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We got a good look at the BLU Studio Energy during this year’s CES and were more than excited at the prospect of an Android smartphone cramming a huge 5,000mAh battery into a reasonable form factor (10.4mm thick). As it turns out, the only thing more exciting than the phone’s 52 hour talk time is its price.
Starting today, you can pick up the BLU Studio Energy from Amazon for only $150 unlocked. Yes, you heard that right. This is an off-contract smartphone for less than what Motorola is offering for the Moto G. The Studio Energy is similarly spec’d too, coming equipped with a 5-inch 720p display, 8MP rear/2MP front facing cameras, 1.3GHz MediaTek MT6582 quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and 8GB internal storage (with micro SD card slot up to 64GB).
Although it’s running Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box, BLU says they have plans to upgrade the device to Lollipop in June. Oh, and let’s not forget about 4-day standard use battery life, with up to 45 days standby. Holy crap.
BLU Studio Energy full specifications:
- Network: (GSM/GPRS/EDGE) 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, (4G HSPA+ 21Mbps) 850/1700/1900, 850/1900/2100
- Display: IPS 5.0-inch 720 x 1280 HD, with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection
- Processor: Mediatek 6582, 1.3 GHz Quad-Core with MALI-400 graphics GPU
- OS: Android 4.4 Kit Kat (upgradeable to Lollipop in June)
- Camera: Rear – 8.0 megapixel, autofocus with LED Flash, (1.4mm pixel size, 1/3.2 inch sensor, 2.2mm aperture), HD 1080p@30fps video
- recording Front – 2.0 megapixel
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi b/g/n/, GPS, Bluetooth v4.0, Hotspot, micro-USB, FM Radio, OTG Reverse Charge
- Memory: 1GB RAM, 8GB internal memory + microSD slot expandable up to 64GB
- Dimensions: 144.5 x 71.45 x 10.4 mm
- Battery: Li-Ion 5,000mAh
- Available Colors: Ceramic White, Midnight Black and Luxury Gold
The only real downside is the phone only supports GSM HSPA+ networks (standard 4G on AT&T and T-Mobile) and isn’t equipped with a 4G LTE radio. Considering the phone’s target audience (regular Joe Schmo’s and not the techies), that could be just fine. Crazy part is BLU even throws in a variety of accessories like a screen protector, case, and USB OTG cable so you can use the phone to charge other devices. Pretty nuts, right?
You can find the BLU Studio Energy unlocked on Amazon right now for $150. If you’d like to see what your money will get you, take a look at our quick hands-on video from CES last month below.
Buy on Amazon: BLU Studio Energy $150
As soon as a review comes out, I’m grabbing one for my dad (if it proves to be working as smooth as Moto G)
Looks quite interesting, the only maybe downside I see is only having 1gb on kk, though this looks a lot more stock so it may not be an issue.
The moto g and original N7 handle KitKat well with only 1GB RAM.
i would like to try a good 1gb ram, kk phone. The one I had just had major issues with lack of ram.
1 GB should suffice for a low-end phone like this. The big downside here is Mediatek, and all the problems that comes with them.
Imagine a Nexus phone with 5000 mah battery. I wish more manufacturers used battery’s this big
My Nexus6 gives me a day’s worth of battery juice with moderate use. however, with heavy use, it dies within 6 or 7 hours. so I agree that putting a 5000 mah battery in a Nexus6 would be superb !
Might snag this after shattering my nexus 5 last week. How’s that media tek? What about the Dev support for blu phones? Anyone with some info lemme know
Few years ago I had an Archos tablet that had a mediatek processor. The tablet was a piece of crap. Slow and laggy. Maybe they’ve improved?
They haven’t.
Support is pretty null, almost all Questions are pointed to the blu comunity in G+,
But at least every phone gets an Update; My Blu Studio 6.0 was on 4.2 from box and it was upgraded to 4.4.2 and im pretty sure it will get stuck on KK
Mediatek processors are pretty good but lack some bluetooth coding lines so many Bluetooth gamepads just dont work,
My Studio 6 Lasted almost 2 days with normal use (commuting 40 km with gps+data everyday)
Its the same processor with better batery and tinier screen…so i give it some 17000-18000 points on antutu
Other than for the battery life, I’d still recommend the Moto G or even the E as a temporary device. Hell a refurbished N4 is better than Mediatek IMO
Mediatek is terrible. Updates are rare and when they do come about, they’re usually buggy as heck. As Alan W G mentioned, there’s often Bluetooth compatibility issues as well. Avoid Mediatek like the plague.
Wish this company would add LTE to one of these phones. How much can it really add to the price?
I agree, then again a snapdragon 400 might have been nice. A 17 band LTE chip and the S400 might bring it up $100.
Doesn’t look like this phone comes equipped with any fast charging technology. That means some really long charge times.
Not much longer than an N7, about 3-4 hours.
“However, if you drain it like I did, get ready to let it spend some time on the charger – the first time I let it get down to 5%, it was only at 80% the following morning, after about 7 hours on the charger.”
Source: http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/02/11/blu-studio-energy-review-wish-every-phone-5000mah-battery/
If you finish reading the article you linked, he goes on to say:
“After I finished this review up, the phone was at 2%, so I threw it on a different charger than I normally use (the Motorola Turbo Charger, in fact), and it was full in about 4-5 hours (not sure exactly). So I’m thinking the slower charging time was actually due to the charger I was using initially, and not the phone itself.”
Thanks, I stopped reading the article right where he said it took him 7hrs to charge to 80%. 4hrs is an acceptable tradeoff I guess.
Damn. That battery’s almost as big as my tab’s!
And bigger than my tab’s battery, N7.2 has 3950mah.
My son has an old 2013 LG crap phone (from before LG started making credible phones and before Moto G was an option). This might be a good replacement for what he has now. He’s not looking for top of the line, just looking for a phone he can use on TMobile.
8G internal memory is kinda light though.
This or a moto g used would be a great functional option.
Can probably grab this as a ‘smart’ battery pack for other devices and as an emergency device.
I love the phone, I’m currently rocking a Nexus 5 but if I had to change phones then I’d definitely switch to this. Wish other manufacturers would get on board with the big battery feature too. Far too many are pushing screen pixels or other stupid stats but runtime is where consumers want things to improve the most for smartphones. Blu Studio seems to be doing the right thing.
For the price, you really can’t argue. But I wish it had front facing speakers and more ram.
I’ve had two blu phones! They’ve both had major issues! Sent them both back…
looks like its the Gionee Marathon M3
i think all BLU phones are Gionee rebadges
Looks like typical blu junk. No CS support and rare updates.