We all like to have the latest greatest, feature-packed smartphone, but with high pricing and hefty carriers contracts it isn’t always possible. Now there is a gleam of hope thanks to Florida-based smartphone maker Blu.

Blu isn’t a household name like Apple or Samsung (yet), but the phone manufacturer has been shipping phones to happy customers since 2009 and have been seeing amazing growth with 4.1 million Blu phones shipped in 2012.

Blu’s current market is mainly around Latin America, but CEO Sammy Ohev-Zion hopes to break in to other markets with the $299 Blu Life One and Blu Life View Android smarpthones. Not only are these phones low-cost, contract free and unlocked but they also boast impressive hardware.

The flagship Blu One Life features a 5-inch HD display, 13 mega-pixel camera and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, while the Blu Life View packs a larger 5.7-inch HD display, 12 mega-pixel rear camera and 5 mega-pixel front.

Blu phone are currently available through online commerce sites such as Amazon and Newegg. How well do they actually rate though? It tends to depend a lot on the model, with some getting low-to-fair reviews and others scoring quite nicely. Bottom-line, the build quality or even the specs of a Blu phone won’t begin to compete with flagships from Samsung, Sony, Apple and others — but if you are looking for a higher-end phone without paying a fortune, it could still be worth a serious look.

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The Samsung Galaxy S III is widely heralded as one of the best Android smartphones on the market today, but perhaps you don’t want to deal with a locked phone on a contract. Then this unlocked version is for you.

The factory unlocked Samsung Galaxy S III is currently on sale on Amazon for $570. This is said to be 37% off the regular list price of $899.99. You get a 4.8-inch AMOLED HD display, a Snapdragon 1.5GHz dual core processor, Android 4.0 ICS, quad-band 3G, 16GB of storage, and the usual array of Samsung TouchWiz optimizations like Smart Stay, Direct Call, and S-Voice.

This is listed as the international version of the phone, so it starts up in German. Thankfully, it’s really easy to switch it to English by simply going to the language settings. And yes, it’s completely unlocked, so you can pop in whatever compatible SIM card you want.

If you want to save a little more money, the unlocked Samsung Galaxy S II international version in ceramic white is also on sale. It can be had for $420.99, which is $379 off the list price of $799.99.

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The specs are roughly on par with the Droid DNA (HTC J Butterfly), giving you a Qualcomm APQ8064 quad-core 1.5GHz processor and 2GB of RAM. There’s the impressive 5-inch 1080×1920 full HD display (441PPI), 16GB of internal storage, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and a beefy 2500mAh battery for extended life. It’s quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900) and quad-band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA/HSPA+ (850/1700/1900/2100), so it should be pretty world-friendly too. Rounding out the wireless radios are dual-band WiFi-N, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth, and NFC. And all this will be found in a remarkably slim package.

The official event for the Oppo Find 5 is scheduled to happen in Beijing on December 12, though it’s not yet clear when they are going to launch the phone in the United States. They are set up as Oppo USA, so their American ambitions are pretty clear. At $499 unsubsidized, this is one of the better spec’d unlocked smartphones for sure, though some people may be wary of the Oppo brand and would prefer to get the Nexus 4. It should be noted that the Oppo Find 5 appears to lack US-friendly LTE, though.

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The Samsung Galaxy S III Mini was announced last month, but Samsung didn’t make it clear whether the smaller cousin of the full-size S3 would be made available for the US market. That answer has now been provided courtesy of Amazon, because the online retailer has listed the Samsung smartphone.

The idea with the S3 Mini, in case you’re not so familiar, is to take the form factor of the S3, shrink it down, and reduce the specs for a reduced price. The net result is a Google Android 4.1 smartphone with a 4.0-inch Super AMOLED display, dual core 1GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 8/16GB storage and microSD expansion. There’s a 5-megapixel camera on the back and a VGA camera on the front. Realistically, the specs make it sound like an S II in a shrunken down S III body.

Now, it’s debatable whether the unlocked Galaxy S III Mini is worth it. You’ll find it listed on Amazon.com for $398.91 with 8GB of memory. By comparison, the equally unlocked but vanilla Android-powered 8GB Google Nexus 4 by LG is $100 less than that. Maybe you like TouchWiz and don’t want to try finding (or pay for) an unlocked S3. If that’s the case, the S3 Mini isn’t so shabby.

The post Amazon Lists Unlocked Samsung Galaxy S III Mini at $399 appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

No, it’s not exactly the fanciest thing in the world, but it could be perfect for those texting teenagers who don’t really need to have a real data plan. It’s the Samsung Chat GT-3500 and it happens to be on sale for 60% off, bringing the price down to a mere $59.99.

That’s not a contract price, thankfully, so the sixty bucks will get you an unlocked GSM cell phone that you can then use with your compatible carrier of choice. The Samsung Chat GT-C3500 comes with a 2.4-inch touchscreen display and a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard. That physical keyboard will be handy for people who do text a lot and don’t really like typing on touchscreens.

While it almost looks like there is Android on board, it’s really just Samsung’s TouchWiz Lite 2.0 UI on there. Other notable features include Bluetooth connectivity, a 2MP camera, and stereo FM radio with RDS. It’ll do FM recording too. Because it’s not doing the smartphone thing, the battery lasts a heck of a lot longer too. One Amazon review had it going for 3-4 days with “heavy texting and calling” and up to a week with lighter usage.

