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Bluboo Picasso 5″ Quad Core Phone Review

ByKevin Simon

Aug 3, 2016

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I like my cheap Chinese type phones, this is mainly as with my job, cant really have expensive phones as possibly get broke, so I go for the cheaper phones and upgrade more often, which means I don’t need an expensive contract and can afford to replace the phone a good few times within what would be a normal contract, and then also don’t need insurance.

This year decided on a Bluboo Picasso, this was released around March 2016. The phone has a 5″ IPS Screen with a resolution of 1280 x 720, 5 point multi touch and 294 PPI. The phone is powered by MediaTek MT6580 Quad core CPU running at 1.3GHz, and 2GB ram and 16GB storage (which is expandable though miccosd), The graphics is powered by a Mali-400 GPU. As you can see from these specs not an amazingly fast phone, but equivalent to entry level phone form the major manufactures like Samsung, Motorola etc, though these are over the £100 mark and this phone is around the £50 mark so cant complain really.

General performance wise works fine in normal every day use, I don’t really play games on my phone, as use a Tablet for that. Using Antutu benchmark which I use to test any Android device comes out at just under 23,000. So reasonable performance for most games, but with heavy 3d games may need to turn the graphics setting down a bit. Switching screens and between apps is nippy, this is to do with having 2gb ram, as some other entry phones only have 1gb.

Sound quality from the speaker which are located at the bottom is ok, though does seem a bit tinny as does produce a bit to much treble and no real bass sound. the battery is a 2500mAh removable battery, which is ok and you should get a day of general use out of the phone.

The version of android on the phone is 5.1 (lollipop) though so far I have had four updates, Approx 20mb, 170mb, 22mb and 105mb (respectively) these were just bug fixes. This is good really as a lot of phone manufactures don’t often release updates and with this phone you get four within around 3 months since release, so hopefully Blueboo as they say on the website this phone should get the update to Android 6 (marshmellow). The built in launcher is Launcher 3, which is ok and you have several themes to choose from which changes the icon set as well, though you could change the launcher if you desire. You have the standard google apps pre-installed ie, play, mail, calendar, messaging, fm radio etc and some extra installed apps like: file manager, todo, backup and restore. The default web browse is the AOSP android browser.

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The phone has front and rear cameras both rated at 8mp, The quality of the images are OK, though not really as sharp as I would expect from a 8mp unit, and the focus doesn’t always get it right. Though I have had some reasonable shots so far. It would suffice for sharing images to social media etc. The rear camera does have dual flash and if turned on using the flash light app does seem bright though when using within the camera, doesn’t seem to make that much difference in the test so far I have done. Below are some shot of the rear camera under outdoor lighting.

Screen quality is good for the resolution of the screen which is bright and clear, and is responsive to touch. External buttons are just volume up / Down and power, no home button on the front of the phone, as this is don’t by just touch screen buttons, though personally I do prefer a physical home button, but not really a problem. at the top you have a standard 3.5mm headphone socket, at the bottom is your normal micro usb for charging to transferring data to your pc. The one great addition for me is a notification LED light, as I find this great as can just glance at the phone and visually see if any missed calls, answer phone messages, email, txt etc notifications without having to switch on the screen. The screen has a “U-type” suspended screen which is suppose to reduce the risk of the screen breaking by 70%, though I’m not going to drop my phone to test this 🙂

The phone wrights 152g so not too heavy and not to light, so compatible to hold the back is plastic but does have a really nice diamond pattern on the sides are metal. You can get the phone in different colours: black, blue, gold, grey, green, pink, yellow, though so far in the UK I have only found the black, white and gold for sale, I went for the white and looks nice, Though from what I can see the other colours other than the back or white, the only difference is the rear cover with the front of the others in white, so assume you will be able to buy separate backs at a later date. In the box you the phone, small basic manual, usb cable and a UK plug (which is unusual these days, so great addition). The battery does have tape over the contact on first use, so will need to remove this before use.

I Have had the phone a few days now and no problems at all, so if you are looking for a entry level phone or just don’t want to spend a fortune on a phone if you only want the basics I would recommend this phone., Though again don’t expect amazing performance or the best camera, but for around £50 what do you expect. I am happy with the phone for my needs which is mainly business use. Though the first phone I had developed a faulty touch screen,  but was refunded from the seller and the two other that have had since are perfect.

Bluboo Picasso Tech Specs:

Dimensions 142 x 70 x 8.2 mm, Weight 152 g Colors black, blue, gold, gray, green, pink, yellow Operating System Android OS v5.1 (Lollipop) Chipset Mediatek MT6580A, 2 GB ram CPU Quad-core 1.3 GHz Cortex-A7, GPU Mali-400 MP1 IPS Display size 5 inches Resolution 720 x 1280 pixels, 5 point Multi-touch Internal storage 16 GB, External storage microSD Front camera 8 MP, Rear camera 8 MP, 3264 x 2448 pixels, autofocus, Flash Dual LED GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900, Network 2G / 3G WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth v4.0, A2DP. A-GPS FM radio ,USB microUSB 2.0, Audio 3.5 mm jack Battery Li-Ion 2500 mAh, SIM type Micro SIM Sensors: accelerometer, light, proximity

By Kevin Simon

I run this blog & also self employed cleaning out fish ponds, but due to spinal problems not able to do as much, now started a youtube channel showing my converted Peugeot Partner micro camper also as interest in photography so now vlog about the trips and of course Lego figures out in the wild photos.

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