The world’s slimmest smartphone isn’t just another device in the market. It’s something that would sit very comfortably in your palm, and for the screen size, it isn’t that heavy too. The Gionee Elife S5.5 was recently launched in India, for the pricing of Rs. 22,999 and the device looks good in many aspects and when they say it’s slim, it really is with the flat design except only for the camera area which is about a millimeter thicker.
The 5-inch 1080p display looks quite brilliant with the color output being very neat, but again, you could see yourself disappointed if you already hated the Gionee’s Amigo UI, or if you never used a Gionee phone earlier, because the Amigo UI is something which you won’t become a fan of, as it takes the inspiration from the iOS interface, removing the app drawer and blurring the background wallpaper. Even with the design, you might need some initial practice to get adjusted to the buttons as the placement is quite different from what you see in most of the Android phones. Here, the lock / power button and the volume rockers take a place in the left panel, while the MicroUSB slot is on the top, while the headset jack is in the bottom.
As this is a unibody design, the back cover won’t be removable and you get to see the SIM card slot on the side. Just like we said with the Elife E7, the camera bulge on the back is prone to scratches because that’s the only part which would get more impact when placed on any flat surface. Still, the phone looks quite sturdy because of the metal body and the glass, covering whichever area on the device, having the Gorilla Glass protection.
There’s something that most of the Gionee users always complain about, and this device too has the same – the tiny buttons in the bottom area below the screen – Menu, Home and Back buttons which have to be pressed at that tiny area to function, and it’s not that easy. Compare this with the same buttons in LG and Samsung phones, you get those in a wide area, and pressing anywhere in that area would help in functioning.
The camera quality for the first impressions – with a natural shot – was quite neat with the full resolution zoom showing clear details. The front 5-megapixel camera too does a decent job of capturing photos and also for the video calls, and we would be able to give you the samples in the full review which would be up when the device the available for sale, from April 27th.
The Amigo UI is in the 2nd version, the latest one which was introduced in the Elife E7 and it comes with quite a lot of new features and changes, including the Fake Call feature on the lock screen widget and Amigo Paper for the wallpapers, though we ignore all this to use a launcher and bring back the normal Android interface usage, rather than this one which don’t support any widgets, a part of customization options which Android OS is famous for.
It’s still the Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean OS which Gionee has provided in the Elife S5.5 and we won’t be expecting the KitKat OS anytime soon, because even the two flagships in the E series, the E6 and E7 haven’t received the update. There are quite a lot of pre-installed apps which would help not just with the entertainment but also in making the performance and productivity better – with apps such as Phone Accelerate, Power Manager and the Traffic Control. There are Google apps such as Gmail, Google Plus, Maps and Play Store but the browser given is UC browser which I really don’t like, thus downloading Chrome from the Play Store is what one should do to start off with the web browsing.
Overall, this is a pretty good looking smartphone from Gionee and it looks brilliant from the sides, especially with the metal finish on the side panels and the back area although looks vulnerable to scratches due to the glass, makes the Elife S5.5 look a bit premium. This smartphone was launched in India for Rs. 22,999.
