Blackview BV8800 review

Quad-camera with Night Vision

The Blackview BV8800 features a quad camera on the back. It's a budget setup, yet a unique one that allows quite the versatility for a rugged device. There is a 50MP primary snapper, an 8MP ultrawide shooter, a 2MP depth sensor, and a 20MP Night Vision camera.

There is also a 16MP selfie camera at the front of the phone.

The primary camera uses a 50MP Samsung JN1 Quad-Bayer sensor with 0.64µm pixels - it sits behind an f/1.7 32mm lens - PDAF is available here.

The 8MP ultrawide shooter uses a GalaxyCore GC8034 sensor with 1.12µm pixels and has f/2.2 19mm lens.

Finally, there is another GalaxyCore sensor for depth purposes. The hardware reading apps list it as 5MP, while the maker claims it's 2MP - go figure.

The fourth and final camera on the back uses a 20MP Sony IMX376 with 1.0µm pixels and a Quad-Bayer filter. It sits behind an f/1.8 aperture lens and has a similar field of view as the main camera. The focus is fixed at infinity.

Finally, the front camera has a 16MP Samsung S5K3P9 sensor with a Tetracell color filter and 1.0µm pixels, with a 27mm f/2.0 lens. The focus is fixed.

The camera app is nothing we haven't seen - you swipe to switch between modes - Night, Video, Photo, Beauty and More. Portrait, Pro and 50MP modes are available within More.

Camera app

On the viewfinder itself, you will find tree-like shortcuts corresponding to 0.6x, 1x and 2x zoom levels. The 2x is doing digital zoom, obviously. Nearby is also the Night Vision key, which switches to the Night Vision camera.

The Pro mode works on the main camera only - it offers shutter speed (30s max), white balance, ISO (up to 1600), focus, and exposure compensation.

Photo quality

The main camera saves 12MP photos by default, and those are outstanding, especially considering the phone's budget class. There is plenty of resolved detail, natural colors, well-handled noise, adequate dynamic range and very good contrast.

Even better, the image processing is incredibly natural with gentle sharpening, and overall, the photos are balanced and great looking across the board. There are a few makers out there that can take notes from the foliage presentation.

Main camera, 12MP

The zoom shortcut on the viewfinder offers digital zoom done by cropping and upscaling from the standard output. The photos are lacking in detail and quite soft but still usable, so if you need to zoom in, this is the easiest way.

Main camera 2x zoom, 12MP

There is a 50MP mode that offers an upscaled version of the 12MP standard photos, and that's hardly of any use.

Main camera, 50MP

The 8MP ultrawide camera saves usable photos; we'd even call them likable, if you are not into pixel peeping. The colors are good, and the noise is quite low.

If you do view them at 100%, though, you will see the resolved detail is below average, they are over-sharpened, and the dynamic range is often low.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

The portraits from the main camera are not good. The subject separation is bad, the dynamic range is subpar, and the blur somehow makes our eyes hurt a bit.

Portraits, 12.5MP

The 16MP selfies, even if upscaled as this is a Tetracell camera, are excellent. They are sharp, and there is enough detail for a selfie camera, the subjects are well exposed, and the noise is low. The colors are good, and so is the contrast.

Selfies, 16MP

Oddly, the selfie portraits are better than the ones taken with the main camera with the supposed help of a depth sensor. The subject separation is okay, the exposure is good, and the colors are nice. The blur is likable, too.

Portrait selfies, 16MP

The low-light photos from the main camera are great, all things considered. They have a lot of detail, and yet the noise is low, the colors are preserved well, and the dynamic range is good. Overall, these are some solid photos, much better than we expected them to be.

Main camera, 12MP

There is Night Mode available on the BV8800, but we don't recommend using it. It does improve the exposure and brightens the image, and it boosts the color saturation. But it introduces a ton of noise, which gets in the way of the quality. We prefer the natural-looking standard photos instead of this mess.

Main camera Night Mode, 12MP

The 8MP low-light ultrawide photos are good. They are noisy and soft, the colors are very good, and the exposure turned out better than expected.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

Even if you can switch to Night Mode for the ultrawide camera, it does nothing.

Ultrawide Night Mode, 8MP

The Night Vision camera uses a Quad-Bayer 20MP sensor and the assistance of two powerful IR emitters. It always saves monochrome photos.

And the 20MP Night Vision shots are poor in detail as they are upscaled from 5MP. But they do reveal more detail, especially in the shadows. Even if the room is pitch dark, you will clearly see everything that is in there.

The camera has its focused locked at infinity, and objects close to the camera are out of focus.

This camera wasn't meant for Instagram bragging; it's meant as a tool for professionals - thanks to it, you can clearly see in completely dark rooms and reveal stuff in shafts, vents and other hard-to-reach spots.

Night Vision samples, 20MP

And here are photos of our usual posters taken with the Blackview BV8800. You can see how it stacks up against the competition. Feel free to browse around and pit it against other phones from our extensive database.

Blackview BV8800 against Ulefone Power Armor 13 and the Galaxy A52s in our Photo compare tool

Video recording

The video resolution for the main and Night Vision cameras maxes out at 2560x1440 (1440p), while the ultrawide and selfie cameras are limited to 1080p@30fps. Optional electronic stabilization is available across all shooting modes.

The videos 1440p videos have a solid 50 Mbps bitrate at right around 30fps. The 1080p clips also look promising with a 20Mbps bitrate. Audio is captured stereo with 256Kbps bitrate.

The 1440p clip from the main camera is great - the footage is sharp and detailed, the colors are accurate, and the contrast is high. The dynamic range is okay.

There is an HDR shortcut on the display, which improves the dynamic range by lowering the contrast. If your footage has too many blown highlights, you can use this option. It's not a real HDR video that requires compatibility across devices, it's just a small trick to improve the dynamic range when needed.

Unfortunately, the audio is poor - it's like one of the channels is almost entirely missing, and the whole thing sounds unpleasant with compression-like artifacts.

The 1080p footage from the ultrawide camera is good. The clip has enough detail and good sharpness, accurate colors and good contrast. The noise is kept low. The dynamic range is okay for such a type of camera.

The digitally zoomed Full HD videos are likable - they show you what's far away with good detail, contrast and colors.

The low-light videos from the main camera are overrun by noise and unusable, while the scenes turned out too bright for the Night Vision camera.

Finally, here is the Blackview BV8800 5G in our video tool so you can make your own comparisons.

1440p: Blackview BV8800 against Tecno Camon 18 Premier and the Infinix Note 11 Pro in our Video compare tool