Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
Great phone, greater price
By P. Tato
This phone is perfect for PlatinumTel, the cheapest pay as you go service (Rides on TMobile carrier). I picked up a PTEL sim card on EBay for $0.99, slipped it in and it works with no issues. Voice is $0.05 per minute, texts are $0.02, and data is $0.10. Data is spendy if you are streaming video, but otherwise this is the cheapest way to go for a full featured phone. And this phone is Fast! The dual processors make easy work of HD movies I loaded on the SD card (I can scan back and forth to find my place with no lag). I have never seen a phone as responsive. Battery life has been excellent, swipe works great for text entries even with my fat fingers, but I use Google voice to write most of my texts. The multi-touch capacitive screen is responsive. Only caveat, no dedicated accessories yet. I had to cut down a generic screen protector, and there are no custom fit cases out there, just generic sleeves. Still, at this price for an unlocked phone (that can go international), and no commitments, this is a no brainer.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Pretty good dual sim smart phone
By dest81
I purchased this phone in hopes to replace the smart phone I purchased while in the Philippines (Cherry Mobile Flare). The Blu Dash 4.0 D270a doesn't quite stand up to the performance of the Cherry Mobile Flare, but since the Flare doesn't work in the United States, it is a pretty close replacement. Overall I'm pretty pleased with it so far. But like anything there are positives as well as negatives with anything. Some of the specs provided on Amazon and Blu's website ([...]) are a little off. Not anything major but I will run down those and the minor negative points of the phone in this review. [website & amazon specs]:4GB with 512MB RAM; Dual Core 1GHz Cortex-A5; 5MP camera (main)/ 0.3MP camera (front); 4 inch screen / 480x800 pixels; Android 4 operating system; Dual Sim Card GSM 850/ 900/ 1800/ 1900 Mhz/ UMTS 850/ 1900 Mhz; 3G HSDPA (AT&T only)/GPRS/EDGE/Wifi; Wifi hotspot capable; A-GPS support; SMS/MMS messaging; micro sd card support up to 32GBThe only thing I found to be a little off, was the main storage size of the phone. The phone reads in settings, and also in other apps I have downloaded, that the total size of the hard drive is 2GB not 4GB. That's a nice chunk of space for the phone, but I still put a 32GB micro sd card in it for more storage. The 512MB of RAM is not that impressive, but it handles most of everything I need my phone for. If you are the type of person that likes to download a lot of games, maybe it won't be enough for you. The Android version is 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich.I currently use AT&T's Go Phone service and the phone had no problem identifying the network. I wasn't sure if I would have to manually enter the APN settings, but the phone picks it all up automatically. I've had another unlocked phone with Unnecto, and I had to enter all that info in manually which took some time to research. I use the second SIM slot for my Philippine SMART sim card. It reads it just fine, and is set to roaming (which uses the AT&T network). The good thing is that this phone will also work when you travel abroad. I have not used T-Mobile with this phone, but according to what I've read, the 2G connection will work, but the 3G will only work with AT&T. The fact that the phone also has the ability to be a mobile hotspot is also a plus.One annoyance that I've found with the firmware of this phone is setting up certain contact info and ringtones. For some reason the phone would reset certain contact settings I had made to default. The problem has seemed to stop, but it was irritating at first. Trying to set custom ringtones for contacts is also an annoyance. Unlike the Cherry Mobile Flare I own, Blu Dash 4.0 doesn't give you a menu in the sound settings to choose from your custom MP3's. You have to open them in the audio player, and then set them as your main ringtone for sim 1 or sim 2. I have yet to find a way to set your custom ringtones for individual contacts. When you go to set the individual ringtone for the contact, the regular ring tone menu pops up, and is all that you can choose from.Another downside to this phone, is that I haven't been able to find much as far as accessories go. I contacted BLU through their website, and they referred me to an online dealer that had some BLU accessories, but nothing for the Dash 4.0. It would be nice to have a skin or case to protect the phone, but they just don't have one out that I know of. Universal screen protectors are easy to find, so you can trim them to custom fit the phone no problem. I've also tried a few different headset/mics in this phone, and only the one that came with it seems to