At first we would like to thank SISWOO for supplying us with a sample of their A5 Chocolate 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 of 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.”

 

Product Features:

 

Shinning Mirror Back Cover Glass Style

High Quality IPS TFT LCD Display

The Need For Speed - 64Bit Quad Core CPU 1.0 GHz, 1GB RAM + 8GB ROM

4G LTE Dual Sim, 2*Micro Slots, 2.4GHz/5.0GHz Dual Band WiFi

Android 5.1 Lollipop - more practical, simpler and easier to use

OmniVision Cameras - 2.0MP FF Front Camera, 5.0MP AF Rear Camera

Notification LED Light - Be always in the loop!

 

Product Specifications:

 

 

Say hello to the new Chocolate series from SISWOO which wants to cover the low-end and low-to-mainstream smartphone segment, by incorporating the A4+ 4.5’’ variant and also the A5 5’’ model, both in black and white flavors. These smartphone models also want to incorporate a chocolate bar-like design and compared to the previous SISWOO models, we have seen an increased quality of materials along with a nicer overall shape. One other thing we need to say about SISWOO is that they do not lie regarding the technical specifications of the smartphones. A5 Chocolate is shipped inside a small-sized black cardboard enclosure and on the top we’ve got a cardboard layer which highlights the product name:

 

 

 

On the back side of the box we will get to see a list of technical specifications regarding A5 Chocolate and here the manufacturer does also list the included sensors, box bundle:

 

 

 

After removing the top cover, we will be able to spot the smartphone sitting on the top layer, wrapped in a semi-transparent plastic bag:

 

 

 

Underneath, we will be able to spot the bundle:

 

 

Speaking of the bundle, this is quite simple and comprises of the power adapter, one USB cable for charging and data transfer, a small user guide and also a frontal plastic screen cover:

 

 

The power adapter is a bit customized and features the SISWOO logo in front:

 

 

In the back we do have the model code name and here we will also learn that on the output it can deliver 5V at 1A:

 

 

On the top it does have the usual USB port:

 

 

The supplied USB cable match the style of the charger:

 

 

Inside the small supplied manual we will get to find some of the troubleshooting information which can be consulted if something goes wrong:

 

 

When purchasing the A5 Chocolate we do have the option to choose from black or white flavors; our received sample is the white one and on the screen it comes with the protective plastic cover pre-attached:

 

 

 

The pre-attached screen top plastic protector saves us the time and hassle of installing it ourselves and if the current one wears of we can always replace it with the provided bonus. Since this is a low-end to mainstream terminal, we expected to find a thicker screen bezel than other models and the assumption was valid with the A5 Chocolate:

 

 

 

On the top area of this model we do have the 2MP Galaxycore GC2355 FF camera sensor + lens, but also the light sensor, proximity sensor along with the speaker:

 

 

 

The lower area of the screen features the Home button in the middle which is always visible, along with the Menu button on the left and the Back button on the right (which become visible for a few moments thanks to the underneath LED lighting system):

 

 

 

 

If we look on the lateral of the A5 Chocolate, we will be able to spot the white plastic frame which fits well with the rest of the chassis; on the bottom area of the terminal we do have the Mic port, one USB port but also the loudspeaker speaker grill; this type of design is found with many other flagship smartphones because if the port would have been located on the back of the smartphone, it would have become muffled when it would have sit on the table:

 

 

 

The left side of the smartphone does not feature any additional interfaces:

 

 

 

On the top we get to see the heatphone jack:

 

 

 

The right area features both Volume rocker along with the Power/Stand-by button:

 

 

 

These are made from plastic, same material and texture as the back cover; one interesting aspect is that they stay fixed in position and do not rattle which are an indication of a good chassis design:

 

 

 

The back side of the A5 Chocolate smartphone reminds us a bit of the Sony Xperia Z, only that the LED flash is positioned differently:

 

 

 

SISWOO has customized a plastic transparent cover for this area too, which can be removed at will; a closer inspection of the back cover reveals an interesting texture. Here is a close-up of the OV5670 AF - 5MP sensor along with 3-element lens, f/2.8 and also the tiny LED flash:

 

 

 

The middle area does come with the manufacturer logo:

 

 

 

Some supported standards are printed on the lower area, along with the fact that this smartphone was “Designed by SISWOO; Assembled in China”:

 

 

 

After we do carefully remove the back cover, we will be able to expose the internals; our sample had its battery pre-attached but the protective adhesive from the contacts was not removed:

 

 

 

The battery is quite slim but features a large footprint; on its top we will find the SISWOO logo:

 

 

 

The bottom area reveals the 2200mAh capacity:

 

 

 

After its removal, we will be able to spot the interfaces clearly along with a sticker which has the IMEI numbers for both SIM card slots:

