The inexpensive yet polished Blu R1 HD phone

Available through e-commerce giant Amazon, the Blu R1 HD costs $100 (8GB/1GB of RAM) and $110 dollars (16GB/2GB of RAM). But if you're an Amazon Prime Member and don't mind ads on the phone's display, those prices drop to $50 and $60.

These ads appear only on the lock screen and can be as small as a notification that you can swipe away or as big as the whole screen. The device also comes preloaded with bunch of Amazon apps and a removable widget that displays daily deals on Amazon.

In terms of specs, the handset runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow, has a 5-inch, 720-pixel display and a 1.3GHz quad-core processor.

The phone measures 5.65 by 2.83 by 0.34 inches. Though it has a battery door that collects fingerprint smudges, its solid build quality and metal trimmings lend it a polished look.

The back houses a small circular audio speaker. Unfortunately, sound quality is low, especially for phone calls. Although listening to music and videos came through a bit clearer, I thought it could definitely stand to be louder.

On the back is an 8-megapixel camera. A few features include professional mode where you can manually adjust ISO and exposure levels, white balance and color saturation. You can shoot panoramic and HDR photos, too.

On the front is a 5-megapixel shooter.

In the $100-plus price range, there are a lot of other alternatives aside from the R1 HD, like the $110-$180 Samsung Galaxy J3 (depending on the carrier), the $150 Motorola Moto G4 Play (which is also splash resistant) and the $100, 6-inch ZTE ZMax Pro.

However, if you do get the version of the Blu R1 HD with the ads, the dramatic price drop (to $50 and $60) may be worth the compromise.

For more about the phone, check out our full review.