Spent about a month looking for one, and decided I wanted to go for a rugged one.
Liked the look of the Doogee S60, but after seeing so many mixed reviews decided against it.
Then I discovered a company called Blackview, they have an office in Spain. The main company is based in Hong Kong.
So I went for the BV9700 Pro. Their online shop had it out of stock so got it from Amazon, I decided to go for the more expensive version which comes with a nightvision camera add on, more about this later. I paid 409.99 euros for mine, if you want it without the external camera it costs 388.99 euros. Which considering the cost of some phones is quite a good bargain, considering a Samsung A80 is about 500 euros and its not even water resistant let alone waterproof.
Specs
- CPU - This is an octa core MediaTek MT6771V Helio P70 (4 x Arm Cortex-A53 2.0GHz and 4 x Arm Cortex-A73 2.1GHz)
- GPU Arm Mali-G72 MP3 900MHz
- Multi-Core APU 525MHz
- Ram 6GB
- Rom 128GB
- Battery 4380 mAh
- Screen Amoled, FHD with notch, 5.8"
- Resolution 1080 x 2280
- Two Samsung rear cameras 16 Mpixel and 8Mpixel
- Front Samsung camera 16 Mpixel
- Waterproof USB C port
- Dual nano sim or one nano sim and one TF memory card
- Fingerprint sensor
- OTG
- Compass
- Bluetooth
- Android 9.0
- Wifi
- GPS + Glonass + Beidou
- Supports Wireless charging @10W and fast charging.
- IP68 / IP69K / MIL-STD-810G
- Air quality sensor
- NFC
- Weight 283g
So what is it like.
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| Picture taken from Blackview website. |
Unboxing the phone you get the phone complete with a screen protector already attached, just carefully peel off the top layer. A charging cable and rapid charger, and a USB C to USB C adaptor. The USB C socket is a little deeper than a normal one. The supplied charging cable doesn't need the adaptor so I guess they added it if you want to use a different USB C cable. And of course a manual more about this and the adaptor later.
The first thing you notice is that its not a small phone and it is a little heavy, but fits well in my hand. It definitely feels solid and well built. The buttons are easy to access and have a nice feel, the main power button and the smart button have different textures to them so you can easily identify them in the dark.
In use the phone is great, I have always struggled to use my smart phone as an extension of the office. Reading emails was ok but never really got on with writing them on the phone. This phone has changed that. I have been able to answer emails on it when out and use it more like an extension of the office when out and about.
Warning the manual is worse than useless, its actually a cut and paste from another phone so some of the instructions are wrong. Inserting the sim card for example tells you to insert a tool into the pin hole to eject the sim card drawer. That's actually completely wrong. You just insert a small screwdriver into the slot above the TF/SIM CARD cover and carefully pry the drawer open. The drawer then pops out, and you can now insert your sim card or two and push it back in. This is perhaps the only bit that might over time be liable to fail, if you change sims cards or TF cards often. I think for most people who insert and forget it should be ok.
Over the years Google has made it much easier to move to a new phone, and this time it was by far the least troublesome. All of my contacts and most of the apps got transferred over to the new phone with out much input from me. So I would say in general it was a much better experience than in the past.
The fingerprint sensor is very good and unlock takes milliseconds if not quicker. Its as quick as just touching the sensor. This is a vast improvement over my old phone an Ulefone Betouch3 which had a noticeable delay.
The other thing with the fingerprint sensor is it can be used as your login to various apps that support fingerprint log in. This means that I can log in to my two banking apps using the fingerprint sensor, and various other apps which require passwords to login. Which my old phone couldn't do.
With it having an NFC sensor I was quite keen to store my cards on it. So one of the first things I did was set up Google pay with my debit cards. The only problem I had was that only one of my debit cards worked and the other one from a different bank didn't. Went in to see my bank about the card not working. They told me I had to use their own wallet app. Downloaded their wallet app added my card, and it doesn't work. Google pay works very well and is quite useful, no more fumbling for my debit card just whip out the phone select Google pay and tap the card unit.
Of course since its waterproof you are going to want to try it underwater. The phone has no extra protection for the USB C socket, which has concerned many people. The new Iphone Xr has no cover on its socket either and that is also waterproof. One thing I have noticed is that a standard USB C plug doesn't actually fit. The Blackview one is a little longer. This might have something to do with the waterproofing. I have noticed that there is a very small amount of resistance when pushing it in. ( I did see a review on amazon where the purchaser said he couldn't get the phone to charge I don't think he pushed the cable in far enough) I think what is happening is you are pushing against a small sprung loaded door, which seals the socket from water. Which is why the depth rating is 1.5m for no more than 30mins, (any more and the door starts to open, as I said its my theory so may be completely different in reality).
To take photos underwater you must first put the phone in underwater mode this then disables the touch screen. Then volume up becomes take photo and volume down selects mode, so you can also shoot underwater video (didn't try this). The photos look amazing and are on par with the the Iphone Xr, which my daughter has. To exit just push the power button. This button has a red ring round it so its easily identified.
The add on night vision camera is an optional extra which I went for. First of all you have to install the software via a QR code. But wait what you actually need to do is install a QR code reader app to do this, since the phone doesn't come with one.. Once the Night Camera app is installed it opens straight away when the night vision camera is plugged in via the USB C socket. This external camera is not water proof or shockproof which is a shame.
