Blu Studio Energy II Review

I had the predecessor to the Energy II, the original Blu Studio Energy before giving it to my son. It was a terrific phone that never gave me any trouble. The new model is a nice step up from the predecessor while still retaining its amazing battery life and bang for the buck.

The Blu Studio Energy II is an unlocked Android 5 smartphone equipped with a 64 bit quad core brain running at 1.3 GHz, 16 GB of storage (with a micro SD expansion slot for more room), an FM radio, 1.5 GB of ram, a 5 inch AMOLED screen, LTE connectivity and dual sim card slots (Very useful when traveling overseas. Buy a cheap local sim card and off you go). The rear camera is a pretty good 8 megapixel autofocus model and the front selfie cam is an acceptable 5 megapixels. Blu even throws in a nice case.

In most respects, these specifications would put it squarely in the mid-range category of smartphones but for one big exception. The Blu Studio Energy II, as its name implies, packs a gigantic 5000 milliamp battery. That's roughly 2 to 3 times the battery power of most other phones and it fundamentally changes the way you can use the phone.

To put it simply, with the Blu Studio Energy II, you can ignore your battery meter for all practical purposes. If you have charged your phone up the night before (or even the day before), just grab it and go the day doing whatever you like. It will still have power at the day's end.  No more running out of juice, cutting calls short, scrambling around to borrow a charging cable or spending a hundred bucks on a big, heavy Mophie charging case. In the last photo above, you can get a pretty good idea of how nice this is.  The phone had been on for 7 hours and 41 minutes and it still had 77% battery power remaining.  And I wasn't babying it either.  I used it for at least an hour and a half during this period.

In terms of build quality, the phone feels terrific. The frame is a solid piece of aluminum with a snap-on plastic back to give user access to the dual sim card slots and SD memory card port. The screen is made of Corning's Gorilla Glass for durability. The main camera takes good pictures (Its not the best of its type but its still pretty good) and the selfie camera gets the job done adequately.

I particularly appreciate the inclusion of the digital FM radio. Streaming media is very nice but, sometimes, only a real radio will do.

The Blu Studio Energy II can be had on Amazon. I got mine for a very reasonable $129. That's $129 complete by the way with no further payments. Very nice indeed.