The Gionee S5.1 is one of the slimmest smartphones in the world, behind only the Oppo R5 and we must say it is a well designed and well built smartphone. Will that be enough though? We don't know yet, but this quick review should give you some perspective.
Specifications
The Gionee Elife S5.1 has a 4.8 inch 720p display along with an octa-core 1.7 GHz MediaTek MT6592 SoC. It runs on Android 4.4.2 and has an 8MP rear camera along with a 5MP front camera. There is also 1 GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage without the option for a memory card.
Back
Gionee went with a glass back finish on the S5.1, similar to what you get on the Micromax Canvas Knight, Xperia Z3 Compact and Xperia Z3. This feels quite good and gives the device a premium look.
Rear Camera
We haven't quite tested the camera out yet, but in the initial few shots, we thought the camera was below average considering the price. There are better 8 MP shooters available at a lower price.
Build
The device has the micro-USB port and 3.5 mm headphone jack on the bottom. The overall build quality is really nice, with a very iPhone like feel to it. The metal lining around the side makes this device feel really premium.
Did Gionee just rectify the flaws in the iPhone 6 design? Will this be what we get in the iPhone 7?
Slimness
This Elife S5.1 is of course all about the slimness. So, we put it up against one of the slimmest and most premium smartphones out there. The iPhone 6 is thicker by more than a millimeter and that is easy to notice.
Weight
The device is also extremely light, weighing only 97.7 grams. That makes it lighter than both the iPhone 5S and the Samsung Galaxy Alpha, two of the lightest devices out there. Quite impressive we must say.
Benchmarks
Synthetic benchmarks can only give you a superficial idea of the performance, but here's how the S5.1 stacks up against other octa-core smartphones. While the Huawei Honor 6 and Lenovo Vibe X2 are around the same price as this one, the Redmi Note costs Rs. 10,000 lesser than the Elife S5.1.
From the benchmarks you can see that the S5.1 is comparitively weaker than all its competitors. But that will be confirmed after the full review.
Battery
While we're yet to complete our battery tests on the device, we can tell you that the above benchmarks caused a 20% battery drop on the device. This exceeds our expectations, but doesn't really impress us at the moment.