Amazon’s Prime Exclusive Phones have been a big hit, which is why it was strange when they abruptly stopped selling the BLU R1 HD, the least expensive and most popular phone in the lineup. It was revealed soon after that the 3rd-party software updating system used by the phone, unbeknownst to the manufacturer, went rogue and was secretly collecting user data, which is why Amazon stopped selling the phone. Now that BLU has removed the 3rd-party software and switched to using Google’s OTA update system, Amazon is once again selling the ridiculously inexpensive phone.
If you’re a Prime member, you can order the BLU R1 HD for $49.99 and get it in time for Christmas for a great bang-for-your-buck stocking stuffer. I do recommending spending the extra $10 to get the model with twice as much RAM and storage, which is the one I own. I use mine as a “beater” phone, for when I’m worried my “good” phone might get damaged, and as a portable music/podcast player. There’s also a nice rooting and ROM community that has sprung up around this phone, which allows you to remove ads and bloatware.
@AFTVnews
Glad to see it back. Great phone for the money.
“BLU has removed the 3rd-party software and switched to using Google’s OTA update system”
Do you have a source for that? Because right now on my phone I still have the crappy OTA software and servers, just an updated version not supposed to send my data abroad.
Sorry about that. I could have sworn I linked the source. I’ve update the article with a link to the source, but here it is again:
http://www.pcmag.com/news/350046/phone-maker-blu-trades-chinese-spyware-for-google-software
Thanks, good to know.
Hopefully this will be soon available for current owners, and will actually be the case for this new batch of phones.
As a side note, we do not know if this new batch of phones will be rootable and unlockable, last updates were pretty good at locking everything down if you were not rooted or unlocked before updating. They even blocked SPFT…
Not for me – it doesn’t support Verizon Wireless. Bummer.
No Sprint kills the deal unfortunately.
Check out the MotoG4 Play for $20 more; unlocked and supports Verizon and Sprint as well.
(also Prime Exclusive; today at least, put it in cart and get $20 off at Checkout)