Bluboo S8 Review: Best Budget Samsung Galaxy S8 Clone Sponsored By @Banggood

Always wanted a Samsung Galaxy S8? Bluboo now has an alternative to the Bluboo S8! Looks tremendously on the Samsung variant, with the rear dual camera, fingerprint, big screen (which seems a bit curvy) and many other features. This is the cheap brother of the Samsung Galaxy S8.

This time Bluboo introduces us its new Smartphone with almost 80% screen. It is the Bluboo S8 that follows the same style as the Samsung Galaxy S8 and LG G6 but at a very low price. Will be worth? Elegant and with excellent behavior! That’s how we could describe Bluboo’s specific proposal, as you’ll agree after reading the Bluboo S8 review. The affordable device came to us from BANGGOOD. This glass and metal Smartphone costs $149 at Banggood.com, When I first saw the phone, I thought it was a Samsung Galaxy S8, but when I saw the price, I knew it would be impossible. After reading some information about the Bluboo S8, I really wanted to make a review here. A cheap, premium looking phone? I thought impossible! But still, Bluboo has been doing his best on this phone!

If you “scared” that it originated in China (calling it “Chinese” with the negative tone of the term) then it is enough to remind you that now most smartphones (and not only) are manufactured in China, anywhere the original design has been made. However, I think it is worth the little money you will spend since you will get a reliable device with 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage space, 4G / LTE support, a 5.7-inch screen and a 3450 mAh battery, in combined with a particularly attractive look that will undoubtedly satisfy you.

Bluboo S8 – Technical Specifications

• Display: 5.7 inch, 1440 x 720 pixels Full Display, 18: 9 aspect ratio
  CPU: MTK6750T Octa Core 1.5GHz
  System: Android 7.0 Nougat
  RAM + ROM: 3GB RAM + 32GB ROM
  Camera: 5.0MP (SW 8.0MP) front camera, 13.0MP + 3MP back camera
  Sensor: Ambient Light Sensor, Gravity Sensor, Proximity Sensor
  SIM Card: dual SIM dual standby. Nano SIM + Nano SIM / Nano SIM + microSD card
  Feature: GPS, A-GPS
  Bluetooth: 4.0
  Network: 2G: GSM 900/1800/1900MHz – 3G: WCDMA 900 / 2100MHz – 4G: FDD LTE 800/900/1800/2100 / 2600MHz (B20 / B8 / B3 /

Unboxing

The Device comes in a black cardboard box with the name of the Manufacturer and model at the top. In the bottom, the characteristics of the phone appear. Inside, the components are distributed in separate compartments. The kit includes a transparent protective case, a charger, a USB Type-C cable, a protective glass.

Design

The first thing that catches the eye of this phone is its design that reminds us of the famous Samsung Galaxy S8 and the LG G6 for not having just landmarks. And is that its useful surface of the screen is 83%.

The smartphone looks beautiful and a bit unusual with a widescreen display, and it also fits comfortably in your hand. The frame of the smartphone is made of metal, Small bezels on all sides, 2.5D curved glass, metal frame (zinc-titanium alloy), display ratio 18: 9, Bluboo S8 has everything if you want a modern smartphone. Diagonal display 5.7 inches, but because of the elongation of the display and small bezels, the smartphone is perfectly in the hand and you can use it quite comfortably with one hand.On the front side, above the display, the front camera, proximity sensor, light sensor, speaker grid, event indicator (2 pcs – green and red, apparently the manufacturer does not know about RGB-LEDs = D). The front panel is covered with a 2.5D glass Gorilla Glass of the 4th generation. It’s good that this time there was enough space for both the event indicator and all the necessary sensors. In spite of this, its weight is of 207gr and has dimensions of 70.6 mm of width, 149.5 mm in length, and 8.4 mm of thickness.

The back panel is made of plastic, with curved edges, glossy and easy to collect fingerprints. Minor scratches also appear simply from nowhere. It looks nice, but in practice, it’s not entirely usable. And to wear in a case, the effect of the design is completely different.

If we visualize more detail the back part, we will see that it comes with a dual camera in vertical position, something quite common today as it helps to take better photos and a little to the left of the LED flash. The fingerprint scanner is located just below the dual camera, it is also located in a position where it can be easily touched with your finger. In addition, such a scanner is quite decent as it is able to unlock the phone in less than 0.1 seconds with a success rate of 98%. You can basically store up to 5 different fingerprints and recognize them at a 360-degree angle.

At the bottom, there is a USB type C port, along with the speaker grilles. Unfortunately, it does not have the 3.5mm audio port to connect our hearing instruments, if we want to do so we will have to use some adapter and connect it to the USB type C port. On the right side, there is only the on/off button, something that is becoming less frequent. On the left side is the volume up and down buttons. At the top, we find the SIM card slot. In this case, two nano-SIM cards or both micro-SD memory cards can be added.

