* Brilliant display* Swivel camera* Good build quality
Gionee surprised everyone by launching Elife E7, a mid-range phone that boasts of high-end hardware only seen in premium flagships. Taking a cue from bigger brands, it also announced a compact variant of the phone, Elife E7 Mini.
Interestingly, ELife E7 Mini is not just a stripped down version of its bigger sibling but has some special features of its own. It looks premium, is powered by an octa-core processor and flaunts a swivel camera seen in the likes of Oppo N1. So is Elife E7 Mini a good buy? We tried to found out in our review.
Build and design
The first thing that you notice when you get your hands on Elife E7 Mini is its impeccable build quality and finish. The phone is essentially made of plastic, but the quality of material used is pretty good. The matte finish accentuates the premium look further.
The phone looks like a rectangular bar with rounded top and bottom edges and flat side edges. The front panel below the swivel camera features glass and looks attractive. The panel sports a 4.7-inch display and capacitive touch buttons for navigation.
The power and volume rocker keys are placed at the right edge and offer good tactile feedback, while the micro-USB port and 3.5mm headset jack sit at the bottom edge. The left edge has the micro-sim tray that cleverly houses two micro-sim card slots.
The swivel camera sits above the display, joining the top edge of the phone. It also houses the earpiece. The swivel can be easily twisted to bring the camera lens to the front. However, you'll need to rotate it back the opposite way as it doesn't move 360-degree.
Gionee claims that it has tested the swivel for several thousand rotations. In our use, we never had problems with it and rotation was pretty smooth. Still, it remains to be seen how it will stand the test of time and wear and tear.The swivel lets one use the 13MP lens as the rear camera as well as the front one.
Unlike its larger sibling, Elife E7 fits well in the hand and its slightly curved back helps in getting a good grip. There's very little branding on the phone. Overall, Gionee Elife E7 Mini looks and feels like a premium smartphone.
Display
Gionee Elife E7 Mini sports a 4.7-inch 720p IGZO display from Sharp. While the resolution of the screen is not full-HD, the pixel density is high due to the comparatively smaller screen size. The display on Elife E7 Mini is one of the best we've seen, especially in the Rs 15,000 - Rs 18,000 price range.
It offers vivid colours, good brightness levels and excellent viewing angles. Images and text appear crisp and sharp, and sunlight legibility is also good.
Software
Gionee Elife E7 Mini runs a heavily customised build of Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, called Amigo 2.0, which is the second iteration of its user interface (UI) skin. The skin is similar to Xiaomi's MiUi ROM and doesn't feature a separate app launcher. Instead, the app icons are merged with the home screen, similar to the iPhone. You can read more about the software in our Gionee Elife E7 review.
The OS suffers from the same problems that plagued its big brother. We feel that Gionee has gone overboard on transition effects and animations and navigating through the home screens and launching apps takes more time due to these extra bells and whistles. The flying windows and transitions look jarring. Also, the colourful, flat icons look like they've been borrowed from a kid's picture book.
Another problem is the absence of widgets. A number of Android users love widgets as they offer information at a glance, but Gionee Elife E7's UI doesn't support them. Even lock screen widgets are not supported barring one made by Gionee that offers access to camera, voice recorder, flashlight and a fake call app. But then there are those who also dislike widgets.
The software is feature-rich, but we wish Gionee updates it to run more smoothly. We recommend using a third party Android launcher for better navigation.
Camera
Gionee Elife E7 Mini comes with a 13MP camera lens mounted on a rotating swivel. The same lens can be used as a front camera and rear camera. It's surely good news for people who frequently take selfies.
Unlike Elife E7, the Mini's camera app doesn't come with a professional mode. However, it features controls for all granular settings, colour effects (filters), HDR mode, Panorama and Face beauty modes. Interestingly, some of the toggles for switching between modes appear only when the camera swivel is rotated towards the rear.
The quality of images captured by the phone in daylight was really good with accurate colour reproduction and good detail. The phone also takes good images in macro mode.
