The phone does bring some fresh tech to the table, let us proceed with the quick review and discuss the same.
Camera And Internal Storage
The phone carries nothing exceptional in this category unfortunately. The Elife E5 comes with the standard 8MP rear camera, which we saw on a range of budget devices. However, the sensor on Gionee phones can be expected to be slightly better than other domestic manufacturers. The 8MP camera is supported by LED flash. The front camera on the device is a little above average, being a 5MP unit, when we are used to seeing 1-3.2MP cameras on other budget and non-budget devices. The phone comes with a bumped up 16GB ROM, unlike most other phones in it’s range which usually offer only about 4GB. Another reason which might’ve made Gionee bump up the ROM to 16GB is the non-availability of a microSD slot, which means users will not be able to expand memory.
Processor And Battery
The Gionee Elife E5 features the updated MT6589T (Turbo), which is bumped up from 1.2 GHz per core to 1.5 GHz per core. You can expect the phone to be quite a performer, given that even the previous version of the MT6589 is a very powerful setup. The updated MT6589T will come paired with 1GB of RAM which should be sufficient for most users, however extremely heavy multitaskers might feel the need for more RAM. The battery on this device stays at 2000mAh which is a little under average, but given the unibody design the Elife E5 features, we’d take that. You can expect the phone to give one full day of backup for moderate to average users, while heavy users might need to use the charger twice on average.
Display And Features
This unibody phone from Gionee features a 4.8 inch Super AMOLED screen, which packs a 720p HD resolution of 1280×720 pixels. This means, the phone will have a rather decent pixel density of 306ppi, a little lesser than that on the XOLO Play (312ppi). The Gionee Elife E5 is probably the only phone in the budget category (and not made by Samsung) which features this type of a display. Super AMOLED screens are typically known to have great black levels and vibrant colours.
Comparison
The Gionee Elife E5 finds itself in an endless list of quad core phones from Indian and Chinese manufacturers. A few phones among an array which are expected to compete with the Elife E5 are – XOLO Play T1000, XOLO Q1000, Micromax Canvas 4, Micromax Canvas HD, etc.
Key Specs
Conclusion
The phone brings a new – unibody – factor to the budget table. Also, one of the USPs of the phone will be the Super AMOLED screen which we haven’t seen in this segment before this. The phone is priced at 19,999 INR, which we didn’t like very much. If Gionee priced the phone slightly lesser, say around 17-18,000 INR, it would definitely have given tough competition to the Micromax Canvas 4 and the likes.
