If you are looking for a good deal on a smartphone that you can use for crypto mining a coin such as VerusCoin (VRSC) then you might’ve stumbled on a really great looking, price-wise at least, offer for the Total by Verizon BLU View 2, 32GB, Black – Prepaid Smartphone (Locked) for just $29.99 USD (Ad). The offer at that price for the BLU View 2 (Tracfone inside) locked for Verizon does seem very good after a quick look at the specifications of the device as listed on Amazon’s website, so good, that in fact you will probably be tempted getting one just like we did. A 5.5-inch smartphone with 32GB internal memory (expandable via micro-SD card), 3000 mAh removable battery, 3GB RAM, 2.0 GHz Octa-Core CPU, 64 Bit, USB-C connector and even a charger included and that for just 30 bucks, seems like a very sweet deal mind you that it is locked even though you should not care if you are going to use it for mining only.
A qucik look at the smartphone’s specs over at GSM Arena confirms that the processor should be an “Octa-core 2.0 GHz Cortex-A53” (8-core), even though there is a bit of discrepancy there saying 2GB of RAM only and not 3 GB as Amazon’s description mentions. There is however a tiny bit of a problem here, both the product page of Total by Verizon on Amazon and GSM Arena’s specifications of this device are wrong as it turns out that Mediatek MT6761 Helio A22 (12 nm) chipset used in this device is actually only a quad-core CPU and not an octa-core as both websites claim and we actually had verified that personally after ordering one of these smartphones expecting it to do great for mining VRSC with it. You can always make a mistake, but when the mistake is multiplied it gets confusing even for people that usually double-check things…
Not that it is such a big issue when you can easily return the smartphone for a refund, but what remains is the disappointment from something that might’ve been a great deal ending as just a simple mistake and the BLU View 2 had the potential if it was really with an 8-core CPU. However, not only that it is a quad-core A53 ARM CPU inside, but the Architecture reported is armv7l and that is the second huge disappointment here essentially making this device unsuitable at all for crypto mining as even with a decent 4-core 64-bit CPU you should be getting decent hashrate… or at least be able to run the mining software. Essentially, while the CPU itself should be 64-bit, the operating system (Android 11) comes with a 32-bit kernel, so you are not able to run 64-bit applications and most miners (at least the ones that are worth using) do require both 64-bit CPU hardware as well as 64-bit operating system to properly install and run and in order to provide you with a decent hashrate while mining.
The situation with the 32-bit software here is very similar to what we have seen with the Verizon Samsung Galaxy A13 5G that is also a no go for crypto mining. And while the BLU View 2 is much more budget option, with a bit older and lower-end hardware and with a 4-core processor apparently, here the 32-bit software won’t come as that much of a surprise like it is on the A13 5G from Samsung that we really did not expect to come with 32-bit Android support only. Anyway, the BLU View 2 comes very attractively priced (the locked model), but is not such a great deal with the wrong specifications listed and considering the correct ones and the fact it is with a 32-bit Android 11 operating system. It is indeed with a 4-core ARM CPU, 2GB of RAM and a 32-bit Android OS. The result is essentially an unusable device for crypto mining!