UPDATE:

I should have trusted my instincts about something “designed” in Miami… After 2 days, there is a red line running through the display. Sigh….. Sending the phone back and will take the plunge for the galaxy note.

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After a couple of dud phone/tablets that I purchased from China a couple of years ago, I had given up on finding a PHABLET (phone/tablet) that was any good. I knew why. iPhone and iPad don’t want to consolidate the two because it cuts their profits in half. Other companies do the same thing.

Then, late last year, I saw an ad for the new Samsung Galaxy Note. When checking the prices for the import versions, they were around $600. I hesitated.

Then, this year, they introduced the domestic version and I wanted it. BAD.

Still, the unlocked price was around $700. I couldn’t justify that.

So, while reading reviews for the Samsung Note, I saw a reference to the Blu Studio 5.3.

I read up on it a bit, looked at some unboxing on YouTube, and it looked ok. The specs held me off for a while, until I completely decided that I refuse to pay $700 for a phone.

If you’ve read my blog, you will see that I am all for buying American Made products. I am not sure if it’s true or not, but this Blu Studio says it’s “designed” in Miami, and assembled in China!

Even though Miami County is a third world country, I went for it.

I ordered it from a retailer on ebay that was in New York. Why, you ask? Free shipping and NO sales tax. Also, this particular company seemed like they were very concerned about their customer service. Ebay/Paypal. If the phone was crap, I could probably get my money back.

When I got the phone, and pulled it out of the box, it was HUGE! 5.3 inch screen. “Huge” means fantastic in my book.

I started it up and the screen is just as good as the Galaxy Note. It’s just a tad bit thicker, but there’s one plus-dual SIM cards! You can have your data plan on one service and voice on another, or if you carry a work phone and a personal phone, you can combine it.

Put the SIM card in and a microsd card and it was good to go.

The manual only tells you how to do things in the android OS, so I think I am going to try to put together some instructions here.

To remove the back, if the phone’s screen is facing you, at the top right corner on the edge, there is a notch. The back pops right off. The SIM card goes in with the metal parts facing down under the sticker that says 2g/3g. The notched side of your card goes to the right.

I will continue to update this with things about the phone and other how-to’s. If anyone already has one of these and has rooted it, please email and give me the instructions. I will post them here. I attempted sup3r0necl1ck, but my virus protection said there was a malicious item, so I didn’t try it.

LOVE this phone so far!

Haven’t tried this yet, but good to know:

“to enter in Recovery mode just plug -in the USB in smartphone and after show in the screen the “battery charging” you press “+ Volume and Power button” for 5 seconds… the smartphone will starts in Recovery mode.”

Found this case today:

I actually purchased a Garmin case from best buy for this. Fits perfectly!