Bluboo Xtouch
The Xtouch is Bluboo’s flagship smartphone, and marketed as: ‘Probably the best 5in Android phone so far’. It’s certainly got a fair amount of style for a budget Android phone, but we see how it fares in other areas in our Bluboo Xtouch review.
Price
It’s available from various Chinese online retailers, including Geekbuying, which is currently charging £123 for the Xtouch. Bear in mind that although the site offers free worldwide shipping, when buying a phone from China you may be forced to pay import duty when it arrives in the UK.
Design
The Xtouch stands out in a sea of plain-black Android slabs with its dark blue (almost black) mirrorfinish 3D rear design and visual thickness of just 5.5mm (in reality it’s a still-very-slim-for-a-budgetphone 7.5mm). Bluboo has built the Xtouch around a CNC nano-moulded metal frame, which not only adds strength but a premium feel to this relatively cheap handset.
The rear finish is something you’ll love or hate. We find it attractive, but less so the fingerprints to which it is prone, and its style statement is undone by the plastic SIM tray that sits on the phone’s left edge (right when viewed from the rear).
This is a clever contraption, housing two Micro-SIM cards and a microSD card (up to 64GB) in a tray the same size as those used for just the two SIMs alone. It features a pin hole that can be used in the usual manner to pop out the tray, but the tray also has a ridged edge that enables you to pull it out with a fingernail. It’s convenient, but its design means the tray is visible from the rear, and it just doesn’t have the same premium feel as the rest of the phone.
That aside, there’s little we can fault in the Xtouch’s design. Bluboo has fitted a 5in full-HD IPS display that features 2.5D curved glass. Similarly curved edges at the rear make this 5in smartphone feel great in the hand, making the transition between metal and glass feel less noticeable as you run a finger around the edge. What’s more, for the money the screen is sufficiently bright and very clear, with a high pixel density of 441ppi. Viewing angles, as ever with IPS tech, are excellent, and colours are vibrant. The left- and right bezels are pleasingly slim, and the screen-to-body ratio is high in this 71x7.5x143mm smartphone.
Something that is a given only in Chinese smartphones at this price point is the fingerprint scanner built into the physical home button, which sits in a central position below the screen with back and options software buttons to either side. The home button is recessed (which we like, since it feels less vulnerable than those that stick out), and easily distinguished by its rim as you run a finger across the display.
The Xtouch recognises touchrather than swipe-based input, as seen on Apple’s iPhones and Samsung’s more recent Galaxy smartphones. We find this works much better, and you’re far more likely to take advantage of the feature as a result. A benefit of building this functionality into the home button is you can wake and unlock the screen with a single press.
Bluboo has built a Smart Audio chip into the Xtouch, and speaker grilles are found on the bottom edge rather than rear of the handset, with the result being much better audio quality than we’re used to hearing from cheap Android phones. You can also take advantage of an FM radio when you plug in a pair of speakers, although none is provided.