BLU sent me their 2015 flagship smartphone, the Pure XL. It’s the first smartphone to launch in the US with the MediaTek Helio X10 chipset, which is an octa-core chipset and it’s comparable to the Snapdragon 810 processor. This device will go on sale exclusively on Amazon.com on Sept. 29^th for only $349 unlocked so mark your calendar. But let’s take a look at each area of the device starting with the hardware.

The Pure XL features a very nice aluminum frame with chamfered edges that stretch around the entire device. The sides are flat and they feel a little bit sharp but it feels like a very solid device overall. It’s certainly feels very high end. This doesn’t feel like one of BLU’s cheap, plastic smartphones. But with that said, we still do have a plastic back cover which could be a good thing, depending on the type of user you are. It’s a plastic back cover that in itself isn’t very slimy. It’s very sleek and feels a lot like aluminum but without that cool to the touch feel. And it is removable and it gives you access to a dual SIM card slot and a microSD card slot for expandable storage.

On the back of the device, we have a 24MP camera sensor with Optical Image Stabilization and a dual-tone flash. Megapixels aren’t everything. It could be #hype. However, BLU is emphasizing the high end camera here so I’m looking forward to testing it. It should be pretty decent at the very least. Below the camera, we have a speaker grill and we also have a fingerprint scanner here, which I will revisit in a moment. On the right hand side of the device, there’s a volume rocker above the Power/Sleep On/Off button and dedicated camera shutter button. Up top, there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack. Down below is a micro USB port and there is nothing on the left hand side.

The front is home to an 8MP front-facing camera sensor. There’s a 6-inch AMOLED QHD display with a 2560x1440 resolution with a 490ppi index. And at the very bottom, there are capacitive touch navigation buttons for the multi-tasking, home and back commands. The display itself is certainly on the big side. It’s a 6-inch display, which isn’t too much bigger than the Note 5 which is my current daily driver. It’s the top and bottom bezel that makes this device seem unusually large in the hand, in my opinion. But the AMOLED display is very bright. The colors look great. Even the white colors look good. I don’t see any sort of yellowing to them based off first impressions.

The fingerprint scanner works very well. The only thing that needs fine-tuning is software. So all you need to do is go to the settings, go to security, tap on fingerprint, and you can have the fingerprint. Since the fingerprint scanner is on the back of the device, it only really makes sense to register your two index fingers which you can simply do by pressing on the fingerprint scanner several times. The part where the software starts to become an issue is when you power on the display without using the fingerprint scanner. It appears to disable the fingerprint scanner so the scanner appears to only work while the screen is off and the scanner itself only works when you have the easy unlock mode turned on. So it’s a bit weird. It’s possible I might have missed a setting but I don’t believe so. This is an early release model so there’s plenty of time to fix this software bug. But when it works, the fingerprint scanner is pretty darn quick. BLU says it will unlock the device in less than 10 milliseconds.

The Pure XL is running a MediaTek Helio X10 octa-core processor with 3GB of RAM. This is the first time I’ve used a device with this processor and it looks very promising. The device is super snappy, apps open up quick. I haven’t noticed any stuttering. I’m going to be sure to test this processor in detail. But give this video a thumbs up if you want to see a Helio X10 vs Snapdragon 810 comparison video. I think that needs to happen.

The custom skin on top of Android 5.1 Lollipop is the only thing that I’m not a fan of. There is no app drawer and some of the menus are oddly programmed. But it does run well overall and I’m probably going to snap on the Google Now Launcher because I can do that. This is Android after all. In my full review, I’m going to test every area of the device in detail including the 25MP camera and the 3500mAh battery which is packed inside this device.

For only $350 off-contract, the BLU Pure XL looks very promising. As much as I enjoy using BLU smartphones that cost between $100 and $200, I’ve been eagerly waiting to get my hands on their new flagship budget smartphone. Let me know what your thoughts are of this device.