Enter Moto X Pure Edition.

Coocheer CH-080 Bluetooth speaker review

Coocheer is well-known for making great speakers, chargers, and headphones, and the CH-080 Bluetooth speaker is most definitely no exception. From its simple, matte design to its quality sound, the CH-080 packs quite a punch. Let’s see what makes it tick.

Design

Coocheer didn’t aim for flashiness or complexity with this speaker, which is actually a nice change of pace. The soft-touch matte plastic wrapped around the speaker give it a premium feel without the premium price tag. The only button on the entire device comes in the form of a large round dial which sports a colored LED ring around its base. Other than a 3.5mm audio jack, microUSB charging port, and an On/Off switch all lined up on one side, the CH-080 is left largely untouched by extra, unnecessary buttons. There’s a single microphone on the opposite side (right below the Coocheer logo in the photo above) as well, so you can use the speaker for voice commands and the occasional phone call.

It weighs in at just over one pound, so it still falls into the realm of a portable Bluetooth speaker. Its footprint isn’t very large, which means it should fit into most backpacks or messenger bags without any real issue. Unfortunately, Coocheer only offers the speaker in black (I would have loved to see a white or even a blue version).

Usage

As a Bluetooth speaker, the CH-080 works very well. It connects quickly and without any hassle, and I never experienced any stutter, song lag, or disconnections. Coocheer built this speaker with Bluetooth 3.0, which isn’t the latest standard, but it holds its own when playing music and taking calls. It also packs NFC, something we’ve seen in more and more Bluetooth speakers as of late.

If connecting through your phone/tablet’s Bluetooth settings fails (not very likely, as mentioned), you can (theoretically) always hold your device against the speaker to initiate the connection. In practice, I can’t say that the NFC in this case is very reliable. Try as I might, I could only get my Galaxy S6 to pick up the NFC from the speaker once or twice. I also tried a Moto X Pure Edition, with the same results. This is after dozens of attempts and a considerable amount of time pressing my phone against every inch of the speaker just to find the sweet spot. I appreciate that Coocheer included NFC as a connection option, but if it isn’t reliable, it’s almost useless to the average user.

Coocheer’s large dial in the center of the speaker (naturally) controls the volume, but the designers baked a little extra functionality into the dial, which doubles as a button. A single press serves as a pause/play function, but if you hold the button for three seconds, the LED ring will flash, indicating that the speaker has entered what Coocheer calls “Song Control Status.” This is essentially a mode in which turning the dial changes the song rather than the volume. It works exactly as you’d expect: enter Song Control Status mode, turn clockwise to skip to the next song and counterclockwise to return to the previous song. This may seem like a simple addition, but it is extremely useful when your phone or tablet is far away and you just want to change the song. Coocheer found a way to make this feature useful, without making it too complicated or adding extra buttons. Simplicity goes a long way with this speaker, something that users are sure to appreciate.

The inclusion of an LED ring around the base of the dial adds just the right amount of pizzazz to an otherwise blank slate of a speaker. The ring stays a light blue color, and turns a brighter shade of purple when the speaker is charging. When entering “Song Control Status” mode, the blue ring will flash. Other than that, the light remains on as long as the speaker is on. Coocheer didn’t include any way to turn off the LED, but it isn’t obtrusive enough to really be a bother anyway.

Performance & Sound

Coocheer’s speaker sounds great; there is no other way to describe it. Strong lows and accurate mid-range sound comes almost seamlessly from the speaker. The distribution of sound is fantastic, thanks to the CH-080 sporting two speakers that flank the dial in the center. Coocheer built the speaker with “Bass Enhance Technology,” which is basically a fancy way of saying that it can put out some reasonable bass for a small(er) speaker. It won’t shake any wine glasses or blow anyone away, but it can hold its own if you’re using the speaker at a house party or to listen to some tunes while you mop the floors.

The CH-080 can get considerably loud, and it doesn’t seem to distort much at higher volumes. Obviously if you overload it with bass, it’s going to sound a little wonky, but overall this little speaker can make some noise.

Conclusion

Coocheer was obviously trying to create a solid, simple, affordable Bluetooth speaker with the CH-080, and it definitely hit the mark. For just $19.99, this is hands-down one of the best speakers for the price. While the NFC issue is somewhat annoying, it isn’t really a deal-breaker. The CH-080 looks great, sounds great, and works almost perfectly. If you’re looking for a strong speaker at a reasonable price, this is definitely a good option.

If you’d like to grab a CH-080 speaker, you can grab one from Amazon here.

The post Coocheer CH-080 Bluetooth speaker review appeared first on AndroidGuys.

BLU Vivo Air LTE review

The BLU Vivo Air was affordable, but offered a stunning construction and pretty capable specs. The second iteration looks to bring a similar ultra thin design, but this time the device is boosted with 2 GB of RAM and 4G LTE speeds. The enticing part is that it still manages to stay half as thick and heavy as the competition.

I have been playing around with the BLU Vivo Air LTE for a while and am ready to tell you all about it. Is this to be your next smartphone? Let’s find out!

Buy on Amazon for $199

Design

Something feels off when you first hold the BLU Vivo Air LTE. It feels amazingly light, so you begin looking for the battery in the box only to find it actually is within the phone. This phone weighs only 98 grams. To put that into perspective, the iPhone 6 (known for its light weight) is 129 grams.

The Vivo Air LTE is also the thinnest smartphone one can buy in the USA at 5.1 mm. This thing is crazy light and thin. So much that you may even forget you have it in your pocket, and holding it for extended periods of time doesn’t do much to tire you.

