Blackview have recently been hyping the release of their new Alife S1, a mid-range device supposedly designed by Dieter Rams, a German industrial designer well-known for his 10 principles of good design. The phone is set to be their most impressive device thus far, especially where design is concerned.
The Blackview Alife S1 comes with 5-inch HD JDI White Magic display which should help improve the device’s battery life, along with a quad-core 1.5Ghz MT6732 chipset, 2GB RAM and 16GB of internal storage (which is thankfully expandable to up to 64GB). Blackview have also managed to fit an 18MP (interpolated?) Samsung ISOCELL camera onto the back of the device, along with an 8MP front shooter. The battery is a bit of a let down, at only 2000mAh. There’s also Hotknot.
As already mentioned, the device was designed by Dieter Rams, a well-known German industrial designer who has also designed many other memorable products like the SK4 Record Player and the high quality ‘D’-series (D45, D46) of 35mm film slide projectors. A look at the design of the phone shows that it looks very industrial with a streamlined design and straight edges. It’s also quite thin at only 6.8mm. Overall, the device looks quite nice in my opinion, definitely something I would happily pull out in front of iPhone users.
The phone has a nonmetal CNC chassis which should improve the build quality and heating of the device. Aside from that, there’s also what Blackview calls an LDS Multiple Chemical Plating Back Cover. What this is supposed to do is make the rear of the device free of fingerprints and smudges, as well as improve the quality of the wireless signals. It also has an infrared remote and supports black screen gestures like Oppo phones.
The Blackview Alife S1 will ship with Android 4.4 Kitkat, will have dual sim card slots that both support 4G LTE and will come in Stardust Gray. The price and release date for the device have yet to be announced, though judging from the their website the device should be going on sale soon enough.
Blackview have added that the Samsung main camera and a built-in infrared remote are two of the main features of te Alife so we look forward to how both these might perform in real life.
What do you think about the device? Is it too much hype for a mid range phone? Would you rather trade the thin and industrial design for a larger battery? Would you buy this device?
Do a full review, don’t just tease us 🙂
waiting for them to send us one 😀
PLOT TWIST : they don’t send u one :p !
Don’t jinx it! xD
Hi,
Did you mean “infrared remote”? You wrote “infrared remove”… Indeed a very interesting device. Hopefully the screen is really the one they promoted, the camera is really a Samsung (surely interpolated), etc… I personally had enough with Chinese manufacturers lying about their specs. Jiayu it’s in my opinion the only “small scale, 200$ mid-range manufacturer” that really puts efforts in their phones (specs and quality). Hopefully this phone will prove me wrong.
Uh, Dieter Rams is not just “well-known”; he is legendary. He also will be 83 next month. This would be a worldwide coup for Blackview if they got him to design this phone as I believe he has never done one before. Or, more likely, this phone was “inspired” by the designs of Dieter Rams and Blackview may be receiving a cease-and-desist letter soon. I’m betting on the latter.
I honestly think that’s what happened. It’s awfully fishy how an amazing designer would work with a small Chinese company to make a mid-range smartphone. Seems too good to be true to me.
Worst phone ever
Worst phone ever
Elegant Design, Nice JDI screen