It’s time update the phone for the lady and since she liked the BLU Studio 5.5s so much, I went ahead and picked up the updated Studio 6.0 LTE for her. It seems the budget phone market has come quite aways quite quickly. The BLU Studio 6.0 LTE is not simply another budget phone with a big screen.

Specs

Blu Studio 6.0 LTE Specs
Dimensions: 163.5×81.4×9.15mm
OS: 4.4 Kit Kat
Bands: 850/1700/1900/2100
DATA: LTE/HSPA+
CPU: 1.6Ghz Quad Core Qualcomm MSM8928
GPU: Adreno 305
Memory: 16GB, 2GBRAM
Display: 6.0″ IPS
Resolution: 1080×1920
Camera: 13MP Rear | 5MP Front
Video Capture: 1080p
Battery: 3200 mAh

Look & Feel

The build quality of the Studio 6.0 LTE is pretty good but not great. The phone has a look that is starting to become a bit trendy now. Rounded corners, bezels where needed, and a plastic removeable back (even though that aesthetic is dying unfortunately) makes for a nice feel in the hand. The buttons are not on screen but capacitive and you can control how bright their backlighting is in the settings including turning it off completely. It’s not the mosct premium look by today’s standards but definitely one that I appreciate.

Display

The Studio 6.0 LTE stays true to it’s name and sports a 6.0” HD 1080P BLU Infinite View a.k.a IPS Nex Lens Technology a.k.a OGS display. Why Blu chose to market IPS and OGS with fancy names, I have no idea. However, the display looks great. Compared to the previous Studio 5.5s and the ZTE ZMAX, the contrast and viewing angles are better. Media is more easily consumed with a such a nice display but it doesn’t get as bright as I would hope. Also, for some reason, YouTube sees fit to still limit me to 720p. Come’on Google! 😡

Performance

Obviously, the Snapdragon 400 CPU paired with an Adreno 305 GPU and 2GB RAM will produce decent benchmark scores (see those below).

Benchmarks aside, the phone performs well in day to day tasks. It’s not close to the fastest out there nowadays with phones sporting 4GB of RAM and Snapdragon 800s but it’s quite snappy. I had no problems using this as a daily driver and that is mainly due to the beefed storage of 16GB and LTE. Both of which the Studio 5.5s lacked which made it quite frustrating to use daily. I can finally enjoy a BLU Studio device like I did the Life One X (even though that phone didn’t have LTE), installing any apps I liked and the phone kept up just fine.

The sound was pretty good even though unfortunately, the unit I got had a defective headphone jack. 🙁 More on that a lil later. The sound through the rear speaker was good and loud even with my hand covering it which was a nice surprise. The sound through the headphone jack however (when it was working), could’ve been much better. Even with the volume cranked to max, I found it too low for me. I could still enjoy my tunes but I would’ve enjoyed them a lot more at higher volume levels.

A spec that can be easily overlooked for the non-traveling user is the dual sim settings this phone has which not only allows you to have dual sims from different carriers but even allows for you to have one sim for voice and another data. Depending on how you work this, having this option can be quite the money saver. The phone even goes as far as to let you know from which sim a text message is received with a convenient “1” or “2” next to each message.

and before I continue here are the colors of the text emoji that come stock with the phone since so many asked about that in my ZMAX review…

One thing I have to mention here, is the lack of a notification LED. I went through this ordeal with the LG Optimus L90 and it wasn’t so bad except for one strange function the Studio 6.0 LTE has. When you have it charging, the screen blinks on and off. This drove me bunkers and there’s no way to turn it off. 🙁

Call Quality

The call quality as far as people hearing me clearly was good but due to my aforementioned problems with the speaker volume, the Studio 6.0 LTE doesn’t rate high for me in this department.

Battery Life

The 3200maH battery inside the Studio 6.0 LTE held its own and can last all day if you don’t use max brightness. It’s a good thing BLU thought ahead to include a bigger battery, so the extra power the screen requires over the Studio 5.5s 540×960 display is a non-issue.

Camera

The camera is better than before but it’s still not that great. No better than most at this price point if you don’t include the Alcatel Idol 3 and the Zenfone 2 according to the reviews flying around out there and the Idol 3 review will be popping up here soon (stay tuned for that). It’s performs well outdoors but rather poorly in low light. That goes for the front facing camera as well. Check the shots below.

The Studio 6.0 LTE can also record up to 1080p at 30fps from the rear and in 720p 30fps from the front. There’s no optical image stabilization to be found here but there are plethora of different modes and settings to get the very best shot possible with this mediocre camera.

Other Thoughts

This is the 3rd BLU device I’ve owned so far and I have to say their quality control could use a little help. My Life One X is no longer useable after a year due to the earpiece going out so you have to resort to speaker to be able to hear your phone calls. My BLU Studio 5.5s died on my girlfriend in the middle of the airport after about 6mo and refused to turn back on for months (it did eventually come back on). I called BLU for support and they told me they don’t do exchanges and I would have to send my device in for repair then they’ll send it back to me, so I would be without a phone during that process. Now the BLU Studio 6.0 LTE came to me with a defective headphone jack that cuts out on me at random while playing music and even though I ordered another to replace it, I must say my faith in BLU is a little shaken.

Conclusion

If you really need a budget phone with a big display that’s easy to hold, performs well, and last all day, the BLU Studio 6.0 LTE should be high on your list. The camera is ok and the volume through your headphones could use a boost but considering the price, you should expect some shortcomings. Thankfully, the Studio 6.0 LTE doesn’t have many.