 

 

 

Between the two microSIM card slots we do also have one microSDHC card slot available for expansion purposes:

 

 

 

If you guys do look on the SISWOO website presentation of the A5 Chocolate smartphone, it is being shown as having customized application icons or maybe a custom launcher too; in reality, this model does offer us a stock Android experience, with the icons we all know for quite some time now (Android 5.1 Lollipop):

 

 

 

If we check the drawer, we will be able to spot the usual MTK applications, but some extra pre-installed ones:

 

 

 

 

We will first begin with Backup and Restore, which allows us to back up and get back personal data and application info after a reset to factory defaults:

 

 

 

Browser is the stock Lollipop 5.1 browser, which is quite speedy and works as intended:

 

 

 

The Calculator application is supplied in its stock format:

 

 

 

We can say the same thing about Calendar:

 

 

 

The Camera application does sport about the same MTK interface as we have seen with the previous smartphone ROMs from other manufacturers:

 

 

 

By clicking on the small “gear” icon, we will be able to see more configuration options:

 

 

 

 

For the back camera we do also have the option to select 8MP as output, but this value is interpolated:

 

 

 

Options are available to be set for the video mode too:

 

 

 

Next we do have the stock Clock application:

 

 

 

The contacts which have been synchronized with our Google profile will be shown in the respective application:

 

 

Downloads section is just a shortcut to the “Downloads” folder from main storage:

 

 

The default Android Email client is available for us to connect to any address:

 

 

Since Facebook is one of the widely-known social media applications, SISWOO saw fit to include it with the A5 Chocolate ROM:

 

 

File Manager application is the one we know from quite some time now since it is the default MTK version:

 

 

FM Radio application will operate correctly only if we do connect a pair of earphones:

 

 

Gallery is the default application for viewing photos we have taken, screenshots and more:

 

 

Gmail is a Google application which takes care of the main Gmail account but more can be added to it if necessary:

 

 

Google Search has a standalone application and with it we can conduct searches right away:

 

 

Next we could remind of Google+:

 

 

Google Hangouts chat application is also available for immediate usage:

 

 

If we want to browse detailed maps or use it for navigation, we can go ahead and access Google Maps:

 

 

Messages is the main application for sending SMS to people from our contact list:

 

 

Music is widely-known as the default Android application for playing audio files:

 

 

SISWOO did also include Opera with the current ROM but in our case it was crashing upon startup even after Google Play Store has performed an update to it:

 

 

Phone is the default application for dialing phone numbers, taking calls, checking out other phone numbers from the “contacts” list and so on:

 

 

Photos is the Google application which allows to upload our albums in the cloud for easy access later:

 

 

In order to access online music services, one of the options is the Play Music Google service:

 

 

Google Play Store is the main area to stop for downloading dozens of free and/or paid apps; the same application will take care of app updates:

 

 

SIM Toolkit application will permit us to change the current IMSI number:

 

 

We also have access to the default Sound Recorder application:

 

 

SISWOO did not forget to also include Voice Search application from Google:

 

 

Youtube application needs no introduction, everybody is using it:

 

 

Settings is the main area to go in order to customize system options to our liking:

 

 

From the Wi-Fi area we will be able to detect the nearby networks and connect to them, in case we have the necessary credentials ready:

 

 

The Bluetooth devices can be detected from the next menu:

 

 

The SIM Cards menu does display the detected cards and here we can delegate different services for each of them:

 

 

Data Usage menu will show the current traffic done on the cellular network and also on Wi-Fi:

 

 

The More menu takes care of the Airplane mode, choice of the default SMS application, tethering and portable hotspot, VPN and other cellular network options:

 

 

The Display menu does have some MTK SoC related options we can customize (MiraVision), but here we can also adjust the wallpaper, screen brightness level, enable adaptive brightness, the sleep timer and so on:

 

 

MiraVision menu opens on the left side for us to perform additional modifications:

 

 

BreathLight is a new feature we have seen with the A5 Chocolate terminal and with it we can set the functionality of the Home button LED:

 

 

Sound and Notification is the place to go in order to work with the four pre-defined profiles, or access some miscellaneous options:

 

 

Take for example the General profile; here we can adjust the sound volumes, phone ringtone and notification sound, but also work with the vibration system and other system sounds:

 

 

Here are the contents of the other sub-menus:

 

Notification

 

 

Interruptions

 

 

Sound Enhancement

 

 

The Storage area will keep us posted on how many space we do have remaining on the main partition and if we mount additional storage, we have some extra options available:

 

 

The Battery menu will show the progression of the battery power, enable the stand-by intelligent power saving feature, which is usual with MTK SoCs and we can also enable the handy battery percentage display:

