Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Update seven months in: I've had to go from four stars to just one. The phone worked well for about six months, though the shiny slippery back is very annoying. But for the last month the phone has been almost unusable, and today it's become basically a brick. People who call me say they get busy signals. The phone itself freaks out. It will be normal, and then suddenly the app I'm using closes and the screen quickly flips through all the pages and then freezes on the add widget page. This happens when I'm just sitting there reading a Kindle book, typing a reply to a text, or browsing the web. The phone will also suddenly refuse to accept input on the touch screen, or will shut down the keyboard when I'm typing. I'll get a text, try to answer it, and the phone will shut down. It's like it's gone insane or something. I've tried everything, factory reset, all the updates, and even tried to get help from BLU. All of my attempts to contact them were ignored. Now I have to go out and try yet again to buy another phone! I've had it with BLU and no longer recommend it. I expect to get more than six months out of a phone!!! In the box : phone, charger, wall adapter, headphones, screen protector, and silicone case. Phone also had a screen protector already installed. This is my third BLU phone. I'm disappointed that this one has a sealed battery, and if you do need two SIM cards, you can't use a SD card. There are only two slots, instead of three. The fancy back that they make sound so awesome is anything but; it's not even really blue or shiny except in the brightest sunlight, and the surface is so slippery that the phone is hard to hold on to, and takes every opportunity to slide off the arm of the chair, the desktop, the nightstand, the dashboard, or anywhere else you might want to set it down. It also has a few more quirks than my other BLUs and was a little cranky over getting my favorite apps customized. As much as the phone is an obvious attempt at an iphone clone, it doesn't seem to have as good an antenna as the iphone. Meetings in an interior room in a large building mean I have no signal but I can hear coworkers phones getting texts. That's not a huge deal for me as those meetings are only once a month and otherwise the signal is pretty reliable, and I didn't pay anywhere near $600 for the name brand. On the plus side, it does have plenty of onboard memory and readily connected with my net10 SIM card. Apps work quickly, music sounds pretty good, and calls are clear. So overall a decent deal. Just make sure you order a nice case when you order the phone, otherwise you'll be dropping the phone all the time, and the case that comes with it is an ugly whitish color that is just repulsive. A cautionary tale: My first BLU phone was the Life XL and I was very happy with it, all the utility of a $600 samsung or apple product at a fraction of the price. Easy to set up and worked very well with my net10 account. I"d still be using it if I hadn't dropped it on cement and made the display go all wonky. The phone still worked just fine, but the screen was too blurry to live with. So I ordered an identical Life XL. Unfortunately that one came loaded with spyware. I filed a complaint with the seller, tojostore, but they refused to respond until I left bad feedback. Then they quickly refunded my money without even asking for the phone back, so they know they were guilty. Lesson learned, always buy just from Amazon, and immediately run a malware checker before putting any contacts or other personal information on the phone!