Gionee all set to launch Elife S5.1 - Slimmest Phone Ever

Smartphones are getting really slim these days and every now and then we see new devices that claim to be the slimmest in the world. Devices that are 8 or 9 mm thick are pretty mainstream these days. The new iPhone is less than 7 mm thick and there are many other devices that have thickness below that. Gionee has launched many ultra slim devices in the past like the S5.5 and the Elife S5.1 would be even slimmer. They are working on the new device and details have been released across the internet for the new device. It isn’t a high end device and the primary objective here is getting the design right. We give here an idea of what this device is going to be like and what all we know about it.

Gionee Elife S5.1

Design

The device measures 139 x 67.4 x 5.15 mm which is pretty good for a device with this display size. Obviously the highlight here is the thickness of the device which is just 5.15 mm and that is why the name. The device would be very easy to handle with this size and the ultra slim device profile. It tips the scale at 140 Gms which is a bit heavy for device of these dimensions though not by much. The Galaxy S3 weighs 130 Gms and so does the Google Nexus 5. So it is slightly heavy but that is still within the acceptable range.

On most devices that are this slim, you will notice that the camera module is sticking out of the body of the device. However this isn’t the case with Gionee Elife S5.1. The images suggest that they have managed to house the camera module into the body itself without it protruding out of the back. Oppo recently launched a new device which they claim to be slimmest being less than 5 mm thick. But on that device, you will notice that the camera assembly of the primary camera sticks out a couple of millimetres which really defeats the point of such a device. The right spine of the device houses both the power key and the volume control. The micro USB port sits on top right in the middle. The stereo output jack is also present on the top. The device scores highly in terms of design and build quality.

Display

It has got a 4.8 inch display with 720p resolution. This gives it a pixel density of around 320 ppi. This isn’t a flagship device like we said already so the numbers are acceptable. 320 ppi is reasonably crisp and there isn’t any significant advantage of having an even sharper display. Current day flagship devices are moving way past 1080p and it is really hard to justify the advantage. Point is that the device has got a really decent display which is reasonably crisp and won’t be a burden on the battery. As it is an AMOLED panel, you will get excellent contrast ratios and impressive viewing angles. Expect the colours to be a bit oversaturated though nothing that you would have trouble with. Another thing with these displays is that they don’t appear to be as sharp as they are due to different arrangement of pixel matrix.

Hardware

This device runs the very popular Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 with the quad core processor capable of maximum clock speeds of 1.2 GHz. It has got 1 GB of RAM and has got the Adreno 305 GPU. The GPU here runs at 400 MHz which is lower than the 450 MHz that we usually find on most devices. Apparently they have done this to reduce the amount of heat being generated. This being a very slim device would tend to heat up easily due to close packing and dissipation of heat won’t be very easy. Once the temperatures go up, the battery life and performance of the device takes a hit as the processor is throttled. Running it at lower clock speed would ensure smooth trouble free operation of the device.

Gionee Elife S5.1 offers a wide range of connectivity options like 4G LTE, 3G HSDPA, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and micro USB 2.0. You get 16 GB of internal storage which is pretty decent for most people. You will get almost 13 GB of user available memory. There is no word on a micro SD card slot on this device so we guess there isn’t one. We won’t blame them at all as it would have taken up more space where it was already scarce. It is powered by a reasonably powerful 2100 mAh battery. It would have been a really tough job putting a battery that big in such a slim device. A battery of similar capacity powers the Google Nexus 4 which has got a relatively powerful hardware and it serves well in that device.

One thing that we don’t like about this device is the operating system. Gionee provides its devices with their own product called Amigo OS. This device also comes with Amigo OS 2.0. The interface of this operating system is really pathetic and robs an otherwise impressive device of its value. The icons look funny and the interface is confusing. Stock android would have done a much better job here. The Amigo OS running on this device is based on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean.

Camera

Even on such a slim device, they have managed to squeeze in an 8 megapixel primary camera and a 5 megapixel secondary camera. Like we said already, the camera module doesn’t stick out of the back of the device which is an impressive thing. The primary camera has got a LED flash for shooting in the dark. It has a 28 mm lens with an aperture of f2.4. Many other device offer lenses with wider aperture like f2.0 or f2.2 but here they were limited by the space available. The focal length would serve well to cover a decent angle of field though. 

This Post has written by guest author " Kundan Srivastava ". Follow him on:  google+