At first we would like to thank SISWOO for sending out a sample of their C55 Longbow smartphone for testing and reviewing.

 

 

 

About SISWOO:

 

“SISWOO was established in Europe 2014. Its predecessor is a mobile phone manufacturer which has abundant technical strength with ten years experience in the communications industry. Therefore, Siswoo designs most of its own hardware and software.

 

The favorite brand SISWOO for mobile phone users is launched in order to produce better smart-phones and provide better end-user experience. Its products are high-end smart-phones and simple and fashionable in appearance design, whose consumer group includes advanced white collars, staff in common offices and fashionistas. By virtue of rigorous quality management system and the assiduous spirit of craftsman, SISWOO is cognized and favored by more and more consumers.

 

SISWOO is headquartered in Shenzhen, China which has been known as the capital of mobile phones in the world, whose research and development firm is located in Shanghai Minhang High-tech Development Zone. With branch companies in many countries including China, Spain, Germany, South America, Russia and Africa, SISWOO is a comprehensive new and high-tech enterprise which is committed to technology research and development, production, sale and service of intelligent mobile communication terminal products.

 

With branch companies, representative offices and technology service centers scattered in more than 70 countries and regions around the world such as Europe, America, Asia and Africa, SISWOO strives to provide perfect technical support, user experience and after-sale service system and aims to offer better service and technical support.”

 

Flat and classic design

Elegant and timeless craft to suit the tastes of each individual

Larger, clearer and more colorful!

 

5.5 HD IPS (OGS) Screen

 

Upgraded 5.5 inch large screen, IPS + OGS technology combined to take you beyond the limits of the human eye!

 

A Broad Vision

 

An extraordinary definition and colour brightness makes the most of this large 5.5 inch display

 

64-bit OctaCore MT6753

 

1.3GHz - 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM

 

OV Camera with Dual LED Flash

 

Front 5.0 MP FF | Rear 13.0 MP AF

 

Your smile brightens the dark

 

Thanks to its Dual LED Flash lamps, your pictures will always look stunning no matter the lighting conditions!

 

IR Function

 

Use your Siswoo C55 Longbow to remote control your TV, Air Conditioner, S-T-B, home appliances...

 

Dual SIM StandBy for 4G-LTE

 

2*Micro Slots

 

Dual Band WiFi 2.4GHz/5.0GHz

 

Android 5.1 Lollipop OS

 

More practical, simpler and easier to manage for a 100% user friendly experience!

 

3300 mAh High Capacity Li-Battery

 

 

It is now time to take a look at the bigger brother of the C50 Longbow smartphone from SISWOO, which is named….C55 Longbow; right from the start, we will be able to spot the similar packaging elements and box art:

 

 

 

On the back side, the manufacturer has listed the product technical specifications, along with the available sensors for this model:

 

 

 

Right after removing the top cover, we will end up seeing the smartphone, which is additionally wrapped inside a semi-transparent plastic bag:

 

 

The rest of the bundle is located on the bottom layer:

 

 

Speaking of the bundle, we will also receive the USB Data/Charge cable, the power adapter, one user manual but also an extra screen protector:

 

 

The manual is also filled with troubleshooting information:

 

 

The USB cable has a very similar design as we have seen with the C50, but in this case it does not match the smartphone color (since we have received the white version):

 

 

The power adapter has a familiar shape:

 

 

This one has a single USB port for charging the device:

 

 

On the output of the power adapter, we have 5V at 1A:

 

 

The C55 smartphone is prepared with the plastic screen protector pre-installed, which saves us a lot of time; we only have to remove the final (2) layer in order to get everything going:

 

 

Despite the bigger screen size (5.5’’ vs 5’’), we can see a lot of similarities with the C50 model which we did really enjoy:

 

 

 

On the top we’ve got the proximity sensor, selfie camera with 5MP, the speaker and also a flash LED, handy when taking selfies or other photos in the dark:

 

 

 

On the bottom area of the screen we have the Menu, Home and Back Android buttons:

 

 

 

The smartphone chassis is surrounded by a PC frame with a metallic paint in order to imitate aluminum; on the left side of the C55 we will be able to spot the Volume rocker:

 

 

 

 

The right side accommodates the Power/Standby button:

 

 

 

 

On the bottom area, the manufacturer has placed the USB port along with the MIC port hole:

 

 

 

 

On the top we do have the headphone jack along with a handy IR blaster:

 

 

 

Also, we will get to see that the back side design is the same as with the C50, so most which have enjoyed that one, will love this one too:

 

 

 

On the top we will get to see the 13MP camera lens along with the flash LED:

 

 

 

Further down, in the middle, we will get to see the manufacturer logo:

