Blu R1 HD ... Amazon Prime Deal

[TallManNY]

Yea, for $60 is an amazing device. Runs very solid and smooth.

But it lacks plenty ....
Fast and Wireless charging
NFC (no Android Pay)
No 5GHz wifi
Speaker SUCKS!!!
Camera is just decent
No Gyroscope and Compass.
No Finger Print sensor

But the Pros are ....
5' inch 720 IPS screen
2 GB Ram
1.3GHz Quad Core
Micro SD slot
Dual Sim
Excellent design and build quality
Built-in call recording
Android 6.0 running very close to stock.
Able to Root .... I have mines rooted already
Battery lasts about a day with normal usage, stand-by is good.
Tethers/Hotspot without checking for carrier authorization
Adoptable storage, which works well.

If someone doesn't want all the bells and whistles, and just needs a good reliable smartphone. I highly recommend this. The speaker is the only real flaw about this phone.

All true. The only Con I would quibble with is saying that it doesn't have fast charging. While it doesn't, it has a fairly small battery and it charges fast enough because of that. I think fast charging is really only an issue when you have those 3,000+ size batteries you find in Android phablets. And I'd say the battery easily lasts more than a day. If you aren't getting nearly two days out of it it might because of the something in the OS is you are running after rooting it. As you say, the speakers are truly the worst. I think someone buying this as a budget phone is going to expect compromises and the only thing that is going to be worse than expected is going to be the speaker. Unless you've "not heard it" you can't imagine how a phone's speaker could be that quiet. But since it doesn't effect normal call volume it doesn't matter too much.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

Says only up to 64gb sd storage is supported. But I can confirm 128gb card working with both regular and adoptable storage.

I did find a bug with using a 128gb card. You must first set it up as regular storage, then set it up as adoptable storage after. If you try to set it up as adoptable storage first, it will get stuck in the format process.

 

[jerwin]

Wired has a review.

I wonder if I can load an map library and use it as a GPS where cell service is unreliable/nonexistent.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

Wired has a review.

I wonder if I can load an map library and use it as a GPS where cell service is unreliable/nonexistent.

You can do that with HERE Maps, allows you to download maps and select offline usage.

 

[jerwin]

You can do that with HERE Maps, allows you to download maps and select offline usage.

For map services. I ended up getting BackCountry Navigator instead. Topo Maps, statelite imagery, etc etc. The compass doesn't work, but it's not a big deal.

Relying on 2.4 Ghz Wifi at the moment. There's no 5GHz, of course.