The Allview A5 Duo is one of the many handsets that the company released this year and we tested it this fall. This is a handset for the youngsters, one that was launched in August and it’s priced at $166. This is a 4 inch dual core dual SIM phone, pictured below and detailed after the break.
The design is pretty massive, we get good grip, but overall the device is solid. The texture at the back feels nice, but the lid at the back is pretty hard to close. This model measures 11.5 mm in thickness and weighs 137.7 grams. I like the design, particularly the camera area. One thing I don’t get is why the On/Off button is so long. We’ve got a fake metal frame here and luckily the buttons are easy to press.
As far as hardware goes, there’s a MediaTek MT6572 dual core 1.2 GHz CPU inside (Cortex A7), plus a Mali 400 MP GPU, dual SIM dual standby system and a 4 inch TFT LCD display with a 480 x 800 pixel resolution. We’ve also got GPS, 3G video call and 4 GB of storage, of which you get 1.5 GB to use. Allview A5 Duo relies on 512 MB of RAM, integrates a microSD card slot with support for up to 32 GB of extra storage.
The handset comes with FM radio, Yamaha amplifier, a 3.2 MP back camera and a front 0.3 MP cam. The phone supports 21.6 Mbps connectivity and it also uses Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi, microUSB 2.0, G Sensor and a proximity sensor. There’s also a compass, brightness sensor and a Li-Ion 1700 mAh battery, that charges in a 3 hours and a half. We got 6 hours of video playback here with 50% brightness and WiFi, which is more than decent for such a handset, especially since you may get a bit over a day of general usage.
On the multimedia part of things, there’s a very loud volume here, good voice, good bass, but also a vibrating back at max volume. The headphones are loud, they offer a good bass and they have a decent design. The screen provides vivid colors, no oversaturation, not so good view angles and a pretty bright level of 220 lux units on white a 1 lux unit on black. The pixels are of the RGB Stripe kind.
The camera here, a 3.2 MP unit was a pleasant surprise. It comes with LED flash, geotagging, face detection, 720p video capture and frankly speaking an ugly UI. The options include panorama, face beauty, capture modes, effects, phone booth, scene modes, white balance, continuous shot and exposure. The pics are well illuminated, but the video feels a bit too white.
The colors are realistic and the pictures are good for such a camera. Overall, the camera is acceptable. As far as software goes, we get here Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and a browser that’s not exactly very fast, as shown in the video below. We compared this dual core handset with another dual model from another Romanian company, E-Boda, in a bunch of benchmarks.
The Allview A5 Duo scored 2896 points in Quadrant, 11.236 points in AnTuTu, beating the rival by 300 and 4000 points respectively. It also scored 32.2 FPS in NenaMark 2 and 1700 points in Vellamo, beating the rival yet again. This device reached 34 degrees Celsius after a long period of video playback, a decent temperature to be honest.
The Android experience has been modified by Allview, as far as the icons, themes and settings are concerned. We’ve got a bunch of useful widgets here, especially a very nice battery widget. The app list includes a file explorer, app manager, system update, wireless input, Bitdefender Mobile Security, Notes, Torch and a few cute games. There’s Office Suite and at the end you can also check out a cute Temple Run style game.
And now for the Pros and Cons…
Here are the Pros of the device:
- low price
- decent performance
- solid design
- Yamaha amplifier
- 21 Mbps HSDPA connectivity
- surprising camera
- loud audio
- lots of bundled apps
And the Cons:
- the lid is hard to close at the back
- long on/off button
- too little storage
- weak view angles
- ugly camera UI
- poor video capture
Allview A5 duo gets from us an 8 out of 10 for design, 8.3 out of 10 for hardware and an 8.5 out of 10 for OS and UI. The final grade is 8.26 out of 10 and this is a very good low end unit, especially for the battery, lack of lag and camera aspects.
