BQ announces new phones ahead of the MWC 2015

BQ, the company behind the first Ubuntu smartphone ever, the BQ Aquaris E4.5, has announced that it would be launching three new smartphones at the MWC 2015 next week. BQ is a Spanish company that hasn’t been widely known until the Ubuntu smartphone launch this month. Even though many were disappointed about the phone’s design, it seems BQ will try to get in on the hype and on the fact that it is enjoying a brief time in the limelight right now to launch new smartphones for the public.

BQ have announced on their site that they would be supplementing the BQ Aquaris smartphone line with three new additions, most likely mid-range smartphones. The Aquaris M4.5, Aquaris M5 and Aquaris M5.5 are the next big hits from the company set to make appearances in Barcelona next week. I personally like the way BQ names their phones because I can immediately pinpoint the one I’m most interested in, namely the Aquaris M5.5, because I like phablets. If you’ve got to here, you know that the numbers in these names stand for display sizes, which is pretty neat because most people when shopping for phones first take display size into consideration before looking into resolution, specs and operating system.

The three new phones from BQ aren’t completely unveiled, but the company has released just enough information about them to raise a bit of interest. They’ve been nice enough to provide a few renders of these phones, too so that we can get a glimpse before they go live, and feel special for being insiders. Not that you can’t go on their website and download the photos for yourself. But still, it makes us feel special. Anyway, the three new phones.

BQ says that the main focus behind the new smartphones was design, which is a bit ironic seeing the backlash against the Ubuntu smartphone and its uninspired design reminiscent of 2011. Judging by the renders, the new Aquaris M line-up is going to look a bit better than the Ubuntu phone, having thinner bezels on all sides, so we’re definitely interested in the phones. You can check out all the photos BQ has supplied in the gallery and tell us which one you like best right now. The company hasn’t gone into great detail about the specs, but lets make do with what we have.

According to BQ, all the Aquaris M devices will be available in two different colors, white and black, which is uninteresting right now. What’s more interesting is that the company describes some Swedish technology being used in the chassis and back panel which will protect these phones from UV rays and fingerprints, as well as dirt and things like that. We’re translating from Spanish here, so we’re not sure what kind of material we’re talking about and Google Translate isn’t helping very much. Anyway, don’t expect premium, because all three phones will be made of polycarbonate impact resistant casings. Neat!

The most interesting part about the whole line-up is that all of the phones will get 4G LTE antennae and Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box. The displays will have some sort of Quantum Color + technology built-in, which translates to bright, crisp colors and high contrast. The two larger models, the Aquaris M5 and M5.5 will run on the Snapdragon 615 CPU, while the smaller model gets a 64 bit MediaTek processor. The batteries start at 2400 mAh for the smallest model, but BQ doesn’t say how high the measurements for the modules go. The M4.5 will have 8 GB internal memory, the M5 gets 16 GB most likely and the biggest model benefits from 32 GB internal storage. All the phones will have microSD card slots, so we needn’t worry about storage space.

Camera-wise, the two larger BQ models will have 13 MP rear cameras with LED flash, and 5 MP front cameras. The smallest model, the M4.5, gets an 8 MP shooter with flash on the back and a 5 MP sensor on the front. The camera setups are impressive and we’re certainly seeing the selfie-trend surface here. We should find out more about the phones and their exact specifications at the MWC 2015, but if you’re hoping to get your hands on these early, we’re going to have to burst your bubble. BQ said these phones won’t go up for sale until May 2015.