[rwp-review id=”0″]
You have cheap budget phones, that are more akin to bricks than actual devices, and then you have cutting edge flagship phones that are sold in pretentious colours amid grandiose marketing. You do have the mid-range phones such as the Honor 5x every now and then but in the tech world the hypothetical appendages of companies are measured by how many features a smartphone has, whether it unlocks from iris scanning or a fingerprint reader. As a result you don’t see companies wasting cutting edge tech on a budget phone but Blu is swimming against the current in this area with the Blu Life Mark smartphone, a budget phone with a fingerprint sensor and a myriad of other specs you’d appear to see on a mid-range phone and not one that costs AED 400.
Design
The Blu Life Mark’s dimensions measure at 142.4 x 72 x 9.5 mm with the device weighing 150 grams placing it squarely in that ideal range where I can comfortably hold and carry it around and also reach the majority of the screen with my thumb. Giving the device a quick look I instantly saw similarities with my Honor 7 in terms of design and indeed colour. Most of the phone is made up of plastic with a polished aluminum frame holding the smartphone together and giving it a sturdy feel. The plastic itself, whilst cheap, has a glossy finish to it. The Blu Logo is etched into the pack of the phone and right above it is the embedded fingerprint reader that’s bordered by metal. Above that sits the rear-facing camera with the LED flash to the right of it. A mesh grill on the bottom of the back cover serves as an outlet for the speaker. As with most phones that feature a removable back cover, the Blu Life Mark pops and squeaks, especially around the cusp of the camera lens and fingerprint reader.
The front of the phone has the Blu logo appearing once more but on the bottom; navigational keys are onscreen with the front-facing camera at the top. The left side of the phone is bare, with the metallic volume rocker on the right side, towards the top and the power button slightly below it. The right side of the bone is bare of any protrusions, letting for a comfortable grip. The volume jack is situated on the top of the phone, towards the left and mirroring that placement at the bottom is the micro-USB port.
A smartphone cover comes with the Blu Life Mark, though I found it too slippery to be of much use.
Display
The Blu Life Mark has a 5-inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 720 x 1280, giving a pixel-per-inch pixel density of around 294. Brightness isn’t phenomenal on this phone and as a result expect to squint when using this outdoors. The screen itself is quite reflecting, something that would be compounded when you apply the screen protector that’s supplied with the Blu Life Mark. The 720p display performed well when it came to clarity and sharpness of videos and pictures.
Camera
The Blu Life Mark features a 13 megapixel camera on the rear. If you’re buying this budget smartphone solely to take pictures, you’re going to be a tad bit disappointed. Shutter speed is quite slow on this camera so it won’t be ideal for those quick shots you want to take.
The camera app itself has its ups and downs. Four different modes are provided: panorama, Motion track, Live photo and the default photo mode. Motion track is pretty nifty when it comes to taking a video of an object whilst panning back and forth as it keeps the object in focus. Live photo didn’t seem to be fleshed out enough for me, compared to the same feature on the Lumia 950 XL. Video mode shoots 1080p videos and was quite good; electronic image stabilization (EIS) is available as well as noise production, resulting in smooth and clear videos. The only annoying thing however is that the timelapse feature is hidden away in a menu, much like the other features on the camera software.
Performance
For a budget phone the Blu Life Mark doesn’t measure up too badly. Powering the smartphone is a Mediatek MT6735 Quad-core 1.3 GHz Cortex-A53, with the GPU being a Mali-T720. They aren’t the best chips out there but they performed satisfactorily during my tenure with the Blu Life Mark; I didn’t experience any stuttering though there was at times a slight lag when switching between apps and unlocking the phone.
It scored 31,959 on AnTuTu benchmark, which is phenomenal when compared to other budget phones out there.
Soundwise the Life Mark performs well, belting out tunes with good clarity at medium volume, though it does suffer when the volume is ramped up and songs with more instruments and layers to them are played; music is better experienced with earphones with this device.
Bloatware is initially an issue; pre installed Amazon apps come with the device but luckily you can just uninstall them all and as a result this 16GB smartphone has around 11GB of available space on it, which can be expanded via the mirco-SD slot for another 64 GB.
Battery wise the Life Mark performs well, going for about 15 hours when using 3G before I needed to find a charger.
Software
The Blu Life Mark runs stock Android 5.1 (Lollipop) with the addition of a few essential extra apps. Such as Truedialer which serves as the dialler app for this phone. The default keyboard is TouchPal 2016 which has a variety of themes and is quite customisable, giving you your own flair in every app; for the most part it serves well as a keyboard, though you may have to get used to it initially after switching from other keyboard apps.
Another great feature is the Wake Gesture setting which lets you draw on the screen of the Life Mark (while it is in sleep mode) to perform a variety of actions. For instance, drawing a crude “C” opens up the camera app. However the feature is impeded by security; rather than instantly opening the app you will have to unlock your phone.
Fingerprint sensor
The Blu Life Mark features a fingerprint sensor to help you easily unlock the phone but unlike fingerprint sensors on flagship phones, there is a noticeable delay between you placing your finger on the sensor, the scanner registering it and the smartphone being unlocked.
Verdict
The Blu Life Mark is an excellent smartphone for its price, packing a nifty design, 4G LTE, a fingerprint scanner and more than acceptable performance for a AED 400 budget smartphone. However as with any budget phone it does have its handicaps such as only 15 hours worth of battery when it comes to medium usage, a camera that isn’t quick and a display that isn’t bright.
