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.
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| 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+
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