In use the phone is great, I have always struggled to use my smart phone as an extension of the office. Reading emails was ok but never really got on with writing them on the phone. This phone has changed that. I have been able to answer emails on it when out and use it more like an extension of the office when out and about.
Warning the manual is worse than useless, its actually a cut and paste from another phone so some of the instructions are wrong. Inserting the sim card for example tells you to insert a tool into the pin hole to eject the sim card drawer. That's actually completely wrong. You just insert a small screwdriver into the slot above the TF/SIM CARD cover and carefully pry the drawer open. The drawer then pops out, and you can now insert your sim card or two and push it back in. This is perhaps the only bit that might over time be liable to fail, if you change sims cards or TF cards often. I think for most people who insert and forget it should be ok.
Over the years Google has made it much easier to move to a new phone, and this time it was by far the least troublesome. All of my contacts and most of the apps got transferred over to the new phone with out much input from me. So I would say in general it was a much better experience than in the past.
The fingerprint sensor is very good and unlock takes milliseconds if not quicker. Its as quick as just touching the sensor. This is a vast improvement over my old phone an Ulefone Betouch3 which had a noticeable delay.
The other thing with the fingerprint sensor is it can be used as your login to various apps that support fingerprint log in. This means that I can log in to my two banking apps using the fingerprint sensor, and various other apps which require passwords to login. Which my old phone couldn't do.
With it having an NFC sensor I was quite keen to store my cards on it. So one of the first things I did was set up Google pay with my debit cards. The only problem I had was that only one of my debit cards worked and the other one from a different bank didn't. Went in to see my bank about the card not working. They told me I had to use their own wallet app. Downloaded their wallet app added my card, and it doesn't work. Google pay works very well and is quite useful, no more fumbling for my debit card just whip out the phone select Google pay and tap the card unit.
Of course since its waterproof you are going to want to try it underwater. The phone has no extra protection for the USB C socket, which has concerned many people. The new Iphone Xr has no cover on its socket either and that is also waterproof. One thing I have noticed is that a standard USB C plug doesn't actually fit. The Blackview one is a little longer. This might have something to do with the waterproofing. I have noticed that there is a very small amount of resistance when pushing it in. ( I did see a review on amazon where the purchaser said he couldn't get the phone to charge I don't think he pushed the cable in far enough) I think what is happening is you are pushing against a small sprung loaded door, which seals the socket from water. Which is why the depth rating is 1.5m for no more than 30mins, (any more and the door starts to open, as I said its my theory so may be completely different in reality).
To take photos underwater you must first put the phone in underwater mode this then disables the touch screen. Then volume up becomes take photo and volume down selects mode, so you can also shoot underwater video (didn't try this). The photos look amazing and are on par with the the Iphone Xr, which my daughter has. To exit just push the power button. This button has a red ring round it so its easily identified.
The add on night vision camera is an optional extra which I went for. First of all you have to install the software via a QR code. But wait what you actually need to do is install a QR code reader app to do this, since the phone doesn't come with one.. Once the Night Camera app is installed it opens straight away when the night vision camera is plugged in via the USB C socket. This external camera is not water proof or shockproof which is a shame.
This is a video using the Night Vision Camera
This video is taken with the phone's camera
Picture quality in low light is the best I have ever seen, as can be seen on the two videos posted here. Its also pretty good in daylight and would make a good dash cam on a car, motorbike or bicycle. The camera itself has a sprung loaded clip so it can be mounted almost anywhere. It has two buttons on it one for pictures and the other for video, the button block also has a small hole where the microphone is. The lens is protected with a lens cap when not in use so can be stowed away with out worrying about scratching the lens when you don't need it. Would have liked to have seen some sort of lens cap keeper as I can see the cap getting lost.
Battery life is very good, it took me 38 hours of average use to get it to 15%. By average use I mean web browsing, checking emails, playing the odd game (nothing fancy like Fortnite or PUBG) and the odd 5 minute Youtube video. So you should easily get a good days worth out of it with heavy use.
The phone can also be charged wirelessly , but make sure the wireless is charger is rated at 10W and not 5W. The first one I bought which looked like a beer mat didn't work as it was rated to 5W, but works on the iPhone Xr. The second one I bought which is more like a phone stand works well.
The phone comes with selection of pre-installed toolbox apps.
The main one for me is the air quality monitor, so when I am crawling around in the crawl spaces under houses I will know if its safe. (I install home automation systems and home networks when I'm not blogging) Some of the others could be useful depending on what job you do.
The heartbeat monitor works well but don't press the sensor on the back to hard as it won't work. Many people think this is the fingerprint sensor.
Haven't used any of the other toolbox apps there are 15 in total (14 if you don't have the night camera add on) ranging from Sound meter, compass, pedometer to plumb bob.
So Pros and Cons:
Pros:
Excellent value for money
Night vision camera a good add on.
Useful set of toolbox apps
Fast response from phone
Good amount of storage 128Gb
Wireless charging
Battery life
Cons:
Some might find it heavy (but hey its a rugged phone)
Instruction manual rubbish at best
Night vision camera not easy to install
No QR code reader app (which you need to install the night vision camera)
