Touted as the world’s slimmest smartphone, the Elife S5.5 will compete against a range of mid-range and high end smartphones in the market. Apart from the slim design, the smartphone has some premium specs. Here is our first impression of the device
Even as companies are focusing on improving software and processors in smartphones, relatively less attention is being paid (arguably) on the design. Gionee’s new Elife S5.5 comes as a pleasant refresh as the company has made an effort to improve on the design front.
Touted as the world’s slimmest phone, the Gionee Elife S5.5 is just 5.5mm thick and features a metal frame. Moreover, the smartphone sports a 5-inch full HD Super AMOLED display, taking on the popular 5-inchers in the market. We had an opportunity to use the device at today’s launch event, and here’s our first impression.
Design
At 5.5mm thickness, the Elife S5.5 is indeed very sleek. The smartphone has a metal frame – aluminum magnesium alloy to be precise – which works as the smartphone antenna as well. The aluminum edges make it easy to hold the device and reach the corners. In addition to being slim, it’s very light as well. On the rear there’s a glass panel, which gives phone a unique look. The camera is placed on the top left hand corner. The power button along with volume buttons have been shifted to the left. It might take a sometime for you to adjust to the slim design but, it’s easy to use overall.
Display
As said above, the smartphone has a 5-inch full HD Super AMOLED display. Like the Elife E7, the S5.5’s display is vivid and sharp. The display shows you the Gionee’s heavily customized colourful OS Amigo. If you like to browse a lot and read stuff on the go, the S5.5 display will definitely suit you. We ran a few videos on the device and they looked okay. However, it’ll be fairer to comment more on the display once we put it to the test in our detailed review.
Camera
The Elife S5.5 has 13MP camera and 5MP front wide angle camera. On paper, the camera specifications seem to be decent. We clicked a few photos at the event, which seemed to be decent in the given light conditions. The 95 degree ultra wide 5MP front camera is likely to woe the selfie lovers. If I were to nitpicking, it would have been great had Gionee added the 16MP camera and 8MP front camera set up (As available in the Elife E7) in the device, making it much more attractive deal.
Here’s a shot taken from the newly launched S5.5
User Interface
Gionee’s heavily customized Amigo UI is one of the few cons of the smartphone. The UI is based on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean but, we could expect it to get updated to Android 4.3 soon. It’ll be interesting to see if Gionee rolls out the latest KitKat update to the smartphone. Overall, the UI may not be over the top, but it is smooth and responsive enough.
Processor
Build quality isn’t the only intriguing thing about the new Gionee smartphone. The Gionee Elife S5.5 joins the ongoing ‘octa-core’ race. The smartphone features a MediaTek processor which might be a turn off to many enthusiasts. But then it’s an octa-core and is expected to run most of the demanding games and apps. The demo unit was fast enough. However, we’ll analyze the performance in detail as soon we get a review unit.
What do you think about the new Elife S5.5? Does it impress you? Let us know in the comments section below.