Gionee entered the Indian mobile phone market last year and they had great success with the phone especially the Elife E3 and Elife E5. Back in December 2013, they announced their flagship phone, the Elife E7 which not only had impressive specs, but Gionee also claimed that it had the best camera on an Android phone available today.
The phone comes with a 5.5 inch full HD display, Snapdragon 800 processor with 2GB RAM for 16GB variant and 3GB RAM for 32GB variant. The phone also has a 16MP camera with LED flash and also a 8MP front facing camera for video calls. Today, we do a detailed review of this device for its design, build, performance, software, camera and battery life.
Gionee Elife E7 Specifications
- 5.5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Full HD IPS touch screen OGS display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection
- 2.2 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 MSM8974 processor with Adreno 330 GPU
- Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) with Amigo 2.0 UI
- 16MP auto focus camera, LED flash, 1/2.3? 1.34 µm sensor, 1080p video recording
- 8MP auto focus front-facing camera
- Dimensions – 150.6 x 75.0 x 9.5mm-6.2mm; Weight: 150 grams
- 3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio
- 3 microphones for noise cancellation
- 2GB/3GB RAM, 16GB/32GB internal memory
- 3G, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, WiFi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, USB, OTG, NFC
- 2500 mAh built-in battery
Here is the video review of Gionee Elife E7, if you need the text version, read on.
Design and Build Quality:
Design wise, the Gionee Elife E7 is very similar to other Gionee phones and comes with a flat top and rounded back. There is curved design on the top with flat side. The device has a unibody design and is made up of single block of plastic material which is of good quality. The plastics have a glossy feel and looks great.
The materials used in the phone is of great quality and feels solid in hands. The back cover is not removable and hence the battery is not user replaceable.
The camera unit at the back protrudes a bit making the thickness of the phone to 9.6mm at the thickest point. The phone weighs around 150gms and is pretty huge with the 5.5 inch display. If you are used to handling big phablets, you wont feel this phone huge, else you might feel the phone is a bit difficult to hold.
The top portion houses the 3.5mm audio jack and also the power button which is kind of unconventional on an Android phone and you might take some time to get used to it. At the bottom you have the microUSB slot and the dual speakers. The left side houses the SIM card tray which can be pulled out using the pin included in the box.
Watch: Gionee Elife E7 Unboxing
On the right side, you have the volume keys. The back houses the 16MP camera along with LED flash and also the Gionee branding at the bottom. There is a 8MP camera unit above the display along with sensor, LED light and the speaker unit.
Overall in the design and build quality, Gionee Elife E7 is a solid performer with use of quality materials and feels really good in hands. One thing probably missing on the device is the expansion slot as it does not support microSD cards.
Display:
The display on the device is a 5.5 inch Full HD (1920X1080p) and comes with Gorilla Glass 3 protection. The display is IPS LCD from JDI which is Japanese manufacturer. It has a pixel density of 401 which is pretty impressive and the colors and contrast are really good on the device. The viewing angles are also really good. The sunlight visibility with auto brightness is adequate. The display is really awesome when it comes to watching videos, it is a treat to use it.
Elife E7 has one of the best displays for its price point and we do not have any issues with the display.
At the bottom of the display, you also have three capacitive touch buttons for home, back and contextual menu which have haptic feedback and light up when you use them.
Software and Performance:
The phone runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and has a custom UI in the form of Amigo UI 2.0 which is probably one of the weak links of the phone. Firstly the phone runs 4.2.2 which is two version behind the current Android 4.4 Kitkat and secondly the amount of customizations done to the phone with Amigo UI does not work well. There are lots of missing aspects on the software as there is no support for widgets and there is no app drawer and all the installed apps are added the the home screen. So searching from the list of apps is a bit painful. But you can overcome this to an extend by installing third party launcher apps.
Watch: Amigo UI 2.0 on Gionee Elife E7- Overview
There are few gestures available in the UI and it supports features like double tap to wake and accept calls using gestures.
Performance wise, the device is pretty fast, thanks to the Snapdragon 800 chipset with 2GB RAM. The gaming performance of the device is also great with no lag on the graphic rendering and it works great while playing games like Asphalt 8 Airborne. Watch: Gaming performance of Gionee Elife E7. Gionee has added some useful apps in the form of App Manager, Power manager, Traffic Assistant and Phone Accelerator which are pretty handy tools.
The phone also supports USB OTG out of the box. The phone comes in 16GB and 32GB variants and does not have microSD card support which is one of the issues with the device. If you need more storage, better get the 32GB variant which also has the 3GB RAM.
Camera:
The Gionee Elife E7 comes with 16MP camera with LED flash and there is also a 8MP front facing camera for video calls. The camera on the device performs really well and it takes awesome photos both in daylight and also low light. The camera samples have pretty good colors which are balanced and there is no noise added.
The UI of the camera app is also good which has a basic and also advanced UI with radial mechanism. Watch: Gionee Elife E7 Camera Review. Overall, the camera on the device is best in the class and totally worth the claim made by Gionee.
Here are some samples taken with Gionee Elife E7.
Camera sample at 1080p:
Battery Life:
The phone has 2500 mAh battery which is not a high capacity considering most of the flagship phones come with around 3000mAh batteries. But having said that the battery performance of the Gionee Elife E7 is pretty good and even with a 5.5inch display we were able to get almost a day with heavy usage. If you are average user not into gaming you are sure to get more than a day with E7.
Verdict:
Gionee Elife E7 is a solid flagship device which delivers what is promised. With awesome display, high end hardware and an excellent camera with good battery backup, you do not have much areas to find fault with the device. Gionee has managed to pack almost everything a buyer would like to have on a flagship phone. Although there are some minor issues like the lack of microSD card and a not a friendly user interface, it still is a great device for the price.
If you are in the market for a device around the 25k to 30k range, Gionee Elife E7 is totally worth the money.
we can get the nnexus 5 for similar price with all updates and same processor. why would anyone go for this?
Yes, thats right. But then it comes with a bad camera and poor battery life. So it is a personal choice on whether you want latest software or other features.