R2 Plus is BLU's latest budget smartphone to launch in sub $200 price category. This phones appears to be aimed at those who want all around competitive smartphones for the price. It retails for $179 but will have a limited promo that bring the price down to $130 on Amazon.
Design
The built has several outdated design features such as top mounted micro USB charging port. This just made us laugh when we first saw it. There is a back firing speaker that is guaranteed to get muffled by the palm of your hand.
There is a splash of modern with the use of aluminum on the sides, rear and the rear facing finger print scanner.
The display is 16:9 and it features relatively chunky bezels and while minimal there is a vertically stacked front-facing flash. At the back, features horizontally aligned rear-facing flash. There's just very little design consistency going on with this device.
Aside form the aspect ratio and thick bezels, the display features 5.5 inch size and 1080p resolution. Content and text appear crisp, retina pleasing thanks to the 400 pixels per inch index. But the colors are not vibrant or saturated enough to get our stamp of approval.
Software
The software is really clean and untouched. BLU R2 Plus is running Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box and very little is changed. You can run two apps side by side without the whole OS coming to a screeching halt
Dock powering this device is Octa-Core, 1.3 GHz processor with 3gb of RAM. This phone is no speed beast but it's about what you expected for a device price around for $150.
Camera
There are two 13mp camera sensors one on the front and one on the rear. If you are expecting anything close to the Pixel 2 XL or iPhone X, you are gonna be sorely disappointed. But if you want a smartphone to use for a Snapchat or Instagram, you will find these camera sensors actually come in handy. The sharpness and the dynamic range are pretty decent.
Battery
The 3,000 mAh non removable battery is able to keep this phone powered up on GSM, 4G LTE carrier for an entire day about moderate usage.
If you are interested, you can get BLU R2 Plus ($129) on Amazon here: http://amzn.to/2DBZcdb
Also read:
- BLU Life One X3 REVIEW
- BLU R1 Plus Review