Gionee Elife S5.1 Review: Slim and Strong

Gionee gave us a brilliant slim masterpiece called the Elife S5.5 last time. This time they have outdone themselves and knocked off more from that Ultra thin design and come out with a brilliant Elife S5.1. This phone is a stunner when it comes to looks and feels ultra premium in your hands. It was briefly the thinnest phone in the world, till OPPO came out with the R5. World record or not, this phone is very impressive and premium. Let us review this phone now.

Out of the box, it comes with the usual trappings, there’s the USB to power adaptor, the headset, the USB cable, a good back cover and a few screen protector strips. The box also feels premium and well designed. One feels like holding a flagship phone in their hand. On that count the packing is above average.

Specifications

• 4.8″ 16M-color 720p Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, usable with gloves
• Dual Gorilla Glass 3 design, aluminum frame
• Super-slim and lightweight body at 5.2mm and 97.7g
• Android OS v4.4.2 KitKat with Amigo OS v2.0
• Octa-core 1.7 GHz Cortex-A17, Mali-T450MP4 GPU; 1GB of RAM; MediaTek MT6592 chipset
• 8MP autofocus camera with LED flash, 1080p video recording @ 30fps
• 5MP front-facing camera
• 16GB of built-in storage
• FM radio
• Standard 3.5mm audio jack
• Active noise cancellation with a dedicated secondary mic
• 2,050mAh battery

The Elife S5.1 has the same Mediatek chipset as the Elife S5.5,  an octa-core processor and a quad-core graphics accelerator. The camera is definitely above average it has an 8MP rear and a 5MP front selfie cam. The Elife S5.1 comes with Android KitKat, running the Amigo launcher like the S5.5.

Just holding it in the hands gives you an idea of the design and thought that has been put into the build of the phone. It is ultra thin. It has brilliant glass shielding on either side and an absolutely brilliant metal casing. It is thin and the lightness will definitely surprise you! The 4.8″ Gionee Elife S5.1 is incredibly good looking with dual white glass design, a gold-painted metal frame around a super slim and lightweight shell. It stands at 139.8 x 67.4 x 5.1mm and weighs just 97g.

Above the 4.8″ Super AMOLED screen we find the usual combination of an ambient light sensor, a proximity sensor and a wide-angle 5MP front-facing camera, either side of the earpiece. The three capacitive keys are below the display using the traditional layout – Menu, Home, Back. The hardware controls, they are all on the right side of the phone – you get a Power/Lock key and a volume rocker – both made out of metal.The microSIM compartment is the only thing of interest on the left and you’ll need the pin to eject it. The top of the Gionee Elife S5.1 is completely bare. The microUSB port, the 3.5mm audio jack and the primary microphone are all at the bottom of the Elife S5.1.

The connectivity port supports USB On-the-go and USB Host, which means you will be able to connect various peripherals such as keyboards and mice, as well as USB memory sticks.

The 8 megapixel camera lens and the single LED flash are placed in the top left corner of the phone’s back. The secondary microphone is carved out of the rear Gorilla Glass 3 near the top, the loudspeaker grille near the bottom. The Gionee Elife S5.1 has a 4.8″ Super AMOLED screen of 720p resolution and 306ppi. It’s nicely saturated, it’s bright and contrasty, and has low reflectivity.

Battery life

The Gionee Elife S5.1 features a 2,050mAh battery, which is 9.5% less than the unit powering the older Elife S5.5. The Gionee Elife S5.1 couldn’t match the performance of its predecessor when it comes on 3G calls, but it did better on the web browsing test and the same on the looped video playback. The Elife S5.1 standby power is brilliant though, even without any battery saving enhancements turned on. It could last you nearly a month on a single charge, which is brilliant.

Connectivity

The Gionee Elife S5.1 has quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G with up to 42Mbps of download speed. No LTE No dual-SIM version of the phone. The rest of the features are dual-band Wi-Fi b/g/n and Wi-Fi Direct. There is also support for Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and GLONASS, plus an FM radio with RDS. NFC isn’t available on the Gionee Elife S5.1. There is a microUSB 2.0 port for charging and data connections. Media transfer mode is supported for accessing the phone’s built-in memory via a USB connection. The microUSB 2.0 port can also be used in USB OTG mode for connecting USB peripherals such as pen drives, keyboards or real USB hard drives.

Performance

Gionee Elife S5.1 is powered by the mid-range MediaTek MT6592 chipset, which translates into an octa-core Cortex-A7 processor at 1.7GHz, Mali-450MP4 GPU and 1GB of RAM. We’ve already seen the same chip ticking inside the bigger Elife S5.5 and it offered quite uninspiring performance in the graphics department, mostly because of the higher resolution display.

Now that the Gionee Elife S5.1 uses a lower-res 720p display (as opposed to 1080p), we hope things will be fine this time around.

Verdict

The Gionee Elife S5.1 is a brilliantly designed phone that has a premium look and feel. The specifications are very reliable and good value for money.  But there are issues like the inability to expand storage, the lack of LTE support and also no Dual SIM support. It is a value buy, but at the same price bracket there are many other devices that have all these features too. This one is a very strong horse from the Gionee stable!