work properly. The others will work as a headset, but the mics won't work for some reason. I have not tried to use this phone with a blutooth headset, but the phone is blutooth capable.Battery life is not the greatest. If you are using the phone pretty regularly to surf the web, or download apps it drains the battery faster. Certain apps can also eat the battery pretty quickly, so I've found that disabling them when not in use is the best way to avoid killing your battery. When using the phone moderately, the battery has lasted through out the day, but usually by night, you will need to plug it up.Overall, I would say that if your looking for a dual sim smart phone that won't break the bank, the BLU Dash 4.0 D270a is a pretty good choice. Blu also offers other smart phones with better specs, but they are quite a bit more expensive. $130.00 was more than what I paid for my Cherry Mobile Flare, but I don't think that you will find anything in the United States this cheap without having a contract phone. Unlocked phones are nice, and offer you the freedom of choice with your service.Hopefully this review is helpful to anyone considering purchasing an unlocked smart phone.Update 4/6/2013 :Check the comments to see how to resolve the ringtone issue.I have also encountered a slight problem with sending MMS messages. When I attempt to send them I get an error. Looking at the APN settings, everything is as it should be, so I'm not sure why it's not working. I've sent photos through different apps with no problem, but attaching them to a MMS, I always get this error. Maybe it's an issue with AT&T, but I will update if the problem is resolved.Update 4/7/2013 :MMS error resolved. I had to download a messaging app from the google play store, but it seems to have fixed the problem. I am finding out that the built in functions for this phone are not the best. But fortunately you can download free apps to solve the issues you might run into. I downloaded Handcent SMS and now I can send my MMS messages without recieving an error.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
very nice for the price
By Lori
I'm using this phone on straight talk. I've been using this phone for about two week and am really happy with it so far. I was looking for a phone to replace the byop that I was using, so I already had sim card. Overall this phone has a really nice hand feel, not too wide or heavy, the sides are slightly rounded. The back is a smooth plastic, but that hasn't been a problem for me. The screen is a good size, large enough to be useful, but not so wide that it uncomfortable to hold. It's a nice looking phone and doesn't look cheap. The display is clear, with decent color, no it doesn't look like a i-phone or a galaxy, but I didn't expect that at this price. The screen is responsive to touch and smooth. The soft keys are at the bottom of the screen, but they don't show when an app is open, every app I've used run full screen. The sound is good on this phone, I've watched videos and music and it clear and loud enough to hear, not stereo or anything, but good enough that it doesn't make me nuts, Setting this phone up was easy, popped in my sim(slot 1) programed my information just like it says on straight talks site and everything worked fine. I'm not thrilled with all the social apps that come pre-installed, but the phone lets you disable most of them in settings, so they aren't wasting your memory. The voice reception on this phone is great, I'm getting an extra bar and my phone calls are very clear. The bluetooth also works well, and is easy to pair. I haven't had any problems with my battery, it seems to be on par with the other smart phones I've had while using it, and way better on standby than most of the phones I've had. I have a 32 sd installed, and there is a setting that lets you automatically save everything to it. I've only had a couple of apps that don't want to, and that's the app not the phone. Now for the not so good, this phone has one of the worst wi-fi antennas that I have ever seen. It works, but I have never gotten full bars, not even when I'm sitting 10 feet from the router. I use the wi-fi every day, but I can see the difference in speed, not enough to return it, but noticeable. The camera is just ok, birthday party snaps, and that's about it. The front camera is really dark. The other thing I noticed is the voice to text is slow, so slow, when I tested it, I didn't think it worked. It got all the words correct, but it is so slow as to be unusable. Overall, I really like this phone, value to price, I don't think it can be beat. If you want a phone for calls, text, light web browsing and a few games and apps you'll be happy. I've been using the kindle app, netflix , a few casual type games all with no problems.
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