BLU has a habit of releasing halfway decent Android smartphones for more-than-decent prices. The new BLU Dash keeps that trend alive by packing a quad-core processor and a 4.5 inch display into a package that sells for $140.

And that’s without a carrier subsidy. You can buy this phone in cash and use it on AT&T or T-Mobile’s networks in the US without paying a dime over the cost of your monthly (or month-to-month) smartphone bill.

Blu Dash

If you wanted to buy an HTC One or Samsung Galaxy S4 without a carrier subsidy, you’d end up paying closer to $600. And a Google Nexus 4 costs $299 or more.

Of course, the BLU Dash doesn’t quite have the power of any of those phones. But it’s not bad for the price.

The handset sports a 1.2 GHz MediaTek MT6589M quad-core processor with PowerVR SGX544 graphics. It has 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of storage, a 4.5 inch, 854 x 480 pixel display, and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean software. The phone has a 5MP rear-facing camera and a lower-quality front camera for video calls or quick snapshots.

It supports WiFi and Bluetooth, GPS, and HSPA+ and sports dual SIM Card slots.

While it’s hardly the best phone money can buy, it’s an interesting option for folks that care more about price than performance. It’d also make a halfway decent portable media player/gaming device for folks that would prefer and Android device to an iPod touch — and in a pinch, you can always throw in a SIM card and use it as a phone when needed.

via Engadget

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9 replies on “BLU Dash: Unlocked quad-core Android phone for $140”

  1. When will Journalists clean up their misreporting of Phone prices? There IS NO carrier subsidy, its just tacked on to your plan! Ever notice that plans that don’t include phones are a lot cheaper? That’s where it goes… “subsidy” pffft

    Credit to Liliputing for at least differentiating between price and “price with contract” which gets glossed over almost everywhere.

  3. Dang. sweet phone. It’s nice that it has the latest version of Jelly Bean (for some reason, every OEM seems to stick with 4.1) at half the price of the Nexus 4. However, will this get OTA updates? If not, I’d just stick with getting a Nexus 4.

    1. Yes. Straight Talk’s BYOP program sells T-Mobile compatible SIM cards. If you’re lucky enough to scrounge up an AT&T-compatible SIM, kudos to you; it will work as well.

  5. All BLU’s done is rebadge some Chinese manufacturer’s phone; just search ‘direct from China’ retailers for MTK6589 & you’ll find quite a few models with similar or better specs (eg 1GB RAM) around this price…

  7. Interesting mtk6589 only has WCDMA 2100 and 850. I dunno how they got it to work on t-mobile HSPA with those band only.

  8. No reviews on Amazon yet. For the price it sounds pretty good. It would make a great backup phone. My big concern would be having only 512 MB of RAM. The rest would be livable.

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