Device review: Gionee Elife E6

An absolute delight for those who are not just enticed by the brands, but with good looks and performance

Gionee Elife E6 was launched in India sometime back and since then the device has been created buzz among enthusiasts for a pocket friendly price tag at which it offers a good combination of looks and performance as well. While many might say that the so called ‘Chinese’ manufacturers are offering inferior hardware and devices in order to make up the devices in a lower cost, but the fact is that the Gionee E6 has been able to show that cost is not a limiting factor. So here we have the much awaited review of the Gionee Elife E6, which will surely bring more clarity to that matter.

Show Full Article

Look and Feel

The Gionee Elife E6, right out of the box manages to impress with its sleek and bold look. The device is available in both black as well as white color options; out of the two we got the black option which has a unique appeal to it. The Gionee Elife E6 incorporates the best design elements from popular smartphones available today, making it a good looking device overall. The slim 7.7 mm thick body is complimented with a light 128 grams of overall weight that will definitely improve overall utility of this device. The device in addition has a 2.5 mm narrow bezel making the device look sleeker.

The device is built using polycarbonate plastic in a uni-body solution, which means there is a non removable battery but it certainly improves the slimness quotient. The device employs use of one glass solution for the construction of display. As compared to the conventional technology where the display and touch surfaces used are different, with the Gionee Elife E6 only one surface does both jobs, offering improved visuals and a slim profile.

The overall design is impressive but it too is not free for oddities as the power key placement for 5 inch on the top of the device is not welcome and makes it difficult especially with one hand usage.

Display and Touch

Display on the Gionee Elife E6 is comprised of a 5 inch LCD that features a Full HD 1080p resolution. The display is quite vibrant and brightness levels are also adequate making the device lively and legible in bright light conditions as well.

The display features a full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The E6 is company’s first ever one glass solution (OGS) based device that offers vibrant visuals and contrast levels at the same time it also allows users to make a slimmer device.

 

The touch screen is a delight to use and offers accurate and effortless utility all around. To a large extent the speedy hardware is to be praised for the smooth performance. Along with a great touch the Gionee Elife E6 also features gesture recognition technology. All users need to do is to wave their hand over the device to scroll through the gallery or connect/disconnect a call.

Hardware and Operating system

Elife E6 is powered by a Mediatek 1.5 GHz quad-core processor and the real benefit of Quad core processor comes in the form of powerful computing muscle for the device which is really beneficial during gaming, multimedia and application usage. The device also gets 2GB of RAM which helps the device in better multi tasking and reduced application load times.

The storage comes as 32 GB internal storage which is no expandable, so you won’t be able to add any more memory to the E6. But with 32 GB of memory available you would not feel the need as well.

The device performs fluid thanks to Android Jelly Bean and the hardware combo has also been optimized for performance. Carrying a customized version of Android Jelly bean 4.2 the Elife E6 offer a user interface which has similarities with Apple iOS in terms of layout and navigation. For instance the applications are presented right on the home screen and not in applications drawer. If you do not like this then you are free to download any third party user interface customization app or skin to make it more personalized.

Performance

The Gionee Elife E6 is a pretty looking device but underneath this skin of beauty lies a powerful hardware. And to validate this we tried a number of games and benchmarking applications on the device.

On gaming side the phone is capable of handling most HD games smoothly. For instance it had no trouble running Real Racing HD, Shadowgun and Asphalt 7 Heat (Airborne was not available). Although the device gets hot there has been no considerable difference seen in terms of performance. One thing to be pointed out here is that if you are playing HD games on the E6, it’s better to take off all the covers as it helps the device run cooler.

AnTuTu Benchmark_Gionee Elife E6

On Benchmarking applications the results were also close to obvious. The device scored nearly 15,309 points overall in Antutu Benchmark 4 which brings it at the heels of HTC One X and Google Nexus 4 which is pretty impressive.

Camera and Multimedia

The 13 megapixel camera on the Elife E6 matches the best cameras available in market today. The camera is supplemented with a LED flash for illumination in low light condition. The sensor used is a Backside illuminated Sensor (BIS) which helps the device capture brighter images in low light conditions. The camera comes with no optical stabilization or advanced optics, one more reason as to why the device has been made slim.

The image quality of the camera in both outdoor and indoor modes is good and vibrant. But as with all cameras mild pixilation can be seen in indoor captured images. The flash light is sufficient nearby objects and offers a relatively neutral tone; no change of hue is seen in the images captured. For video recording the device is capable of capturing 1080p high definition video at 30 frames/ Sec and the videos are good and smooth at all times. At the front there is a 5 megapixel camera that comes with a full focus lens. It means that the camera has no auto focus; instead it has a generic focus for objects till the visible range.

IMG_20131118_150154IMG_20131118_150721

On multimedia side the Audio player needs a special recommendation as it is one of the best preloaded applications we have ever seen. The application has DTS sound post processing for added fidelity and the set of supplied headphones are simply superb. The application has a special sleep feature which can turn the music player off after a stipulated time, very useful if you feel like listening to music before going to bed.

Battery backup and Conclusion

The device comes with a 2020 mAh battery pack that is good enough for 1 day for heavy use case scenario and 1-2 days for normal or light use case scenarios. Considering a slim and lightweight device it is impressive and surely with the integrated power saving utility you can tune down the performance of the device if you do not wish to be running all day with a charger.

While the Gionee Elife E6 has been priced at Rs 26,000 as MRP it is available in market at around Rs 21,000 at which the device offers features well worthy of competing with flagship devices. The display is bright and vibrant, call quality is good, the hardware is powerful and punchy while the multimedia performance of the device along with a good backlit camera simply would keep users glued to this device. There are so many things the Gionee Elife E6 brings to the table while being available at an exciting price point.

All in all the Gionee Elife E6 in a few words is a wonderful device that can be purchased by anyone looking something powerful and good looking.

Gallery