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BLU Win HD LTE (Unlocked)

 & Sascha Segan Former Lead Analyst, Mobile

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The $179 BLU Win HD LTE brings a rare feature to the U.S. Windows phone market: It has two SIM card slots. That makes it ideal for travelers who want to carry business and personal numbers with them, or maintain their U.S. number while they also use a local SIM card overseas.

Of course, that's also true of the Win HD LTE's predecessor, the . The key feature the newer phone adds is right in its name: The Win HD was 3G-only, while the Win HD LTE adds three LTE bands for basic 4G connectivity on the AT&T and T-Mobile networks. For more advanced LTE support, you'll need to step up to a more expensive device, like the .

The Win HD LTE also bumps up the processor speed from a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 to a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 410. This is a respectable midrange processor, so performance will be even better than we saw on the Win HD, which was already pretty good in everything except action games.

This colorful phone's specs are otherwise quite similar to the competing Microsoft Lumia 640. The phone has a 5-inch, 1,280-by-720 IPS LCD. It has an 8-megapixel main camera, a 2-megapixel front camera, and 8GB of internal storage plus a microSD card slot. It supports 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. 

The Win HD LTE is also one of very few Windows Phone choices available for the AT&T and T-Mobile networks right now. As of this writing, T-Mobile doesn't sell any Windows Phones at all. AT&T only sells the large, 5.7-inch Lumia 640XL. If you go directly through Microsoft, you can find the Lumia 635, 640, 830, and our favorite Windows Phone, the costly , all for AT&T.

All of the Lumias currently look like they're at fire-sale prices, hopefully awaiting a complete refresh of the line after Microsoft's announcement of Windows Mobile 10 devices on October 6. That makes the AT&T-locked Lumia 640 only $79 at the Microsoft Store.

Still, there are still some reasons you might want to consider Win HD LTE, even for $100 more. Most specifically, its combination of dual-SIM and LTE makes it good for travelers who frequently flit across borders, especially between the U.S. and Canada.

We'll have a full review of the BLU Win HD LTE soon. That said, we recommend holding off on buying any Windows phone until we know more about the Windows Mobile 10 lineup coming from Microsoft in October.

About Our Expert

Sascha Segan

Sascha Segan

Former Lead Analyst, Mobile

My Experience

I'm that 5G guy. I've actually been here for every "G." I reviewed well over a thousand products during 18 years working full-time at PCMag.com, including every generation of the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S. I also wrote a weekly newsletter, Fully Mobilized, where I obsessed about phones and networks.

My Areas of Expertise

  • US and Canadian mobile networks
  • Mobile phones released in the US
  • iPads, Android tablets, and ebook readers
  • Mobile hotspots
  • Big data features such as Fastest Mobile Networks and Best Work-From-Home Cities

The Technology I Use

Being cross-platform is critical for someone in my position. In the US, the mobile world is split pretty cleanly between iOS and Android. So I think it's really important to have Apple, Android and Windows devices all in my daily orbit.

I use a Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 for work and a 2021 Apple MacBook Pro for personal use. My current phone is a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, although I'm probably going to move to an Android foldable. Most of my writing is either in Microsoft OneNote or a free notepad app called Notepad++. Number crunching, which I do often for those big data stories, is via Microsoft Excel, DataGrip for MySQL, and Tableau.

In terms of apps and cloud services, I use both Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive heavily, although I also have iCloud because of the three Macs and three iPads in our house. I subscribe to way too many streaming services. 

My primary tablet is a 12.9-inch, 2020-model Apple iPad Pro. When I want to read a book, I've got a 2018-model flat-front Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. My home smart speakers run Google Home, and I watch a TCL Roku TV. And Verizon Fios keeps me connected at home.

My first computer was an Atari 800 and my first cell phone was a Qualcomm Thin Phone. I still have very fond feelings about both of them.

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