Blackview BV9200 review

Doke-OS 3.1 with Android 12

Blackview phones run on a proprietary Doke-OS, which in this case is version 3.1 as it's based on Android 12. We prefer to see the latest Android for future-proofing, but since this is a phone launched last year, we can let it slide.

Interestingly enough, Doke-OS feels pretty much like stock Android with very few tweaks all-around. The icons are different, the iconography in the general settings menu has also been revamped, but the overall feel, UI elements and customizations are pretty much stock-ish. The notification shade is a small exception, which looks straight-up borrowed from Samsung's One UI. All quick toggles are moved toward the bottom half of the display for easier reach. Even the toggles' design is reminiscent of Samsung's One UI.

Home screen, recent apps, notification shade, app drawer

We are fond of this approach because Blackview probably has limited resources for software engineering so keeping it as simple as possible is a good strategy.

General settings

Navigation is also familiar, except that Doke-OS lets you tweak the back gesture sensitivity from the left and right edge.

Gesture sensitivity

Wallpapers, themes and icons can be customized, but since this is an LCD panel, there's no AoD function.

Wallpapers, themes, icons

Outside the usual set of features, the BV9200 also offers a customizable physical side key. You can assign various actions or launch an app with a single, double or long press.

Gestures and side key

The Smart window is also a fairly common functionality. You can pull out a sidebar with apps of your choice to launch on the go.

Smart window

Perhaps the centerpiece features are within the ToolBag app. The tools there aren't particularly new and some of them aren't all that accurate, like the HeightMeasure tool, for example. But you can rely on the Compass, SoundMeter, Pic Hanging, Plumb Bob and Barometer. The Protractor should do the job just fine too.

ToolBox

ToolBox

All in all, the software is simple and clean and we like how well it performs despite the rather outdated and underpowered Helio G96 chipset. Even we didn't notice any major hiccups or slow-downs, even at 120 fps.

Performance

The Blackview BV9200 employs the Helio G96 chipset by MediaTek. It is fabricated on the 12nm FinFET manufacturing process from TSMC. The Helio G96 has the usual octa-core CPU with two high-performance Cortex-A76 cores clocked at 2.05GHz and six energy-efficient Corext-A55 cores working at 2.0GHz.

The Helio G96 chip features a dual-core Mali-G57 GPU. Unlike the previous G9x chips, we have a dual-core configuration instead of a quad-core, which is somewhat disappointing.

Finally, the Blackview BV9200 is available in just one configuration with 8GB LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB expandable storage via microSD card.

We ran the usual benchmarks, and the scores are in.

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Realme 9 Pro
  694
• Redmi Note 12 5G
  588
• Motorola Moto G72
  546
• Blackview BV8800
  516
• Blackview BV9200
  508
• Ulefone Power Armor 13
  502
• Ulefone Armor 9
  401
• Ulefone Armor 7
  380

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Realme 9 Pro
  2020
• Redmi Note 12 5G
  1998
• Motorola Moto G72
  1842
• Blackview BV8800
  1752
• Blackview BV9200
  1717
• Ulefone Power Armor 13
  1610
• Ulefone Armor 9
  1498
• Ulefone Armor 7
  1476

AnTuTu 9

Higher is better

• Realme 9 Pro
  401894
• Motorola Moto G72
  383317
• Redmi Note 12 5G
  360745
• Ulefone Power Armor 13
  351678
• Blackview BV9200
  288967
• Blackview BV8800
  288964

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Ulefone Power Armor 13
  19
• Realme 9 Pro
  19
• Blackview BV9200
  15
• Motorola Moto G72
  15
• Blackview BV8800
  14
• Ulefone Armor 7
  8.5
• Ulefone Armor 9
  7.4

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Ulefone Power Armor 13
  18
• Realme 9 Pro
  16
• Motorola Moto G72
  13
• Blackview BV8800
  10
• Blackview BV9200
  10
• Ulefone Armor 9
  7.9
• Ulefone Armor 7
  7.5

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Realme 9 Pro
  35
• Ulefone Power Armor 13
  32
• Motorola Moto G72
  26
• Blackview BV8800
  24
• Blackview BV9200
  23
• Ulefone Armor 9
  19
• Ulefone Armor 7
  19

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Ulefone Power Armor 13
  29
• Realme 9 Pro
  29
• Motorola Moto G72
  24
• Blackview BV8800
  20
• Blackview BV9200
  20
• Ulefone Armor 7
  18
• Ulefone Armor 9
  17

As you can see, there are plenty of smartphones that are more powerful than the BV9200 as the Helio G96 is a bit of an outdated SoC but due to the nature of rugged phones in general, we will let that one slide. Mostly because under subjective assessment, the phone runs fine on the said chipset in the context of normal daily usage.