BLU's Life One X3 packs a big 5,000 mAh battery and software that hopefully works

BLU hopes to double-down on its hold on the unlocked smartphone market with the Life One X3, which continues the company’s MO by packing a massive battery and an affordable price tag.

Starting our tour on the outside, the Life One X3’s metal build makes it nice to look at, but nixes any thoughts of wireless charging you might have had. Interrupting the aluminum around back is a bump that houses the 13 MP primary camera, though there is no fingerprint sensor close by — you’ll need to look below the 5.5-inch Full HD display to find it.

Above the display is the phone’s 13 MP selfie camera, with a front-facing LED flash module on the other side of the earpiece. Unfortunately, that earpiece doesn’t double as a speaker — you’ll find that speaker next to the microUSB port at the bottom. That saddens me, seeing how the shift to USB Type-C has been made clear, but it’s probably a cost-saving measure.

Under the hood, the octa-core MediaTek 6753 chipset and 3 GB of RAM power the Life One X3, with the 32 GB of internal storage boosted by the microSD card slot that supports up to another 64 GB of space. The main attraction, though, is the huge 5,000 mAh battery, which BLU says will give you two days of standard use.

Finally, Android Nougat is available out of the box, and there is no telling if or when the Life One X3 will get Android Oreo. BLU isn’t exactly known for timely updates, nor is it known for version updates, so your guess is as good as mine.

Overall, the Life One X3 isn’t blazing new trails, but at its $150 price tag through Amazon, it doesn’t need to. My only concern is how much has BLU’s reputation, which wasn’t great to begin with, been dinged since pushing out a software update that bricked Life One X2 devices. The company has since issued a software fix, but it wasn’t a good look.

Either way, you can purchase the Life One X3 at the link below. Funny enough, the press release states that the phone is available for $250, so I’m not sure if this is a temporary price drop or an error on BLU’s part.