Hands-on and first impressions: Gionee Elife E7

Gionee announced its flagship Elife E7 along with an interesting side-kick, the Elife E7 Mini at the Buddh International Circuit on Christmas Eve. We had a brief hands on time with both the phones post the press event and here are our first impressions of the Elife E7. This is the top-end model which was one year in the making, according to Gionee. In terms of specifications it has all the right parts that make a flagship phone. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC featuring a 2.2GHz quad Krait CPU and has a 5.5-inch full HD screen with Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The Elife E7 comes in two variants that support 3G (16GB ROM + 2GB RAM) and 4G respectively. The Elife E7 4G (32GB ROM + 3GB RAM) will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor featuring a 2.5 GHz quad Krait CPU. It runs on Android 4.2 with Gionee’s skin, Amigo 2.0. The battery capacity of 2500 mAh could be a bit less for the 5.5-inch full HD screen.

On the base you have the speaker section with the microUSB port in the middle

It feels great in the hand, although you will have to use both your hands as it is tricky to reach all the edges using just one hand. The curved unibody design looks great and the phone comes in 7 colours. The power button is located on the top, volume rocker is located on the right hand edge whereas you insert the micro SIM on the left hand edge. At the base you have speaker section along with the microUSB port in the centre.

On the top you have the power/standby button along with the 3.5mm audio jack

The camera is the USP of the Elife E7. It sports a 16MP camera having a 1/2.3-inch sized sensor along with an LED flash located on the rear. Gionee laid stress on achieving a balance between higher pixel size while keeping the megapixel count high as well. The size of each individual pixel is 1.34 microns. Whether that results in great picture quality, can only be ascertained after rigourously testing the camera under all possible circumstances. For those of you who are fond of selfies, Gionee has put on an 8MP front facing camera with autofocus on the E7 as well. The extensive camera settings leave us in no doubt that Gionee wants to showcase this phone's camera.

The rear has a 16MP camera with a sensor size of 1/2.3-inch

The Elife E7 comes with Gionee’s custom Android based OS called Amigo 2.0 which is similar to the one seen on the E6. But there are some improvements in terms of the looks on the weather and recorder app, unified messaging app and live task cards. 

The professional camera UI on the Elife E7 resembles an audio player settings menu

The Elife E7 is priced at Rs 29,999 for the 32GB model and Rs 26,999 for the 16GB model. Do you think the E7 will be able to tear a chunk off the Nexus 5's potential market? We've got a comparison between the two phones here, so you can make up your mind.