The camera takes high quality selfies and smile and gesture shot modes make it easy to take these shots. However, when you move to a location with less ambient light, the quality deteriorates and you'll get grainy images.
The phone is capable of recording full-HD video and the quality of the videos shot with the phone was also good. Pitiably, it can't play them in full HD.
Performance
Gionee Elife E7 Mini comes with powerful hardware under the hood. It is Powered by a 1.7GHz octa-core MediaTek MT6592 processor coupled with Mali450 graphics and 1GB RAM, the phone offers good performance with the only issue being the laggard software.
While the phone is able to handle graphics-rich games without any hiccups, multitasking becomes a bit sluggish if a lot of apps are running in the background due to less RAM.
In synthetic benchmarks, the phone scored 27,346 in Antutu, 13,916 in Quadrant, 1391 in Geekbench 3(Multi-core) and 59.2 in Nenamark 2 benchmark tests. Some of these are less than the ones scored by Micromax Canvas Knight, another MediaTek octa-core smartphone.
But we'd not recommend a phone based solely on benchmarks as real world performance can be different at times.
The phone comes with a 2200mAh battery and lasts a full working day (14-15 hours) with moderate to heavy use.
The phone comes with 16GB storage, but unfortunately, it doesn't sport a microSD card slot. This means you'll need to live with the limited storage capacity of the phone. Elife E7 too was marred by this limitation.
We were able to play most video and audio files on the phone without encountering problems. The dual-sim, dual-standby phone offers good call quality and signal reception. The phone was able to lock to GPS without any hiccups.
The external speaker on the phone offers loud sound output. However, the sound gets muffled when the phone lies on its back, which is a problem with all such designs that place speakers at the back.
Verdict
Gionee Elife E7 Mini is a good package with its premium design, brilliant display, good performance, and rotating camera. At a price of Rs 18,999, we feel it scores well when it comes to the value for money quotient. Also, you'll not get a phone with a rotating camera in this bracket.
Having said that, it's worth pointing out that Gionee is comparatively new to India and still in the process of consolidating its presence in the market. The company claims to have 400 service centres in the country and had announced plans to set up 750 service centres across India by March 2015.
Other options you can look at include Micromax Canvas Knight and Motorola Moto X.
Interestingly, ELife E7 Mini is not just a stripped down version of its bigger sibling but has some special features of its own. It looks premium, is powered by an octa-core processor and flaunts a swivel camera seen in the likes of Oppo N1. So is Elife E7 Mini a good buy? We tried to found out in our review.
Build and design
The first thing that you notice when you get your hands on Elife E7 Mini is its impeccable build quality and finish. The phone is essentially made of plastic, but the quality of material used is pretty good. The matte finish accentuates the premium look further.
The phone looks like a rectangular bar with rounded top and bottom edges and flat side edges. The front panel below the swivel camera features glass and looks attractive. The panel sports a 4.7-inch display and capacitive touch buttons for navigation.
The power and volume rocker keys are placed at the right edge and offer good tactile feedback, while the micro-USB port and 3.5mm headset jack sit at the bottom edge. The left edge has the micro-sim tray that cleverly houses two micro-sim card slots.
The swivel camera sits above the display, joining the top edge of the phone. It also houses the earpiece. The swivel can be easily twisted to bring the camera lens to the front. However, you'll need to rotate it back the opposite way as it doesn't move 360-degree.
Gionee claims that it has tested the swivel for several thousand rotations. In our use, we never had problems with it and rotation was pretty smooth. Still, it remains to be seen how it will stand the test of time and wear and tear.The swivel lets one use the 13MP lens as the rear camera as well as the front one.
Unlike its larger sibling, Elife E7 fits well in the hand and its slightly curved back helps in getting a good grip. There's very little branding on the phone. Overall, Gionee Elife E7 Mini looks and feels like a premium smartphone.
Display
Gionee Elife E7 Mini sports a 4.7-inch 720p IGZO display from Sharp. While the resolution of the screen is not full-HD, the pixel density is high due to the comparatively smaller screen size. The display on Elife E7 Mini is one of the best we've seen, especially in the Rs 15,000 - Rs 18,000 price range.
