BLU VIVO IV offers a luxurious facade at budget price

BLU Products might be more known for low-priced, low-powered smartphones, but its new VIVO IV is definitely an exception. This smartphone sports some high-end hardware, depending on your opinion of the processor, yet manages to keep the price below your usual flagships. It even tries to look and feel like a luxury smartphone to boot!

Part of what sets the BLU VIVO IV and its VIVO predecessors apart from the company’s other devices is the AMOLED screen. Here you have a very handy 5.0-inch display that, quite surprisingly, sports a1920x1080 Full HD resolution. The choice of system-on-chip might be a bit debatable, but at least it is the highest that MediaTek has to offer, the 1.7 GHz octa-core MT6592. RAM is the same 2 GB that seems to be common among high-end smartphones these days. A 13 megapixel and 5 megapixel camera duo flank the back and front, respectively. There is only 16 GB of data storage though, and unfortunately there isn’t any mention of a microSD card. The 2,300 mAh battery is sadly also not removable.

These are definitely not your garden variety BLU Products specs, but the surprises do not stop there. It seems that the company has pulled out all the stops in making this smartphone, employing the latest manufacturing technologies. The result is a single aluminum block for the body, which is then covered by Corning Gorilla Glass not just at the front but also at the back, making the smartphone, in BLU Products’ words, made up of 98% glass and aluminum. But wait, there’s more! The smartphone is also incredibly thin, standing at only 5.5 mm, beating VIVO’s Xplay3S as the world’s thinnest smartphone. With the aluminum body and glass protection, this thin smartphone might actually work.

With all of these, it’s a miracle that BLU managed to keep the price tag down to $299. The BLU VIVO IV comes in color options of White-Silver, Rose Gold, and Black, and, like all BLU devices, come unlocked. As with the recently released BLU Life 8, Android 4.2 runs on this smartphone out of the box, with an Android 4.4 update promised this June.