites, talking to vendors, and emailing Blu itself and there have been some differences in regards to CPU clock speed. Blu tells me 800MHz. The vendors I've talked to say 650MHz.

Also, have you found a way to check the 3G/UMTS bands? One vendor says for sure it's 850MHz/1900MHz/2100MHz. Blu customer support says it's only 850MHz/2100MHz.

Thanks.

The clock speed is actually a simple one: Just look up the chipset manufacturer and quote from there. In this case,their chipset is a MediaTek MT6573,which has a speed of 633mhz(many vendors round that up to 650...) and a GPU from PowerVR,the 531.Info from BLU has been consistently off,and I would defer to the ones who make the chipset for the truth. Havent figured out a way to see what the actual bands supported are,but I can with impunity say that it only works with AT&T's bands for 3G support,at least in the United States. I used both a T-Mobile sim and a RedPocket(AT&T's MVNO)sim,and got Edge results with the former,and full 3G(it says HSPA on the phone) with the later.As far as I know,they are the only ones that are supported.Hope that helps

EDIT: After further examination,all phones using this chipset seem to only handle 850/2100mhz,I didnt see one with 850/1900/2100mhz anywhere. So I'm assuming it only works with 850/2100mhz. That seems to be the one for this chipset design.

[samevo8]

I've seen the CPU specs with the following: ARM ARM1176. This appears to be a 800MHz processor. Know if there are variants with this processor?

[samevo8]

per http://www.gsmarena.com/blu_studio_5_3-4370.php, the chipset is the MediaTek MT6573, which runs at 650MHz, and the CPU is the ARM1176, which runs at 800MHz. What does that mean in regards to CPU speed?

[samevo8]

per http://www.gsmarena.com/blu_studio_5_3-4370.php, the chipset is the MediaTek MT6573, which runs at 650MHz, and the CPU is the ARM1176, which runs at 800MHz. What does that mean in regards to CPU speed?

[dragon2knight]

per http://www.gsmarena.com/blu_studio_5_3-4370.php, the chipset is the MediaTek MT6573, which runs at 650MHz, and the CPU is the ARM1176, which runs at 800MHz. What does that mean in regards to CPU speed?

To answer both of your questions:

1. There are no variants on this chipset. According to MediaTek,the processor runs at 633mhz. Thats it,period.Its the only one out there.

2.GSMarena is the reason so many folks think this chipset can do more....they got it wrong,please ignore their specs.They've done this with a ton of phones,not just this one. They simply cut and paste from different sources,never even bothering to check and see if what they pilfered actually is correct. Like I said,ignore that site.

[Christeph]

I have just received the BLU studio 5.3 and i was thrilled to have a go at it.
unfortunately i have tried to play some video files (mp4 and flv) but it does not play mp4 files (720p) and it lag when playing flv.

Though i have tried with several players on the android market (free apps).

Also i have only 3 icons on the launch bar and I can't add more and I have noticed that in your video there are 5 icons. How did you do that!

[dragon2knight]

I have just received the BLU studio 5.3 and i was thrilled to have a go at it.
unfortunately i have tried to play some video files (mp4 and flv) but it does not play mp4 files (720p) and it lag when playing flv.

Though i have tried with several players on the android market (free apps).

Also i have only 3 icons on the launch bar and I can't add more and I have noticed that in your video there are 5 icons. How did you do that!

flv files are youtube files,and I have never had a single one slow down on me yet. Make sure whatever format you encode in is set to the lower end of the spectrum.In other words,if you encode in too high a bitrate,your videos will lag because of it. Try lowering your frame rates and use .avi as your encoding choice,its compatable across more platforms than any other. 720p is a very high encoding,shoot for lower and you should be fine.
As for the icons,I am using a different launcher(the screen you see when not using apps is what the launcher is,for lack of a better way to say it.).I use Launcher Pro Plus,available in the marketplace.It has a ton of settings allowing you to set up your phone just the way you like it.

[soultrader]

Really nice review!Thanks.

[dragon2knight]

Really nice review!Thanks.

Your welcome

[Christeph]

Thanks for taking the time to reply! Just installed launcher pro!

[dragon2knight]

No problem If your noticing any serious lag,try to move all of your apps that you can move to your sd card. The Studio only has 512MB of ram built in,so freeing that up a bit can really help performance. I've installed a 32GB sd card and move every app I can onto it.I found it really helps to speed things up.
By the way,you do this in the "applications" tab in settings.No need for an external app to do it for you

[Christeph]

LOL! Yeah done that Apart from facebook I have moved the other apps to the SD.
Unfortunately I can't connect my phone with my PC! Do I need a driver or something as the PC does not recognise the device nor see the external memory.