In what has to be arguably the most extravagant phone launch that India has ever seen, Chinese smartphone maker Gionee launched two handsets in India. The highlight of the launch was the company’s new flagship handset – the ELife E7. On the sidelines was its smaller screened counterpart – the E7 Mini. I will talk about both the handsets but this piece is dedicated to the ELife E7.
Specs and hardware
The ELife E7 boasts of some serious power under its hood – thanks to the presence of the all-powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC inside. This is probably the first “Chinese” handset to land in India to be powered by this flagship SoC – until now only seen on handsets like the Google Nexus 5, the LG G2, and the Galaxy Note 3 and so on. On the ELife E7, the quad core processors have been clocked at 2.5 GHz each. The ELife E7 also gets 2 GB of 3GB of RAM depending on what version of the handset you decide to buy. The 5.5 inch display of the E7 crams in 1920*1080 pixels giving it a PPI density of 400. The display assembly is claimed to be 20% thinner than competing products. There is however no mention of a Gorilla Glass coating on this one for scratch resistance.
Looks
The ELife E7 is a fairly large handset. The 5.5 inch FHD display dominates the front while the rear is mostly clad in glossy plastic. This one is a sure shot fingerprint magnet. Also at the rear is the 16 megapixel camera lens which protrudes slightly. This might not be to the liking of some people. At the top there is the power and sleep/wake-up button as well as the 3.5 mm audio jack. On the right side are the volume rocker keys. The SIM slot is on the other side. At the bottom there is a lone micro USB port. Overall, the handset is quite premium in look and feel.
Camera
Gionee – on the eve of the launch of the ELife E7 – did make some pretty outrageous sounding claims. One of them was pertaining to the camera when they claimed that the ELife E7 has the best camera amongst all Android handsets currently on sale! Yes, this came from a company which has only been around since 2002. During the actual launch, they had a professional photographer on stage to talk about the phones camera prowess and to be honest, the camera does look good – at least on paper. This by the way is a 16 megapixel sensor. The claim to the E7’s camera prowess is the fact that it has managed to better the resolution and the pixel size combination seen on existing flagship handsets (except for the all-powerful Nokia Lumias). The device also boasts of a professional looking camera application for serious photographers – akin to the Pro Camera app for Nokia Pureview phones. Video recording is limited to full HD at 30 fps.
Pricing and Variants
The ELife E7 is powered by a 2500Mah battery and comes in two variants. The cheaper of the lot comes with 16GB of internal memory ad packs in 2 Gb of RAM and has been priced at Rs.26,990 – making it the cheapest Snapdragon 800 powered device. The more expensive 32 GB version gets 3 GB of RAM and has been priced at Rs.29,999.
