Gionee have launched some great mobile phones in India. Last year we saw the Gionee Elife S5.5 from the brand and it was a wonderful device. Now they have recently launched another version of the mobile phone. This is the Gionee Elife S7, which is a fabulous smartphone to work with.
Design
The Gionee Elife S7 is available in black, white and blue colours. We received the black unit for review. The Elife S7's body is supported by a U-shaped frame made from aviation-grade aluminium magnesium alloy. This frame curves gently at the four corners. The screen has Corning Gorilla Glass 3 over it. The mobile phone is extremely sleek, it is just 5.5mm thick and has 126.5g weight. The Elife S7 has a 5.2-inch FHD SUPER AMOLED display and is very comfortable to use with just one hand.
The battery is non removable, so the users cannot replace it by themselves. The Elife S7 can accommodate two Micro SIM cards. The SIM slot is on the left side of the mobile phone. The power button is located on the right side of the phone along with the volume key. The USB port and a 3.5mm audio port are located at the bottom of the phone.The primary camera is on the top left (rear) of the mobile phone, which comes with the LED flash. A neat pair of headphones also come in the box for music lovers.
Performance
Gionee Elife S7 has the 1.7GHz octa-core processor that comes along with 2 GB of RAM for applications and services. The users also get 16 GB of internal memory to store files but there is no slot for a memory card. All this runs on the Mediatek MT6752. For graphics a Mali-T760MP2 is also on board.
The primary camera of Elife S7 can capture 13-megapixel still images and 1080p videos. For selfies, there is an 8-megapixel secondary camera. The camera app has a lot of good features, which comes with many options. These include a fairly professional mode that allows control over the exposure, ISO, white balance, aperture and focus.
There is also a Magic Focus mode that allows precise control over the area of focus after photos have been captured. Another exciting feature is the Chameleon feature, which allows a user to capture any colour through the camera and apply it on to the theme and system interface. The camera captures really detailed pictures and is also a fast shooter, but in low light and dark areas, it becomes a bit sloppy. The 8-megapixel front camera, on the other hand, needs sufficient amount of light for a good click.
Music apps and video galleries ran beautifully. Talking about which, the audio quality is very fine. The supplied headphones get the job done and one can hear the beats clearly. Screen, image and video quality is above average. The place where the phone stresses a bit is gaming. You can't play games for too long on the mobile phone because the phone gets slightly warm while playing.
Moving on to its battery life, Gionee Elife S7 does manage to stay awake for a long duration. With 2700 mAh battery inside it, we did give us between 24 to 27 hours after a full charge (under nominal use).
We tested the phone out with Quadrant and it managed a score of 15,927 points, which is a pretty good score for this mobile phone.
Verdict
Gionee Elife S7 is definitely built for the masses. The voice quality is very good and a user can easily hear stuff without any problem. We did like the looks and the slim design of the phone. It has some great features too, which are appreciable. It has the latest Android Lollipop 5.0. The Gionee Elife S7 can be picked up for MRP Rs 25,999. One can also get the mobile phone for Rs 22,500 (MOP) at any online retail store.
Pros
Excellent performance
Brilliant screen
Exceptional battery life
Cons
Battery not removable
Cameras could have been better
No slot for memory card
Gets heated up while playing games