But those are not the only impressive factors this device construction has to offer. The BLU Vivo Air LTE comes with a couple Gorilla Glass 3 panels, which sandwich an aluminum frame. This makes the phone a seemingly high-end product, but I do have to say I managed to scratch it relatively easily with normal usage. Not to mention, this thing is a fingerprint magnet and has a super slippery surface. Of course, you could always use the included case to avoid such inconveniences.

I do have to say I loved the phone’s smaller form factor, which made it a breeze to use single-handedly. Overall, I do believe you are getting quite a deal at this price point, as the phone is very well built and even has metal as one of its materials. That is hard to find in the lower-end market.

I definitely enjoyed the power and volume buttons, which feel pretty solid and provide good tactile feedback. Oh, and I happen to love when the microUSB and 3.5 mm headset jack are on the bottom of the phone, which is the case here.

The front of the phone sports a 5 MP shooter and an LED notification light. One thing I can complain about is that bezel, though. It’s pretty large, which isn’t an issue when the device has hardware buttons, but the BLU Vivo Air LTE is sticking with software buttons.

Display

As I mention above, this phone is small and easy to hold, and most of that is thanks to the modest 4.8-inch 720p Super AMOLED display. As you would expect from all AMOLED panels, this screen produces vibrant colors, saturated hues and the deepest blacks the mobile industry has to offer.

Sure, the display is nothing to write home about, but I can certainly appreciate the convenience of a smaller phone. Not to mention, it does look pretty good for the price!

Performance

Affordable processors have gotten really good the past couple years and I can say the BLU Vivo Air LTE can handle its own with that Snapdragon 410 SoC it packs. This happens to be a huge jump from the Mediatek MT6592 the phone’s predecessor had. And with 2 GB of RAM and an Adreno 306 GPU backing it up, we really can’t complain too much.

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Just keep in mind you are buying an affordable phone. Don’t expect it to perform too well either! Most processes will do just fine, but you will start seeing some lag once you start getting into the heavier games. Frame drops and slower load times are certainly not uncommon in these situations. Overall, however, the device does offer a fair gaming experience.

Hardware

As it should, the BLU Vivo Air LTE has 802.11 N WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth 4.0. Support for some USA 4G LTE networks is also included, with FDD-LTE bands 2,4 and 7 on board. It’s missing bands 5 and 17 for AT&T, as well as band 12 for T-Mobile, but you will still get 4G LTE speeds in some areas. It just depends on where you are.

Camera

Everyone looks to Sony for camera sensors, and this time the IMX219 didn’t quite disappoint. The phone takes pretty fair images for the price. Color reproduction seems to be accurate and I didn’t really come across any blurry photos. In the right lighting conditions, you an definitely take some keepers.

I did come across one issue with the automatic white balance function, which had a hard time deciding between modes. This was mostly an issue when in very bright environments, and setting white balance manually fixed the problem.

The default camera app is simple and offers some basic controls. My specific unit had an annoying problem – it would crash after scrolling through the menu. I am not sure if this is a problem that plagues all users, though. You can easily avoid this by using any other third-party camera app, but that’s still an annoyance.

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Software

This part of the review will be simple. The BLU Vivo Air LTE has pretty awesome software, as it is very near stock Android 5.0.2. There were some slight differences, like those clear buttons in the multi-tasking menu, a different lock screen time widget and a lighter font for the time in the notification panel. The manufacturer also included the TouchPal 2015 keyboard; this is cool if you happen to like it, but I downloaded the Google Keyboard right away.

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The sad part is we likely won’t see much action in the form of updates. BLU is quite infamous for its poor after sales support. They are promising an update to Android 6.0 Marshmallow, but I would rather wait without holding my breath. Back in June they promised Android 5.0 Lollipop updates for the Life One and Life 8 XL ready in July; that hasn’t happened yet. We also have no idea if they are still working on them, as the company hasn’t said a word about the matter.

Battery

There’s always something you sacrifice when making a super thin handset – battery life. You can’t fit that big of a battery in these things, and so BLU decided to stick with a mere 2050 mAh battery. That’s a tiny number for smartphones, nowadays, but I will have to say battery life wasn’t as bad as I expected.

During my tests I found the phone could go for about 16 hours, with almost 3.5 hours of screen on time. The thing is that tests varied too much. Some days I was able to get 14.5 hours with 4 hours of screen on time. The next day I went to 12 hours with 2 hours of screen on time. Go figure!

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By the way, WiFi was off most of the time, and screen brightness was set to 40%.

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Pricing and availability

The BLU Vivo Air LTE sets itself right next to giants like the ASUS ZenFone 2 and the Moto G at a $199 price point. It’s available in both black and white, and sales start on September 22nd.

Here’s the trick: the Vivo Air LTE offers no storage expansion options, and the phone has only 16 GB of internal memory. Not the best set-up for many of you, that’s for sure.

There’s no doubt the Vivo Air LTE is one BLU’s most compelling offerings to date. It’s also one of the better offerings at this price point, thanks to its amazingly thin and light design, great display and capable camera. Sadly, 4G LTE support is limited, battery life is inconsistent and Android update forecasts are not very exciting.

Though I would recommend devices like the Moto G and the ASUS ZenFone 2 for their superior 4G LTE and support, you also can’t go wrong with the Vivo Air LTE. Those who can deal with the quirks should definitely look at it when choosing their next phone. Are any of you guys buying?

Buy on Amazon for $199