Blu Life Play (Unlocked)

The Blu Life Play's screen measures 4.7 inches and has 1,280-by-720-pixel resolution (about 313 pixels per inch). The bright IPS LCD has great viewing angles for movies and games, and text looks sharp, besting lower-resolution phones like the Alcatel One Touch Idol but still underperforming against the Nexus 5.

The Blu Life Play is pretty sleek for an unlocked smartphone. At 4.4 ounces, it's quite light compared to other unlocked phones like the 5.29-ounce Verykool S470, or the 4.59-ounce Nexus 5, and it comes in at 5.39 by 2.69 by 0.31 inches (HWD). The phone has a plastic body and glass front, and it's available in black, cyan, pink, white, or yellow.

Its MediaTek chipset can't handle the latest high-end games. Testing with GFXBench yielded 14 frames per second, unsuitable for hardcore mobile gamers. The new standard for unlocked phones, the Nexus 5, scored 59 frames per second in the Taiji graphics test, while the Life Play scored 13.96. The racing game Asphalt 8 ran, but was choppy and hard to manage with all the dropped frames. More casual affairs like Fruit Ninja and Temple Run 2 work better.

The dual-SIM slot lets you hold a "personal" and "work" number in the same phone. You can specify in the Dual SIM Settings page which SIM handles actions like phone calls or data connections. In the U.S., dual-SIM phones are relegated to using AT&T, T-Mobile, and virtual carriers that use those networks, such as H2O, Simple Mobile, and ReadySIM. Sprint, Verizon, and other carriers on those networks don't support dual-SIM devices.

The 8-megapixel rear camera isn't very good. Pictures are sharp enough, but color saturation is poor, Dark grays become blacks, making contrast an issue. The 2-megapixel front-facing camera is a pretty good one for such an inexpensive phone. It often overexposes photos, but does a good job in capturing more detail and contrast than its competition.