Display

If we are looking for a decent budget smartphone, but with an even better screen, then the Bluboo S8 will be able to meet those expectations. This terminal comes with a SHARP HD + screen with a size of 5.7 inches with a resolution of 1440 x 720 pixels and an aspect ratio of 18: 9. This means that we will have a full screen with nothing to interfere with the ability to visualize clearly. The glass is 2.5D and curved, allowing a better saturation of color and more vitality.

In addition, this screen has very small bezels on the top and bottom, making it look even more striking and similar (NOT equal) to the Galaxy S8. The detail that makes the difference is the small top bezel that extends the screen almost all the way to the top, leaving a small space for the speaker and the camera. We also have three virtual buttons to operate the phone.

As we mentioned, the 18: 9 aspect ratio allows excellent grip, but also allows good one-hand operation and gives us an impressive multimedia display, making videos and/or movies look without black borders. In addition, the panel is very sensitive. In summary, the Bluboo screen is surprising especially since it is a mid-range phone.

Hardware and Performance

For the work of the Bluboo S8 smartphone, the 64-bit eight-core Mediatek MT6750T processor (4 cores Cortex-A53 with a frequency of up to 1.0 GHz, 4 cores Cortex-A53 with a frequency of up to 1.5 GHz), is executed on a 28 nm process technology. For the graphics meets the video accelerator Mali-T860MP2.

The smartphone is available in a single version with a memory of 3/32 GB. Such a bundle shows the characteristic results (as for the budget worker) in benchmarks. During the test, we noticed several cases of slowing down the interface. Immediately after starting the application may be a bit of a freeze, but it’s not critical.

The performance of the smartphone is average, it will pull all the new games, but not at the maximum graphics settings. For World Of Tanks, the settings are slightly above average, go in normally and play comfortably. At maximum in the scenes of massive tank battles, there is noticeably a sinking of fps and there are observed braking. In general, a smartphone can be used for games, but this is clearly not an ideal gaming device.

With a long game, the smartphone heats up medium, the temperature of the front panel and the back cover does not rise above 36 degrees Celsius. But the region in the region of the chamber is heated appreciably, up to 43 degrees.

In the image below you can see how he scored 40953 points in AnTuTu, 616 points in a single core and 2183 multi-core points in Geekbench 4.1. However, it had an average GPS reception. In spite of this, you will not have problems with applications related to GPS.

Camera

The Bluboo S8 features a double Sony brand camera on the back, which is composed of a 16 MP main sensor and a 3 MP secondary sensor. If you are a follower of our website, you have read on several occasions what this means and you can get an idea of ??why it incorporates the double camera in this terminal. But in case you do not know, the secondary sensor is only used to collect object data and distances to achieve the “blur” effect. The main sensor uses phase detection autofocus and has F / 2.0 aperture. On the front, we have another camera with 8 MP for selfies.

With good lighting, the images are still similar to something, but they still do not reach the level of competitors in this price segment. The module is old and tired, plus it’s not the best lenses that are installed for sure, as a result we have the result that we have. Light objects are given to the smartphone heavily, the sky is often illuminated, direct sunlight can come out on the frame. Obviously not the best detail and color rendering. It even seems to me that on Bluboo S1 the pictures go a little better. However, focusing in S8 is faster.

The bokeh mode is the same … When you close the secondary camera with your finger, the smartphone swears, but the blur does not go away. all as usual in cheap Chinese devices.

In poor lighting, it’s still much worse. Photographs are abundantly covered with noise, poor detail, focus errors, lighted objects … A complete set of “pleasures”

The Front Camera has a resolution of 5 Mp (with interpolation up to 8 Mp) and an aperture of f / 2.8. In the Bluboo S1 was a disgusting front-end and manufacturers decided not to change the tradition in the S8. The pictures are just awful, and even try to catch a normal focus. In short, it would be better if they refused the self-camera altogether than to put such a camera.

Android 7.0 Based: 360 OS

In the smartphone is installed Android 7.0 with a shell of 360 OS. The shell on the one hand I liked, it looks pretty good, but it is stuffed with all kinds of applications, freezers, purifiers, advertising widgets and other things. Personally, it irritates me, I love it when everything is clean and tidy, and what I need will be – I’ll fix it myself. Of course, all this can be done and done as it should, but it’s better when everything is initially normal.

One thing that can be noticed is the fact that we can not use another launcher because there is no way to place it by default. The system always returns to its own launcher each time the start (virtual) button is pressed. Even if we try to change the permissions to make it auto start with another interface after reboot, the results will be the same. In any case, using Android 7.0 gives us more control over the phone and also allows us to customize it like any other device based on Nougat.

