BLU's new $150 vivo XL2 announced with a 5.5-inch display, 13MP camera

BLU, the Florida-based smartphone manufacturer, has made a name for itself over the years for creating high-quality, budget-friendly devices. A successor to one of our favorite smartphones from the company, the vivo XL, has been rumored to launch ever since December of last year, and now that day has finally come.

The new BLU vivo XL2 might not seem like a huge upgrade from the vivo XL, though there are a few key features you’ll want to note. For starters, the design seems to have received a big update this year, with the device now featuring a new micro pattern engraving with a metallic finish, which gives off a glass-like transparent coat. It certainly looks a lot better than the vivo XL, in our opinion.

The device sports a 5.5-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1280 x 720, which is a notable move from the AMOLED display that appeared in the XL. We told you in our full review that we really enjoyed the AMOLED panel on the XL, so we’re hoping this new device can offer up punchy and saturated colors, too.

Under the hood, you’ll find a 1.4GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6737T processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of on-board storage and microSD expansion up to 64GB. Last year’s model only came with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, so it’s nice to see that bump up this time around. In addition, the XL2 comes with a wide-angle 8MP front camera (compared to last year’s 5MP shooter), as well as a 13MP main sensor with PDAF and improvements in aperture, autofocus and more.

The XL2’s battery might have the same capacity as the XL (3,150mAh), but BLU says it’ll be able to last you up to 30% more than last year’s model. The 5V/2A Quick Charger will charge the XL2 to 50% in just 30 minutes, and can get you 2 hours of talk time in just 10 minutes of charging time.

Perhaps the only downside to the XL2’s spec sheet is that it’s running Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box. Android 7.0 Nougat started rolling out to Nexus devices way back in August of 2016 – over five months ago – so it’s unfortunate to see a brand-spanking-new Android device launch with an old version of Android.

You can purchase the BLU vivo XL2 from Amazon for just $150, which is certainly a decent price for a phone of this caliber. If you can get past the lack of Nougat on this device, we’d certainly recommend checking it out at the Amazon link below.