You can pick it up from Amazon for the aforementioned $59.99 price and that will come with the free super saver shipping too.

The post Get the Samsung Chat GT-C3500 for $59.99 Outright appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

What if I told you that you could get an unlocked smartphone outright for the same price (or less) than you’d be paying for a locked smartphone on a two-year contract? That’s exactly the case here today with the Nokia C6-01. This is a factory unlocked quad-band GSM smartphone that will happily work with you in North America and abroad. And it’s selling for half price.

Granted, this phone isn’t quite as new and shiny as something like the Galaxy S III or the HTC One X, but it can certainly still hold its own, especially given the price. You get pentaband UMTS/HSDPA, supporting 850/900/1700/1900/2100, meaning that it should work with both AT&T and T-Mobile, as well as with international GSM carriers. There’s an 8MP camera on the back with 720p HD video support, as well as GPS with free Ovi Maps Navigation, microSD expansion, Bluetooth stereo support, and a 3.2-inch LCD touchscreen.

Some people may decry the Symbian^3 OS, but it’s actually not so bad once you start using it. The homescreen widgets make accessing yoru contacts and messages super easy, and you can even get live updates from Facebook and Twitter. There’s a full HTML browser with RSS feed support, multiformat media player, and an FM radio.

Pick it up today for $179.99 outright in your choice of black or silver. As always, that includes free shipping too.

The post Daily Deal: Unlocked Nokia C6-01 US Smartphone for Half Price appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Yes, the newest hotness in town is the Samsung Galaxy S III, but you may not be prepared for the $700+ outright price to get your hands on an unlocked one. Go ahead and save yourself over $300 by picking up an unlocked Samsung Galaxy S II (SA-I9100) instead. The international version (SA-I9100) just went on sale for 44% off.

It may not be the newest kid on the block anymore, but there’s a good reason why the Galaxy S II received such overwhelmingly positive reviews by the Android community. You might remember my S II review last year where I gave it a 9/10. I still firmly believe that it’s a fantastic smartphone and if you’re not a fan of the supersized screens as of late, the 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display on here may feel much more comfortable and suitable.

This is the international version, so it gets the dual core 1.2GHz processor, 8MP camera, aGPS, 1GB RAM, 16GB storage, and microSD expansion, along with the usual suite of wireless radios like 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot support, HSDPA 21Mbps, and Bluetooth 3.0+HS.

You can buy the Samsung Galaxy S II from Amazon for just $449.90, which is $350.09 (44%) off the regular unsubsidized price of $799.99. And yes, that comes with the same free super saver shipping that you’ve come to expect.

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Maybe you’re not a fan of signing lengthy contracts, but you also don’t want to spend $500 or more on an unsubsidized smartphone. This deal on the Motorola Pro Plus MB632 could be just the ticket.

Yes, it’s true that this Android smartphone isn’t quite as sexy as the HTC One X or the Samsung Galaxy S III, but you are paying a fraction of the unsubsidized price. The Motorola MB632 has a 1GHz single core processor to go along with its 3.1-inch touchscreen display. You’ll also notice that, unlike so many other smartphones these days, this one actually has a full physical QWERTY keyboard.

Going through the rest of the specs and features, we find Android 2.3 Gingerbread, a 5MP camera with LED flash, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, 4GB internal memory, microSD expansion (up to 32GB) and the usual array of Google services like Gmail, Search and Google Maps with Navigation.

Find the Motorola MB632 on Amazon for $199.99 outright, a $100 savings off the regular price of $300.

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This information comes by way of a crash log that refers to a “takju” software profile for the Galaxy Nexus. It seemed that the engineers at Google were using it to test Jelly Bean and the only real difference between “takju” (and the “mysid” variant) and the regular unlocked Galaxy Nexus is the inclusion of support for Google Wallet. They are otherwise identical handsets.

It follows reason that if this applies to the $399 unlocked GSM Galaxy Nexus that recently went on sale in the Google Play Store under the new “Devices” category that it may also apply to other Galaxy Nexus handsets that have been sold by carriers. After all, all Nexus devices come factory unlocked, so they should be mostly the same. And so, it seems that the Galaxy Nexus will be the first to get Android 5.0 Jelly Bean, which would follow the tradition of giving first dibs to Nexus devices for major Android releases.

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Both the Xperia arc S and the Xperia neo V come loaded with Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread and they’re initially being sold through Sony Store locations across the country. Some time next month, they’ll also pop up at other retailers and e-tailers, including Newegg and Amazon.

The cheaper of the two is the Xperia neo V. It has a 3.7-inch display, 5MP rear camera, a front-facing videocall camera, your choice of three colors, HDMI-out, and the 3D sweep panorama technology. All this is wrapped up in a $349.99 package. The Xperia arc S also does the 3D sweep thing, but it bumps up to 4.2-inch “Reality” display with Mobile BRAVIA, as well as an 8MP camera with Exmor R, a 1.4GHz processor, and your choice of four colors. That carries an MSRP of $549.99.

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