 

 

The Apps menu opens up like a task manager and from here we can uninstall or simply clear the cached data from a specific application in case something goes wrong; from all pre-installed applications, Facebook seems to take most space even before the first log-in:

 

 

Location menu works with the GPS services and we can set different functionality modes:

 

 

The Security area is populated with the usual options we have seen with many other terminals:

 

 

From the Accounts menu we will be able to see the currently logged in accounts from different applications, remove or add new ones:

 

 

The Language and Input menu does allow us to change the system language, adjust the spell checker, choose the default keyboard or any other one downloaded from Play Store, work with Voice input and more:

 

 

Backup & Reset menu allows us to back-up data to Google servers for an easy restore afterwards; here is also the location for resetting the terminal to factory defaults:

 

 

Date & Time menu is pretty self-explanatory:

 

 

Schedule Power on & off is a menu specific to MTK smartphones:

 

 

Accessibility menu also has the usual, stock options available for us:

 

 

Installed Printing services will be shown in the next menu:

 

 

The About Phone menu does allow us to perform OTA updates, display the current status of the A5 Chocolate, some Legal information, show the model number, installed Android version and more:

 

 

The SISWOO A5 Chocolate smartphone is powered by the 4G LTE WorldMode 64-bit quad-core SoC from MediaTek, which is the MT6735; this one can come in three different variants, as marketed by the SoC manufacturer itself: 1GHz, 1.3GHz or 1.5GHz; while with the SISWOO C50 we had the chance to check out the 1.3GHz version, the A5 Chocolate is equipped with the lower-clocked 1GHz; nevertheless, on the 3D we are still getting the ARM Mali-T720 GPU, the 802.11n Wi-Fi support, Bluetooth 4.0, the 13MP image signal-processor and support for 1080P Full-HD video recording and playback at 30FPS. The SoC is paired with 1GB of RAM but also 8GB of internal storage on a single partition for installing our applications:

 

 

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 A5 Chocolate 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

 

 

GeekBench 3

 

Optionally, we have extracted more info about the terminal and its modules thanks to the free CPU X application:

 

CPU

 

 

System

 

 

Network

 

 

Battery

 

 

Sensors

 

 

Features

 

 

Rear Camera

 

 

Front Camera

 

 

Despite the fact on the rear of the A5 Chocolate we are only dealing with an OV5670 AF 5MP camera sensor, we were surprised to find out that it can deliver quite decent quality photos, which could be used with success over the usual social networks. It is preferred though to take most photos during daylight since with lower light conditions the camera does not always focus optimally:

 

 

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

A5 Chocolate is equipped with an IPS 5’’ screen with HD resolution (720x1280). It has a rated luminance of 450CD/m2 and can support a total of 5 multi-touch interaction points. During our testing, we have observed that the display is able to display sharp text and colors even when viewed from an angle.

 

A5 Chocolate, the current low-end to mainstream smartphone from SISWOO has left us with a good impression after the tests have been completed; despite the fact that it only sports 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory, the benchmark scores almost match the Cubot H1; while the rear camera sensor in the back is only a 5MP component, the resulted shots are acceptable and well-focused when we have decent light conditions. Because of the screen dimensions, A5 Chocolate is easier to hold inside the pocket versus its 5.5’’ competitors and while the battery is rated at 2200mAh, the tests are showing us optimal battery life which also means that the Android 5.1 distribution it uses is well optimized.

 

Speaking of the battery life, we have used as usual the AnTuTu tool to measure it and is can be seen we have got very good results overall; the battery still had 16% left when the benchmark stopped:

 

 

 

The SISWOO A5 Chocolate, by integrating the MTK 6735 SoC 1GHz, does not have GPS tracking issues as we have monitored with Runkeeper over a 20Km trip and the satellite signals are good. Unlike the 6735 1.3GHz, the 1GHz model does not support GLONASS:

 

 

 

The smartphone does also sport dual micro-SIM slots which is handy when working with multiple carriers and the microSDHC slot for memory expansion is not missing either. For 4G we have FDD-LTE: B1 B3 B7 B20 (800MHz, 1800MHz, 2100MHz, 2600MHz) bands supported, but no TDD-LTE which means that some carriers will be not supported on 4G.

 

As negative points we could only add the fact that our sample did not run properly in Basemark X and Strava tracking application was crashing upon launch; these are usually small issues with the current ROM and can be fixed via a future OTA update.

 

SISWOO do also have an European warehouse so it is easy to order from their online shop. At the moment of the review, SISWOO A5 Chocolate was available for about 114 Euros (no extra Customs taxes involved).

SISWOO A5 Chocolate Smartphone is Recommended For:

 

 

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