There are some custom applications preinstalled on the phone, but they can be uninstalled easily if we do not intend to use them. Luckily there is no bloatware, but we will find some unnecessary applications that we cannot uninstall. The Bluboo S8 supports all the classic Nougat features and also comes with 5 pre-installed themes that we can use. However, we did not find any way to download other themes.

Other customization options include the float gesture, which is a floating ball that opens a radial view so you can quickly access various modes. It is not very useful, as it does not allow us to customize the control elements of the list. We also have the ability to lock applications with the fingerprint scanner, something that is currently common.

Connectivity

GPS tested using the GPS Test software, as well as in the car using the Yandex Navigator application. Search for satellites takes a long time, you have to wait a minute and a half to find them … and then still connect … The number of satellites is usually in the visibility of 10-12 depending on the location, while it connects only to 5-6. GPS, in short, worked too slowly …

As a navigator, Bluboo S8 used to succeed, but there were problems … The location was not always determined correctly. After the firmware update, the problems became much less. The work of GPS has been improved, but it is still far from ideal. Search satellites began to pass quickly, but with the connection, the smartphone is still undermining. Vobschem as a navigator, I do not advise this device!

There are no complaints about the Wi-fi-module operation, the access points are fast, the connection is stable. In the screenshots: the signal level through the wall and at a distance of two meters from the signal source.

Bluboo S8 supports 2G, 3G, and 4G networks. Supported frequencies are given below.

During the operation of the network, there were no problems, the smartphone kept communication both in the underground passages and between the metro stations (where it is possible). Spontaneous roll-offs of the 4G network on 3G also did not exist, only in conditions of poor reception.

As for Bluetooth version 4.1, there were no questions. The smartphone finds other devices fast enough. The file transfer rate is standard for this technology.

Bluetooth headset and headphones in conjunction with the smartphone work fine.

Bluboo S8 is also equipped with the Earth’s magnetic field sensor. I do not know how much it is necessary for most users, but it does not hurt exactly.

Speaker Sound

After the Bluboo S1, I was afraid to hear the same sound in the S8! After all, in the predecessor, he was simply terrible, it was necessary to pick up a melody so that he would not wheeze at the call. Here things are much better, but I can not call a good speaker either. The standard speaker of a budget smartphone, well, maybe the middle class, but not as a standard … On the whole, it copes with the task, the maximum volume is enough to hear the bell from the bag on the street. And does not wheeze/crack at maximum volume, just a special quality of playback sound cannot boast.

Headphones with a 3.5 mm jack are connected via an adapter from the kit to the USB Type-C port. Looks like this whole design is terrible, and it is unlikely that anyone will carry an adapter all along. The output can be two: use wireless headphones or buy headphones with a USB type-C output.

Fingerprint Scanner

The fingerprint scanner in the Bluboo S8 is located on the back of the device, and not as in the predecessor. This is objectively less convenient, but it has been arranged successfully and, from the point of view of ergonomics, there is no finger to grope for it. The index finger itself lies roughly in the area when you take it in your hand. The scanner is stable, it works always. I would like to see the speed of work great, but everything is fine.

Battery

In the first test of Battery, we have been under Wi-Fi at all times. We have played HearthStone, surfed and used social networks, mostly Twitter. We arrived at the 4 hours of screen with 34 hours of total autonomy.

In the second test of Battery, we have also been under Wifi mostly but we have used the mobile outdoors. We have played, surfed and again used social networks, mostly Twitter. And we have also read. We have reached the 4 hours of screen with 36 hours of total autonomy.

In the third test of Battery, we have been outdoors at all times. We have made very little use of the mobile but we have moved a lot and the battery expenditure by changes of coverage is noticed. We have also used it as a GPS and as a camera. We have arrived at 1 hour and a half of screen with 10 hours of total autonomy.

In the fourth test of Battery, we have made a mixed use. Indoors we have used social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. In exteriors, we have made some photographs. We have reached the 3 hours of screen with 16 hours of total autonomy.

Conclusion

The Bluboo S8 is one of those phones with good specifications, the main feature is the similarity it carries with the original model of the Galaxy S8. But if we overlook this detail, then we will have no problem in realizing that it has an impressive design and build quality, good usability and obviously its magnificent “Infinity Style” screen with 18: 9 aspect ratio and dazzling brightness during the day.

The contra is his camera, which despite being dual, the quality of the photos leaves much to be desired, although in conditions with good light can take a good photo. The battery is fairly average, so do not expect to have a great amount of power if you plan to give it an intensive use.

Bluboo S8: Price and place of purchase

Well, this phone has good specifications and although it does not compare with the Galaxy S8, the price is much lower than the latter and we can find it on The Banggood. That’s how we could describe Bluboo’s specific proposal, as you’ll agree after reading the Bluboo S8 review. The affordable device came to us from BANGGOOD. This glass and metal Smartphone costs $149 at Banggood.com,