Design, Features, and Performance Network
If you're looking for a beautifully made, slim phone, you've come to the wrong place. The Studio Energy is a utilitarian slab of ugly gray plastic. 5.69 by 2.82 by 0.41 inches (HWD) and 6.35 ounces, the phone is rather chunky and dense, but all in the service of bulk outsized battery.
Including battery capacity, another area Blu does not skimp on the quality of the display. 5-inch, 720p LCD Studio Energy is sharp, bright, and benefit from the wide angle of the IP technology viewing. Color reproduction and contrast are also strong here, which makes for a better overall viewing experience. It matches up properly display Motorola Moto G $ 179.99 on Amazon. A rear-mounted speaker gets impressively powerful, but the latter sounds a bit brittle and less low end oomph.
The Studio Energy is unlocked and supports GSM (850/900/1800 / 1900MHz) and HSDPA (850/1900 / 2100MHz) network. No 4G LTE and missing the 1700MHz band that uses T-Mobile for faster HSPA + 42 network. It has worked with both AT & T and T-Mobile SIM card in my testing, but is thoroughly mobile speed 3G, with the rare crack 5Mbps download and uploads between 1-3Mbps. Call quality is also simple average, which makes harsh tone in the earpiece and some pop and hissing transmissions through the mic. Noise cancellation is not very good, letting through a large swath of noise both indoors and out.
Rounding out the connectivity options are single-band 802.11b / g / n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, and GPS. No 5GHz Wi-Fi compatibility, which is a bummer if you live in an area with crowded airwaves.
Performance and Android
Almost every entry-level and midrange Android smartphone sporting a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chip, so almost refreshing to see a designer MediaTek here. Unfortunately, that's where the excitement ends-in quad-core, 1.3GHz processor and 1GB RAM MT6582 just does not seem to cut it compared to the Qualcomm-powered devices. And a nice little skin running over Android 4.4, difficult to criticize software side of things. I noticed intermittent stuttering and shaking animation, even for basic home screen navigation. There was a dramatic pause between pressing an app icon and when it will launch. This proved particularly annoying when I accidentally launched Google Now from the lock screen, causing the phone to hang for far too long before I can take the default home screen.
As mentioned above, do not manually Blu software with a ton of customization, but there are some curveballs if you are used to stock Android. The menu system is very different, options splitting Fast all the Settings tab and Settings. The notification shade is also divided into two tabs, one for notifications and one has access to the toggle for features such as Wi-Fi. The Studio also uses Energy dated capacitive buttons for Menu, Home, and Back, assigning the functions Recent Apps with a double-tap the Home button. Some useful actions are built into the software, such as double-tap to wake up, but not enabled by default.
Internal memory is divided into two partitions, one 5GB "system" partition and one 2.43GB "phone storage" partition. There is a microSD card slot under the back cover, which accepted the card up to 64GB.
The marquee feature here is the 5,000mAh battery, which is built-in and not removable. In a rundown test, in which we streamed a video on YouTube with the screen brightness set to max, the Studio Energy lasted 8 hours, 48 minutes. That's the best results we've seen on a smartphone. The Oppo n3 Packs a smaller 3,000mAh battery, a larger LCD 1080p, and LTE connectivity and managed 6 hours, 51 minutes in the same test. So while the Studio Energy is our newly champ, did not appear to make the most efficient use of extra capacity.
Blu also included a reverse feature, something we first saw the HUAWEI Ascend 4G Mate2 charge. In my testing, the Studio Energy unable to charge about 15 percent of the Sony Xperia Tablet Z3 Compact $ 419.46 on Amazon 4,000mAh battery at a time, while losing 20 percent of its charge.