Gionee Elife S7 – A pretty stylish smartphone

Gionee as a brand in India has got an unique reputation. It is not just another chinese mobile manufacturer. Gionee is a mobile company that does not hesitate to push the limits of design. They want their mobiles to stand tall in the crowd. They are always willing to experiment and come up with new design concepts. They have been giving beautifully designed mobiles. With the Elife S5 or S5.1, they proved that they can make really slim mobiles that look stylish and is sturdy at the same time. But with the Elife S7, it is not just about making thin phones, it about a strong statement that Gionee is making in the market. Let us see in detail.

The Elife S7 is very thin. It is just 5.5 mm thick and weights 126 grams. It has aviation grade aluminum rim, curved at its corners. The front and back of the mobile is covered by glass, protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. It is available in white, blue and black colors. The design feels premium and sturdy. Normally to hold a phone of this thickness, it would feel flimsy and cheap. But that is not the case with Gionee Elife S7. It has quality construction, thanks to the choice of quality materials in the mobile. The display is 5.2 inch AMOLED screen. On the top of the display is the ear piece and 8MP camera with the sensors. The SIM tray is a dual SIM (micro) tray concealed nicely on the left side. The volume button and power button is at right. The buttons have good tactile feedback and easy to reach and operate. The back of mobile is completely glass and it has the 13 MP camera along with a single LED flash. I have been using the mobile for over a month and I have never once felt any oddness in the ergonomics of this mobile design. Overall this is quality mobile design and construction from Gionee.

In the box, apart from the mobile there are a bunch of accessories. You get the usual charger and data cable along with a quality in-ear earphones. There are 4 screen guards to protect the screen and the back of the mobile. Also you get a flip case and a back case along with the mobile. The flip case is made of faux leather and fits in very nicely. The back case is translucent plastic and it feels to be a good quality as well. Also it comes with USB OTG cable. This is one of the most generous mobile packing I have seen in recent times.

Under the hood, the Gionee Elife S7 is powered by a MediaTeck octa core processor clocked at  1.7 GHz. It has Mali T760 GPU. Elife S7 has 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage. It neither has the capability to expand storage nor comes in higher internal storage variants. But it does support USB OTG. The Elife S7 supports 4G network in India. It is powered by a 2700 mAh battery. The 5.2 inch super AMOLED display is a full HD 1080p display and renders 424 ppi of pixel density. The display is very sharp and bright. It produces vibrant colors and has pretty decent viewing angles. The sun light visibility is just ok. The display has deep black levels and is a charm to use this AMOLED display. Also, when the flip case is used, the window reduces the display to 1/3 size and shows notifications on that window.

Elife S7 is a powerful smartphone. It is pretty smooth to use and handles multitasking well. It handles games and graphically intensive apps with ease but gets warm easily. The temperature is not above 40 degrees, but still because of the thin profile the device’s heat is felt almost instantly. It could have been avoided with a bit of graceful CPU throttling. Otherwise I have nothing to complain on the performance angle of this device. The speakers are really loud. I mean, really really loud. It is just loud and the sound from speakers lacks finesse. Telephony was not an issue at all. Network reception and 4G speed were as expected. It handled almost all my regular usage without any hiccups.

The Elife S7 runs on Android 5.0 with Amigo OS 3.0 skinned on top. I just fail to understand the reason and the need to skin Android. The vanilla android user experience is much better than what it was during the early days of Android, yet mobile manufactures, in the quest to differentiate their mobiles from competitors, spend a fortune in skinning Android and mostly at the expense of smooth and efficient user experience. Also, every other Chinese mobile wants to have an UI like MIUI, which draws its inspiration from iOS. Can you hear me shout, WHY?

Anyways, the Amigo OS has its own glory moments and faults. It major fault is the absence of quick settings in the notification tray, out of the box. Also there is not many customization options. There are also a few bloatwares that comes preinstalled with the mobile. Out of all, I liked the Chameleon app, which changes the wallpaper color and icons according to the object you point the mobile at. Anyway, the UI was fast initially, but it started showing signs of lagging over usage. I really wish this gorgeous mobile had the vanilla android user experience.

I have only one word to explain the camera in this mobile: “WOW!” The 13 MP Sony IMX214 sensor is well utilized by the rest of the hardware and software. It produces good details and the images are sharp. The color reproduction is commendable under all light conditions. The white balance is accurate. The camera UI is a little immature on the design front. But the UI is functional and simple. It also has a pro-mode. The camera does not have image stabilization and that is felt when you shoot videos. The mobile is capable of 1080p videos, but without image stabilization, the footage is shaky and looks unprofessional. The 8 MP front camera is not as good as the rear camera. It suffers in low light conditions, but performs decently under day light.

The Gionee Elife S7 is powered by a 2700 mAh battery and probably that is the Achilles heel of this smartphone. Without the data on, the mobile lasts for a day, but when its on 3G data, it lasts for little less than 9 hours. If you happen to wake the display often, the battery lasts less than that. A bit more optimization on the kernel would have actually given a better battery performance.

Finally, let’s see who the Gionee Elife S7 is targeted at. It is targeted for an age group of 18-35 and geographically located in tier 2 or tier 3 cities. People in Tier 1 cities have got better options and are already used to buying mobiles online. They have the likes of Oneplus one, Mi4 or Asus Zenfone 2 in the same price range to choose from. Gionee has a strong retail presence across the nation and the moment you see a demo of this mobile, you are bound to fall in love with it and loose your wallet. But again, its not too heavy on the wallet. It costs around Rs 22000 and it varies depending on how good are you with negotiating. If you also consider Gionee Elife S7 along with the likes of Oneplus one, Mi4 or Asus Zenfone 2, the Elife S7 still has an edge. It has a fantastic design and the performance also comes pretty close to the stalwarts. Gionee Elife S7 has a strong statement for the world and it is elegant design with powerful performance along with value for money.