We’re not sure why BLU Products is skipping the number ‘7’ but after the BLU VIVO 6, here comes the BLU VIVO 8. The smartphone now listed on Amazon with a $299.99 price tag but is currently offered for only $212.91, free shipping included. The device is sold and shipped directly by Amazon in the United States. The mid-range Android phone will be ready soon with a 5.5-inch Full HD screen, 64GB onboard storage, 4GB RAM, and 4G LTE connectivity.
The BLU VIVO 8’s display is Full HD 1080p topped by a curved Corning Gorilla Glass 3. It boasts of a metal build design (87%), a fingerprint sensor, and a MediaTek 6755 Helio P10 2.0 Octa core processor. When it comes to imaging, the BLU VIVO 8 sports a 16MP front-facing camera with flash and a 13MP rear camera with Sony IMX258 sensor and flash. Device is powered by a 4010mAh battery which can then be juiced up by an Ultra Quick 9V/2A charger.
Phone’s connectivity options include 4G HSPA+ and 4G LTE in the US. This basically means you can use any SIM card from any GSM network such as T-Mobile, AT&T, Cricket, Straight Talk, and Metro PCS among others. The BLU VIVO 8 will be available in black.
SOURCE: Amazon
Better than the S8 Swinesung phone for sure.
Now shipping and ready soon? Not at my local Amazon store yet. Android version? Important because it will not see a major version update ever. Maybe a couple of security updates but that’s it. Or does the “8” mean it will ship with Android 8?
Seems maybe it was up prematurely. It’s no longer listed and some other sites have pulled their story mentioning the Vivo 8
It’s definitely disappeared off Amazon US (maybe because of the “phoning home” ADUPS scandal that caused the entire Blu range to be pulled from Amazon recently and they didn’t put the Vivo 8 back on the site afterwards?). It’s also not listed on Blu’s own official site either.
The Vivo 8 is basically a Vivo 6 with a bigger battery, Android 7 and seemingly a slightly higher price – I’m a bit surprised that neither a better CPU/GPU nor NFC were added though. The Vivo 6 seemed to be limited to Amazon UK only – I have one and it’s pretty good, though they’ve obviously noticed that the battery life on the Vivo 6 was only average.
One thing you can be highly critical of Blu about is their lack of Android updates. They’re playing the same game the carriers do – don’t provide any major updates on a model and do the major update on the next model released so that users are forced to buy that one.
Now that the Vivo 8 – with basically identical hardware to the Vivo 6 – has Android 7, there’s even less excuse for the Vivo 6 not to get Android 7 as well. Blu’s Facebook page is a total embarassment – the major complaint from users is the lack of updates and they keep fobbing users off with “we’re working on it, it’s coming soon” – they’ve been saying that enough times in the whole of 2017 for us not to believe them at all.
I haven’t had a single update to my Vivo 6 since I bought it in November 2016 – no minor updates, no monthly security updates – nothing. It’s a <1 year old phone stuck on Android 6 with about 2 months to go to the release of Android 8!