 

 

 

In the lower area we have the loudspeaker grill:

 

 

 

To make the back side cover removal much easier, the manufacturer has provided a tiny opening for us in order to insert the nail:

 

 

 

In just a few seconds, the back cover can come off, in order to reveal the internals:

 

 

 

By removing the battery, we will expose a small sticker which informs us on the IMEI numbers:

 

 

 

The top area houses the two SIM card slots along with the microSDHC one in the middle:

 

 

 

The lower area houses the USB port, vibration motor, speaker and antenna:

 

 

 

The battery which comes with the SISWOO C55 is 300mAh higher than the one on the C50 so we can talk about a total of 3300mAh:

 

 

 

 

With the Longbow C55, SISWOO is proposing us a stock Android 5.1 experience, without skinned applications or icons on desktop or inside the drawer:

 

 

Speaking about the drawer, we will be able to spot quite a bit of pre-installed applications:

 

 

The Backup&Restore application is regular on MTK Android ROMs and works only when a SD card is installed:

 

 

One option to browse the web is by using the default Android Lollipop browser:

 

 

Next we will get to see the stock Calculator app:

 

 

Same thing we can say about the Calendar:

 

 

The Camera application is sporting the usual MTK interface and when taking photos we can easily adjust the resolution via the small gear icon:

 

 

SISWOO has also installed Chrome as a secondary option to browse the web:

 

 

The next application we see in the drawer is Clock:

 

 

After the initial sync, our contacts will appear in the designated application:

 

 

The Downloads icon is just a shortcut to the Downloads folder from the internal storage:

 

 

Another included application is Dr. Safety, which contains multiple modules like Virus scanner, Privacy Scanner and so on:

 

 

The Email application is handy when setting up non-Gmail or Outlook email addresses (usually from work):

 

 

ES File Explorer, one of the most used file manager is also included in the ROM:

 

 

Facebook application needs no introduction:

 

 

The MTK stock File Manager also included:

 

 

The FM Radio application works only when a set of earphones are connected to our smartphone:

 

 

The Gallery application will index suitable content from internal and SD card storage; afterwards the thumbnails will be displayed accordingly:

 

 

Next, we could remind of the well-known Gmail application:

 

 

Google+ has been also pre-installed to the device:

 

 

Hangouts from Google is also handy to work with:

 

 

For navigation purposes, if we have a data connection available, we can always use Google Maps:

 

 

Messages is the Android application for sending out SMS messages:

 

 

The Music app indexes suitable content and displays it sorted via multiple tabs:

 

 

For playing video content, SISWOO has also pre-installed MX Player which also supports HW decoding:

 

 

The Phone application allows us to easily dial numbers or access people from the address book which we have recently been in contact with:

 

 

Google Photos application is also handy for creating backups in the cloud:

 

 

Play Music can be used for accessing online music services a full 30-days month of trial:

 

 

The Play Store application also needs no introduction at all:

 

 

QuickOffice will allow us to work with usual Microsoft Office files on our phone:

 

 

SIM Toolkit application was designed with the ability to change the IMSI when needed:

 

 

Skype is another widely-used messaging application:

 

 

Sound Recorder is also a stock Android MTK application:

 

 

If we want to check out our wireless/data connection capabilities, we can always use Speedtest app:

 

 

Google Translate is an amazing application with lots of capabilities:

 

 

Twitter is another widely-used social application:

 

 

Same we can say about WhatsApp:

 

 

By accessing the Wireless Update application, we can bring the ROM to the latest version, in case OTA updates are available:

 

 

ZaZaRemote is a pre-installed application which will make use of the IR blaster for transforming our C55 into a universal remote:

 

 

The Settings area is the place where we can customize most of the system-wide options:

 

 

From the Wi-Fi menu we can see the currently detected networks and connect to them, given we have the correct credentials handy:

 

 

The Bluetooth menu displays nearby devices with the same technology and allows connection:

 

 

C55 is also equipped with the HotKnot feature for allowing data exchange with another device:

 

 

The SIM cards menu allows working with the provider services and allow a different function for each SIM card:

 

 

From the Data Usage menu, we will be able to see how data traffic has been consumed on all connections:

 

 

The More menu allows us to enable Airplane mode, choose the default SMS application, work with tethering mode and more:

 

 

The Display menu allows working with the MiraVision feature all new MTK SoCs do have, adjust the wallpaper, screen brightness, sleep timer and more:

 

 

MiraVision has a menu of its own:

 

 

From the Sound & notification area, we will be able to customize the pre-defined profiles, but also access some miscellaneous menu options:

 

 

Each profile allows adjustment of the volumes, ringtones, vibration mode and more:

 

 

