Gionee Elife E7 review – powerful hardware with the perfect camera

Here is the review of Gionee Elife E7 that sports a 5.5 inch screen with FHD resolution and comes powered by 2.2GHz snapdragon quad core processor. The key highlight about the handset is the 16MP camera, which Gionee claims is the best available on a smartphone.

Elife E7 box pack
Box contents: E7 handset, free flip cover, 2x screen guard, user guide, warranty card, service center list, earphone, travel charger, data cable, 3 NFC tags and micro SIM tray ejector pin.

Design and Display
The handset is big but quite slim considering the dimensions. Weight with battery is 152 grams and dimensions are 75.10 x 150.66 x 9.35mm. The Elife E7 has got a curvy back that gets a bit slimmer towards the edges.

The handset is comfortable to hold. There is no option to remove the back cover and you need to clip the handset onto the flip cover in case you want to use it with the flip cover.  The flip cover is of a good quality and fits perfectly well.

The volume rockers are placed on the right, power button on the top along with 3.5mm audio jack, micro USB port and speaker out vents at the bottom. On the left side there is the micro SIM tray. The back side and sides are with glossy finish. The handset is available in different colors. Build quality and finishing is very good.

SAR Value is mentioned on the back cover 1.43 W/kg@1g Head and 0.889 W/kg@1g Body.

The Gionee Elife E7 sports a 5.5 inch screen with corning gorilla glass 3 protection. Screen resolution is 1920 x 1080 pixels. Color reproduction and viewing angles are very good. Touch is very smooth and responsive works even with gloves.

OS, Memory and Storage
The Elife E7 runs on Amigo UI that is based on the Android 4.2.2 OS. The interface is different and might take some time getting used to. Amigo UI looks good and comes with few pre-loaded themes. The UI seems a bit slow because of extensive use of graphics and transition effects. Of course the stock UI would have made it even smoother.

There is no micro SD card slot and you get limited space of 16GB or 32GB depending on the variant you choose.  32GB storage comes with 3GB RAM and 16GB storage with 2GB RAM.

Of the 2GB RAM, 1.1GB is available on first boot. Of the 16GB storage 8GB is used by system – as you can see the Amigo UI uses a lot of RAM and dedicated storage space. 3.6GB is available for apps and 7.7GB as phone storage. OTG is supported, I could connect my pen-drive using OTG cable – OTG cable is not included in the box pack. There are accelerometer, gyro, proximity, light and magnetic sensors.

Performance
The Elife E7 is powered by MSM8974 qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad core processor (Krait 400 CPU Architecture) – 28nm clocked at 2.2GHz coupled with Adreno 330 GPU. Performance is very good, the Amigo UI may seem a little slow cause of slow transition effect. Benchmark scores are pretty impressive.

Benchmark scores

• Quadrant Standard – 19984.
• AnTuTu – 33857.
• Vellamo – HTML5 2859, Metal 1166.
• Nenamark 2 – 62.8fps
• Multi touch : 10 points.

Camera
There is a 16MP rear AF camera and an 8MP front AF camera. The rear camera is using the OmniVision professional sensor, CrucialTec customized flash, Largan customized lens and Shicoh customized camera motor. Still picture quality is excellent, even in low light conditions. The flash however does not fire up when you tap to auto focus in a completely dark environment, as a result the subject goes out of focus. But in general both the front camera and the rear camera can capture outstanding pictures.

Auto focus is pretty fast. The camera app interface is new, compact and covers almost everything in a single window. The rear camera can record videos in 1080p resolution at 25 to 30 fps. There is another camera app called the CharmCam that comes loaded with modes such as Make up, Stamp, Object Tracking, face beauty and many more.

Let the pictures/Videos do the talking, check the sample images and videos at the end of this review. I will be shooting some more images for few more days and will post the best ones on Facebook and Twitter.

Gaming and Entertainment
There is limited storage space of around 7GB. I could install the Modern Combat 4 and the Asphalt 8 on the internal storage. Both the games played really well in the highest possible graphics mode.

This handset can easily play FHD videos using MX player or any other video player.

Others
There is built in NFC, Bluetooth, GPS, 3G and Wi-Fi. All of the features worked pretty well. I got the first GPS lock within 10 seconds. Sound is loud and clear, there are 3 microphones for noise cancellation. In call sound is also very good.  There are other features like power management, phone accelerator, backup, Amigo Pager, Themes, etc.

You also get 3 NFC tags you can place one tag for example in your car and program it enabled Bluetooth / connect with car audio etc. The next time you enter your car just bring the phone near the tag and it will do as programmed.

Non-Removable 2500 mAh Battery
It’s with non-removable battery of 2500 mAh capacity. I used the handset for 33 minutes running benchmark apps and playing some high end games, the battery dropped by 15%. For very heavy usage you can expect the battery life for 3 to 4 hours.

Verdict
The Gionee Elife E7 is a premium handset that houses the MSM8974 quad core chipset used on many other top brands. The handset looks really good. Screen resolution is FHD and performance is pretty impressive.  I am sure you would agree with Gionee that the handset camera is definitely much better, quite professional. The battery backup is decent enough.

The 32GB version is currently priced at under Rs. 29,000 and the 16GB version for under Rs. 26,500.  The handset is pricy but it beats other competitors in the price range.  It’s worth it, for the price – the E7 indeed, is made for Shooting.

Where to Buy?
Gionee Elife E7 (32GB) for Rs. 27,710  | Gionee Elife E7 (16GB) for Rs. 25,000. Also available in retail stores.

Image Gallery

Sample Images