BLU G91 Pro Review – Better Than It Ought To Be

BLU is back with another high-end budget entry with the $250 G91 Pro. I’ve had the chance to put it through its paces and, as usual, BLU has put together a pretty good product for a pretty good price. Keep reading for the details.

HIGHLIGHTS

Performance: The G91 Pro runs on the MediaTek Helio G90 platform and has 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage. Now, that’s a 2019 chipset and is the slightly less capable sibling to last year’s BLU G90 Pro’s Helio G90T. But there’s not much difference between the two specwise (a few CPU megahertz and a few more GPU ones) and, in my usage there’s little to distinguish the two. It’s a bit disappointing that the CPU is so old but I’d imagine the global chip supply issues are to blame. At any rate the phone runs great. It’s quite smooth, in fact so smooth and the animations so quick that I didn’t even feel the need to change the animation speed in the Developer Options. Every game that I played and every app that I ran performed as expected. Is it a Galaxy S21? No but it doesn’t try to be. One more thing – I don’t know what kind of magic is in here but this phone installs apps faster than any I have ever used.

Battery: The phone packs in a 5,000 mAh battery and it will last you forever. This is one of the real selling points of the phone. There’s little chance you’ll need to top off your battery in a single day. But when you do, BLU has got you covered with 30W quick charging and 10W Qi wireless charging support. Oh, and there’s a charger included in the box.

Look and Feel: The phone looks like a premium device. There are two different finishes available – a grey Graphite that I received and a blue/pink Moonstone finish that will be available later this fall. The display is an LCD so there is a bit of a bezel running around it but not enough to really distract from the look of the phone.

Fingerprint and Face Unlock: Taking the belt and suspenders route the G91 Pro has a rear-mounted fingerprint reader and supports face unlock. Both are quick and reliable. The fingerprint reader has a slightly raised rim making it easy to find and I never had it fail. The face unlock is quick, too, and happily does not require a swipe up after recognition (my least favorite thing about Apple’s unlock feature). Quality work done here by the phone’s engineers.

Display: As mentioned above the screen is an LCD. It’s a 6.7 inch 1080×2400 panel that covers 91.4% of the front of the device. Now, like the rest of the world I am partial to OLED screens but the G91 Pro screen looks good. There’s a front camera cutout in the top center of the display. I don’t have a brightness meter but with the phone on full or near-full brightness it is quite legible in the summer sun.

Camera: The camera on the G91 Pro is actually pretty good. It has a 48 MP main shooter with a Samsung sensor, along with a 5 MP wide angle lens and a 16 MP front camera. There’s almost no lag between shots. We have a toddler running around my house and I’d really have no problem using this camera to take pictures of his antics.

LOWLIGHTS

Physical Fit: The phone looks quite good as I mentioned above. The problem comes in where the side meets the front. The screen is raised up a bit over the edge and it feels pretty klunky. So much so that I prefer the feel of the phone with the (included) case. If you’re a case user this won’t impact you but I prefer to use my phones neked.

Software: As always with BLU phones you can expect some extra software on a phone. On first boot the phone automatically installed several games (Candy Crush, Solitaire, etc – junk like that). Fortunately it can all be uninstalled but will the average user know that? I doubt it.

Speaker: I’ve grown so accustomed to stereo speakers and have enjoyed them ever since the old HTC One BoomSound days so it’s slightly painful to use a phone with a single speaker. It’s expected at this price but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. At least this phone is loud but it’s a little tinny and easy to cover up accidentally since it is bottom-firing.

MISCELLANY

• The G91 Pro is the first BLU phone I’ve used (and I’ve used quite a few) that supports gestures on third party launchers without any trickery.
• I have really grown to appreciate dual SIM devices and thankfully the G91 Pro supports this feature.
• There’s a dedicated Google Assistant button on the left side of the phone. It’s a nice feature for those that don’t like to call out “Hey Google”.
• The phone ships with Android 11 and the May 5, 2021 security update. No word on any future updates so if you want guaranteed Android 12 this probably isn’t the phone for you.
• As with every MediaTek device I’ve ever reviewed there’s no NFC support so no touchless payment systems are supported.
• And as usual BLU packs everything you need in the box – 30W charger, case, wired headphones, and a glass screen protector.

CONCLUSION

I really like the G91 Pro. It’s a looker and features top notch performance – despite the older CPU platform. Whatever optimizations have been done at the software level by whomever – BLU, MediaTek, or Google – have paid off. This is a phone I could happily recommend to almost anyone that isn’t a spec nerd. It comes at a great price and is a fine phone. It’s available for $249 from Amazon and it comes well recommended.

SPECIFICATIONS

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