When Gionee announced their flagship phone, the Elife E7, they also announced a stripped down version of Elife E7 Mini. The E7 Mini went on sale in April this year and it comes with impressive specs. The phone has a 4.7 inch HD display and runs on an 1.7Ghz Octa Core processor with 1GB RAM. There is also 16GB internal storage, but no microSD card support.
But the USP of the device is the rotating 13MP unit with LED flash. Since the unit is a rotating one, there is no front facing camera and you can easily rotate the rear camera to make it front facing. The phone runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and comes with Gionee’s custom Amigo UI. So lets now do a detailed review of the device for its design, build, performance, camera and also battery life on the phone and check out whether it is worth the money.
Related Watching: Gionee Elife E7 Mini Unboxing
Before we go into the review, lets quickly check the specifications of the device.
- Screen: 4.7-inch capacitive touchscreen
- Display: 1280 x 720 pixels HD display
- Processor: 1.7 GHz Octa-Core MediaTek MT6592 processor
- GPU: Mali 450-MP4 GPU
- RAM: 1GB
- OS: Android 4.2, Amigo 2.0 UI
- Camera: 13-megapixel swivel camera
- Storage: 16GB internal, no expandable storage option
- Connectivity: 3G HSDPA, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS
- Battery: 2100 mAh
Design, Build and Display:
The device has a really good design with great fit and finish. The left and right edges have sharp edges while the top and bottom have curved edges giving the phone a unique feel with respect to design. The phone comes with dual SIM support and the tray is located on the left side. The phone has a unibody design and made of high quality materials with a matte finish. The power button and the volume keys are placed on the right side.
The microUSB slot along with 3.5mm audio jack occupy the bottom section and the rotating camera is place on the top. The camera mechanism is rock solid and you never feel that it would fail if used continuously. The back panel has the Gionee branding with a matte finish. Overall the build quality, fit and finish on the device is top notch and rarely found on a device in this price point.
The 4.7 inch HD display has 312ppi which is pretty good for a device in this price point. The display has great viewing angles and so are the contrast levels. Overall, we were really impressed with the display which is very good for multimedia consumption.
Software and Performance:
Elife E7 Mini runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with Gionee’s custom UI called Amigo UI which we have seen on the E7 and also the S5.5. Although we found that the UI was sluggish on S5.5, it is much more optimized here and you don’t really see much of a lag even with the 1GB RAM. The inability to create widgets is one of the biggest issues with UI and there is no home screen and app drawer like the traditional Android phones.
The notification panel has good set of quick launch tools which are customizable. There are few gestures available in the UI and it supports features like double tap to wake and accept calls using gestures. Gionee has added some useful apps in the form of App Manager, Power manager, Traffic Assistant and Phone Accelerator which are pretty handy tools.
Related Watching: Gionee Elife E7 Mini Gaming Performance
The phone comes with 16GB internal storage and there is micro SD expansion support which is one the drawbacks of the device. The 16GB is divided between system storage (5.77GB for apps) and Phone storage (10.23GB). You can move apps between these two storage based on the free space availability.
The performance of the device is pretty decent although you might experience slight lag when switching apps and opening home screen. Gionee could have done better by shipping it with 2GB RAM. The gaming performance of the device is really great even with 1GB RAM and we tested highly graphic rich games and found no issues or lag. The phone also supports USB OTG out of the box.
Camera:
The 13MP camera with LED flash and a rotating mechanism is the USP of the device. We tested the camera on Gionee Elife E7 Mini for different conditions and found it to be really capable camera with great color quality, contrast ratios with less noise. The white balance is also great on photos and the macro shots have come excellent.
If you are interested in selfies, you should be excited as you can snap photos in 13MP camera although flash is disabled. The camera offers quite a lot of options to customize and unlike the UI on E7 and S5.5, this is a lot more usable and feature rich. All in all, Camera is one of the strong points of the device and we would say the best in this price point.
Here are some of the camera samples taken using the phone in different conditions. Related Watching: Gionee Elife E7 Camera Review
Here is the video sample taken at 1080p.
Battery Life:
The phone comes with a 2200mAh battery and in our tests we could get a day of usage with average calls, playing a few games, browsing on 3G and also listening to music. But the device does get heated up when playing games or using the camera which shouldnt be a deal breaker though. But having said that the battery life could have been a tad better on this device.
You also have the CPU power saving mode to restrict the CPU activity in case of low battery.
Verdict:
Overall, at the price point of Rs19000, the phone is slightly over priced when we compare with phones like Canvas Knight. But now the prices are at Rs 16500 which is the sweet pricing of this device. With an excellent build, display, camera and top notch hardware, it is a real value for money phone which you can’t go wrong with.
