Gionee Elife S7, which is available with select dealers in Delhi for a price of Rs 25,500, looks like it could give the Samsung Galaxy A7, HTC Desire 826 and Huawei Honor 6 Plus a run for their money.
UPDATE: The official price has just been announced at Rs 24,999.
The Elife S7, which has a super AMOLED full-HD 5.2-inch display, is the most high-end offering from the Chinese company in India.
However, unlike other flagships, this one costs only a modest of Rs 25,500, and is one of the most value-for-money high-end phones in India right now. The only downsides are its relatively compact size (5.2 inch vs 5.5 inch most other phones compared here.)
Unlike other competitors like the OnePlus One and the Huawei Honor 6 PLus, the Gionee Elife S7 comes with Android 5 Lolipop. The only other phone in this price range with Android 5 is the HTC Desire 826 (price Rs 26,000), which has also been announced today.
If you don’t mind the 5.2-inch size, then it’s really tough to resiste the Elife S7 due to its design, the Amoled display and competitive specifications.
Part of the reason why the phone doesn’t cost a bomb is that it is powered by the Mediatek MT6752 processor. The MediaTek MT 67xx series is the latest 64-bit platform from Mediatek that is built around the latest 64-bit ARM technology.
Gionee has already made a relatively good name for itself. Though the company does not price its phones extremely low like Xiaomi and OnePlus, Gionee’s prices are not very high either, like those of traditional MNCs like Sony, Samsung and LG.
As a result of its medium-range pricing policy, Gionee has not managed to create a sensation in India, but the brand has been notable for bringing top-end technology to India.
The Gionee S 5.5, which was launched over a year ago, was one of the most advanced phones at the time, and was billed as the world’s thinnest smartphone. The phone, which was launched for Rs 23,000, is retailing for Rs 19,500 now. However, it was based on Android 4.2, while the Elife S7 is based on Lolipop. Another difference is the slight increase in screen size in the S7.
Interestingly, the Elife S7 will also compete with the older Elife E7, which is priced at Rs 25,000 in India and comes with Android Jelly Bean and is powered by a more expensive Snapdragon 800 series chipset. However, unlike E7 and S 5.5, the S7 comes with built-in 4G LTE.
One of the things to note is that the S7 does not come with the most powerful 64-bit processor from MediaTek, which happens to be the MT6795. In addition, even when the Elife E7 has 3G of RAM, the S7 makes do with 2 GB.
The camera on the S7 is 13 MP at the back and 8 MP at the front and the phone also comes with DTS sound and 16 GB of storage memory.
One of the factors favoring the S7 compared to plasticky phones like OnePlus One is its metallic, straight-line looks. The Elife S7 does not look like a plaything and looks more ‘serious’.
While Gionee’s phones have rarely been seen as value-for-money offerings, the S7 comes temptingly close to winning that distinction thanks to its MediaTek internals.
However, like the HTC Desire 826, the Elife S7 also faces the same challenger — the Asus Zenfone 2, whose price starts at just Rs 15,000 for a 2/16 GB version. The Asus Zenfone 2 has a 5.5-inch full-HD display, though it is not built using Super AMOLED technology.
Still, given the premium positioning that Gionee is trying to create for itself, this phone would definitely be a contender for those looking for a 5-inchish full HD AMOLED model with most of the features built in.
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