It offers vivid colours, good brightness levels and excellent viewing angles. Images and text appear crisp and sharp, and sunlight legibility is also good.
Software
Gionee Elife E7 Mini runs a heavily customised build of Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, called Amigo 2.0, which is the second iteration of its user interface (UI) skin. The skin is similar to Xiaomi's MiUi ROM and doesn't feature a separate app launcher. Instead, the app icons are merged with the home screen, similar to the iPhone. You can read more about the software in our Gionee Elife E7 review.
The OS suffers from the same problems that plagued its big brother. We feel that Gionee has gone overboard on transition effects and animations and navigating through the home screens and launching apps takes more time due to these extra bells and whistles. The flying windows and transitions look jarring. Also, the colourful, flat icons look like they've been borrowed from a kid's picture book.
Another problem is the absence of widgets. A number of Android users love widgets as they offer information at a glance, but Gionee Elife E7's UI doesn't support them. Even lock screen widgets are not supported barring one made by Gionee that offers access to camera, voice recorder, flashlight and a fake call app. But then there are those who also dislike widgets.
The software is feature-rich, but we wish Gionee updates it to run more smoothly. We recommend using a third party Android launcher for better navigation.
Camera
Gionee Elife E7 Mini comes with a 13MP camera lens mounted on a rotating swivel. The same lens can be used as a front camera and rear camera. It's surely good news for people who frequently take selfies.
Unlike Elife E7, the Mini's camera app doesn't come with a professional mode. However, it features controls for all granular settings, colour effects (filters), HDR mode, Panorama and Face beauty modes. Interestingly, some of the toggles for switching between modes appear only when the camera swivel is rotated towards the rear.
The quality of images captured by the phone in daylight was really good with accurate colour reproduction and good detail. The phone also takes good images in macro mode.
The camera takes high quality selfies and smile and gesture shot modes make it easy to take these shots. However, when you move to a location with less ambient light, the quality deteriorates and you'll get grainy images.
The phone is capable of recording full-HD video and the quality of the videos shot with the phone was also good. Pitiably, it can't play them in full HD.
Performance
Gionee Elife E7 Mini comes with powerful hardware under the hood. It is Powered by a 1.7GHz octa-core MediaTek MT6592 processor coupled with Mali450 graphics and 1GB RAM, the phone offers good performance with the only issue being the laggard software.
While the phone is able to handle graphics-rich games without any hiccups, multitasking becomes a bit sluggish if a lot of apps are running in the background due to less RAM.
In synthetic benchmarks, the phone scored 27,346 in Antutu, 13,916 in Quadrant, 1391 in Geekbench 3(Multi-core) and 59.2 in Nenamark 2 benchmark tests. Some of these are less than the ones scored by Micromax Canvas Knight, another MediaTek octa-core smartphone.
But we'd not recommend a phone based solely on benchmarks as real world performance can be different at times.
The phone comes with a 2200mAh battery and lasts a full working day (14-15 hours) with moderate to heavy use.
The phone comes with 16GB storage, but unfortunately, it doesn't sport a microSD card slot. This means you'll need to live with the limited storage capacity of the phone. Elife E7 too was marred by this limitation.
We were able to play most video and audio files on the phone without encountering problems. The dual-sim, dual-standby phone offers good call quality and signal reception. The phone was able to lock to GPS without any hiccups.
The external speaker on the phone offers loud sound output. However, the sound gets muffled when the phone lies on its back, which is a problem with all such designs that place speakers at the back.
Verdict
Gionee Elife E7 Mini is a good package with its premium design, brilliant display, good performance, and rotating camera. At a price of Rs 18,999, we feel it scores well when it comes to the value for money quotient. Also, you'll not get a phone with a rotating camera in this bracket.
Having said that, it's worth pointing out that Gionee is comparatively new to India and still in the process of consolidating its presence in the market. The company claims to have 400 service centres in the country and had announced plans to set up 750 service centres across India by March 2015.
Other options you can look at include Micromax Canvas Knight and Motorola Moto X.
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