[Device Reviews and Information] Alberto96:
Review

Full Review, now publicly available.

Introduction

This is the UHANS A101

Hardware

This device is powered by a Mediatek MT6737 SOC clocked at 1.25GHz, with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of ROM. Being one of the first devices available to public with MT6737 SOC, it provides some nice improvements compared to the MT6735 such as VoLTE support. Everything is supported by a 8MP Rear Camera and 5MP Front Camera, both interpolated.

Unboxing

Packaging comes with some interesting accessories: 1x TPU Cover, 1x Glass Screen Protector, 1x Micro-USB Cable, 1x 5V/1A USB Charger, 1x Quick Start Guide and the Smartphone (of course).

UHANS choose a curvy design, with a nice rubberized back cover and a Plastic Solid chassis. It isn't full plastic though, because the internal body is made of metal. (thanks UHANS for providing me a prototype where i have discovered all those things)

It is 14.34x7.13x0.95cm, compact enough even though the weight might have been better.

On the front side there is the common 2.5D glass, with small bezels. The upper front side of the device features a Front-Facing Camera, an Earpiece, and the Sensors hole that includes Light, Proximity and Gesture Sensors. Unfortunately there is no Notification LED.

On the lower front side there is only the Soft Keys area, with Menu, Home and Back touch buttons.

On the back side there is the plastic back cover, with rubberized surface that improves a lot its grip. It is removable, just a bit hard to remove.

The upper rear side of the device features the Camera Sensor supported by a Single Rounded Flash (Single-Tone) configuration. It is a protunding variant, but the TPU cover helps to remove this gap.

The lower rear side of the device features the brand logo, and nothing else because the speaker hole is positioned near the Micro-USB port.

Device

Screen

The screen isn't too bright so you might experience issues under direct sunlight, but colors are accurate even if a bit warmer than usual.

Light Sensor supports smooth light changes, making auto-brightness perfect. Here you can see its maximum brightness.

Viewing Angles do not seem to suffer any issue, no major distortions or such noticed.

Camera

Just like i have already said for the prototype, the Rear Camera is a good-quality Panasonic Sensor that manages to capture pretty good photos considering that it is just 5MP. Maybe the best (regarding camera quality) device i have ever reviewed with a 5MP camera. Well Done UHANS!

The Single Flashlight works just like it should, produces some bright photos and it is synced with the capturing process.

As regards Video Recording, well videos are not so smooth even though they are recorded at 720p 30fps. Enough for occasional videos. The same applies for the Front Camera, it seems to be a wide-angle variant and takes some nice photos.

Audio

Speaker is decent, produces a nice balanced sound, probably better than the UHANS S1, and is loud enough. It is nice to see that UHANS is improving the quality of the used speakers.

In-Call Quality is decent, no complains about it. Everyone was able to hear me perfectly and Microphone Quality seems to be ok.

GPS

GPS is accurate, doesn't suffer any issue with any Navigation Software and manages to get medium-high signal. All tests have been made outdoors.

Telephony, Mobile Network & WiFi

Thanks to the 4G Band 20 support (some other Chinese Smartphones don’t have it), I’m almost always and everywhere connected to the 4G Network of my Mobile Network Provider (TIM Italy).

Also 3G Signal Reception is accurate, actually I never managed to get connected to the 2G Network of my Mobile Operator because there was always some 3G Signal available.

4G Network Speed is pretty good, it highly depends on your Mobile Operator and mine isn’t pretty good. While 3G Network Speed, is just fine as it should.

WiFi 2.4GHz speed is decent, I managed to get connected to my network connection at 65mbps, and Speed Tests reached more or less 38mbps.

Battery Life

I have measured the real battery capacity using my USB Tester, and as you can see it doesn't completely match the declared value. (declared 2450mAh, real almost 2200mAh). Well this isn't a huge loss of capacity, i'll retry this test after some battery cycles.

As always, every device i review gets tested with the Geekbench Battery Test, but the latest GeekBench 4 doesn't have any battery test anymore so i had to test it with PCMark. The result isn't so satisfying, mediocre battery life.

Charging Times are not extremely high, the 1A charger helps compared to 0.5A USB Charging, but still not fast as 2A or Quick Charging times.

Software

Just like on the UHANS S1, but in a more lightweight way, they choose to use FreemeOS, a customized version of Android 6.0 but this time all customizations are gone, basically only the OTA Updater has the FreemeOS logo. This is a nice news for all users that prefer the clean Android Stock UI with no custom apps or such, providing maximum performance.

Just like other last-gen Mediatek Devices, there are some typical features such as Gestures, Scheduled Power On/Off, etc…

The UI is smooth as butter, but under heavy-load it struggles to open apps and so on. This is probably related to the low eMMC write performance, noticeable in the Benchmarks section.

Benchmarks

I have used 3DMark, AndroBench, Antutu Benchmark, Epic Citadel, GeekBench 3, GFXBench, PCMark (Work & Storage) and Vellamo to stress the device to the limit. I won’t test Games or Video Playback because there are already some related tests included in these Benchmark suites.

3DMark – GPU Performance isn't superb, lower than MT6735, maybe the software isn't ready enough. I hope to see some improvements here. Also, OpenGL 3.0 & 3.1 crashed without any valid reason.

AndroBench – eMMC Performance is sufficient for basic daily tasks, but write performance is too low.

Antutu Benchmark – I won’t say a lot about this benchmark, this isn’t as reliable as others. I’m providing this just for benchmarks lovers.

Epic Citadel – As you can see, 3D performance is medium. Not as good as MT6735, but sufficient.

GeekBench – CPU Performance is nearly as good as other CPUs with the same configuration (4x Cortex-A53), enough to handle almost every type of activity.

GFXBench – Just like i said for 3DMark, GPU Performance lacks some power compared to the previous MT6735 SOC.

PCMark – All scores are well balanced, so nothing to complain here except Storage score.

Work

Storage

Vellamo – Even if this is a RAM Hungry Benchmark, it still provides some good results.

Conclusions

Being the fourth device made by UHANS, it is noticeable that they are trying to improve their devices and i appreciate it. The MT6737 provides some nice improvements compared to the previous MT6735, even though the software makes its GPU somehow worse, but the VoLTE introduction is interesting.

So, do I recommend it? Well...this is hard to say because there are many devices available for the same price. This is a well-balanced device, provides a good quality touchscreen panel, the same for the build quality, the only real negative aspect is the Screen that isn't bright and it feels a bit too warm that standard ones. Anyway, yes i recommend it unless you are searching for a brighter screen.

Pros:

Cheap Enough

Excellent Build Quality

TPU Cover & Screen Protector included

4G and VoLTE support

Great 5MP Rear Camera Sensor

10 Points Multi-Touch Panel

Cons:

Mediocre Battery Life

GPU Performance might have been better

eMMC Write Performance is a bit low

Battery Capacity a bit lower than declared

A bit heavy for the size

Rating: 8.1

Packaging and Accessories: 9

Design and Materials: 9

Performance and Heat Dissipation: 7.5

Screen: 7

Camera: 8

Sound: 8

Battery Life: 7

Software: 8

OEM Support: 9

Price: 9

You can find full-res images (I know, Quality isn't excellent) here: https://imgur.com/a/4fnfK

Official Website: http://www.uhans.cc/product/A101

You can buy it on many online shops. Official, and authorized, Retailers are listed in the UHANS website.​