Here are the miscellaneous menu options we were talking about earlier:

 

Notification

 

 

Interruptions

 

 

Sound Enhancement

 

 

The Storage menu tells the story regarding the total internal storage available space and here we can switch the default write disk to SD Card, when available:

 

 

From the Battery, menu, we will be able to check the processes which use the most battery resources; from the same menu we can enable the battery percentage feature, without the need of loading extra software:

 

 

The Apps menu is allowing us to see the currently installed applications and how much storage space they occupy; the same application allows us to perform uninstallations, clear caches or stop running apps:

 

 

The hardware GPS can be enabled from the next menu:

 

 

The gestures can be configured from the Smart Wake menu:

 

 

The usual Security options are present in the next menu:

 

 

All user accounts we log in will appear in the respective menu:

 

 

The Language & input menu is allowing us to change the default keyboard, work with voice input and so on:

 

 

The Backup & reset menu will allow us to save backup data in the cloud but also perform factory resets when needed:

 

 

Date & time menu is pretty self-explanatory:

 

 

Schedule power on & off menu is usual with all MTK ROMs:

 

 

Accessibility menu also contains the stock options from Android Lollipop:

 

 

Printer services will show in the next menu, when installed:

 

 

From the About phone menu, we will be able to check the current network status, the smartphone code name, installed Android version, baseband version and so on:

 

 

The SISWOO C55 smartphone is equipped with one of the latest 64-bit SoCs from MTK, the MT6753 (detected incorrectly by CPU-Z as MT6735 which is, in fact a quad-core part), which is a WorldMode 4G LTE platform based on the ARM Cortex-A53 64-bit processor with ARM Mali-T720 graphics. All eight cores run at a maximum speed of 1.3GHz (there is also a version of MT6753 at 1.5GHz though) and the SoC does support dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, includes a 16MP image signal processor and also supports 1080P Full-HD displays, along with Full-HD video recording and playback.

 

 

The Device tab informs us on the supported screen resolution, manufacturer, screen density, total RAM and usage but also total internal storage and usage:

 

 

The System tab will supply us more information regarding the board type, Android version, kernel, resolution, free memory and so on:

 

 

The Battery tab will show the current status; the battery sensor is working properly on this model:

 

 

 

The new Thermal tab will update us with the live temperatures in different areas:

 

 

The application also shows live data from the available sensors:

 

 

To test out the performances of the SISWOO C55 smartphone in more detail, we have installed some freeware benchmark apps from the Google Play Store in the internal memory (did not transfer them to a 3rd party microSDHC card, in order not to influence the test results). Afterwards, the applications were ran one-by-one, and we recorded the final scores; the obtained results were also compared with the previously tested systems, in order to spot the performance differences.

 

AnTuTu

 

 

Basemark GUI

 

 

 

GFXBench

 

 

Quadrant

 

 

Vellamo

 

 

3DMark

 

 

Real Pi

 

PCMark

 

 

As the SISWOO C50, the C55 is able to produce quite good quality photos, even under less than ideal lighting conditions; for the asked price we would say that this is a huge bonus. There are times though (rare cases) when the camera seems not to focus properly as we can see with the tree photo.

 

 

Of course, you can always check out the full-resolution, unaltered versions at this LINK.

The 5.5'' HD display of the SISWOO C55 is able to show correct colors even when viewed from an angle, which confirms the good quality of the product.

 

With the SISWOO C55, the manufacturer has created a device for users which are in need of larger screen sizes than the previous C50 while the performance has been also upgraded with a better SoC, now housing eight cores at 1.3GHz each. The camera quality does not disappoint and reaches the impressive levels of color detail which we have also seen with the C50, only that the focus may not be spot on sometimes. The battery has also suffered a small upgrade, but since we are now dealing with a more powerful SoC and a bigger screen size which both consume quite a bit of battery resources, the tests reveal a lower usage time versus the C50.

 

Speaking of the battery power in more detail, we have done the test again thanks to the AnTuTu battery benchmark utility, so here are the results:

 

 

 

The GPS capabilities are good and well in-line with the other devices featuring the MTK 64-bit SoCs:

 

 

 

While the device is sporting no less than eight ARM Cortex-A53 cores at 1.3GHz, the MT6753 SoC seems a bit slower in 3D when compared to the MT6752 version which was released before it; the reason for this is quite clear and is the fact that the Mali-T720 is slower than the Mali-T760 the MT6752 is incorporating.

 

The SISWOO C55 smartphone can be found online for about 135 Euros, which we think that it is fair for what we are getting.

 

SISWOO C550 Longbow Smartphone is Recommended For:

 

 

We would like to thank again to SISWOO for making this review possible!