There had been a surge in new and upcoming Chinese smartphone manufacturers in the last couple of years. In fact, some of them aren’t familiar to us just yet. But Bluboo, one of those unfamiliar brands in the Philippines, is knocking at our doorstep and they aim to be known by the Filipinos.
The company has brought their bizarre new smartphone in the country — the Bluboo S8. And while we’re still at the course of concluding its full review, here’s a sneak peek of what the device offers.
If you’ve already seen the renders, you know that the Bluboo S8 took a lot of inspirations from Samsung’s Galaxy S8. Heck, they even have the same name.
Right off the bat, you can already tell the resemblance just by the packaging’s design alone. It sports an all-black material with a large shiny “S8” branding right on the front.
Inside there’s a packet that houses the warranty card, quick-start guide, screen protector, and a jelly case. There’s also a cheesy letter inside from Sky Lee, Bluboo’s CEO. Digging in further you’ll see the wall adaptor, a USB Type-C cable, and the USB Type-C to 3.5mm headphone adaptor.
Yes, you read that right. There’s a headphone dongle included, which means that the Bluboo S8 has omitted the headphone jack. Something that Samsung themselves never did, or at least for now.
But on the bright side, the handset does look really identical to the Galaxy S8. This device clearly benefits from Samsung’s design preference. The 5.7-inch HD+ IPS screen, together with its thin-bezels, the blue color variant that we have — all contributes to its good looks.
Although the back panel doesn’t feel as premium as it looks, it still feels sturdy. The metal band that wraps around the entire device also feels robust.
While it might seem that Bluboo took a lot of inspiration from the Galaxy S8, the company was smart enough to not copy Samsung’s biggest design mistake. What we’re talking about is, obviously, the fingerprint scanner placement.
At the back, the dual cameras are laid out at the center in a vertical orientation. Right below them is the fingerprint scanner, which is within the reach of the index finger.
But at the end of the day, we should remember that the Bluboo S8 is only priced at Php6,999. Unsurprisingly, we can expect a lot of flaws here and there. We still have to dig in further to figure out its shortcomings, but as per my first impressions, I noticed that the home/power button feels a bit flimsy.
Also, having the “Camera Dual” printed permanently on the back isn’t really a smart move. However, people who have OCD might really appreciate it as it accents the dual-LED flash on the other side.
Speaking of the camera, the dual shooters at the back consists of a 13-megapixel sensor and a secondary 3-megapixel one for the Bokeh mode. I did a couple of initial shots with the camera, and the results weren’t really surprising. Clearly, you’d only be getting what your money’s worth, which means it’s quite bad. Anyway, we’ll let this pass for now and we’ll talk about it once we spend more time with it.
I also took a quick stroll along the interface. So far, it feels responsive. Launching apps was fast enough. However, we’ll see how it holds up as we bombard it with apps for our review.
That’s it for now. So far, for what I have seen and experienced in my first few moments with it, I’m already a bit impressed. Let’s just see how it holds up as we run our tests with it for the full review coming very soon.