MWC 2014: Various brands overview

Gionee E7 hands-on

Chinese manufacturer Gionee announced its Elife E7 flagship back in November last year claiming it to be the best Android cameraphone. Well, it's time to see if their claims are holding true at the MWC 2014 floor where it is hoping to make visitors go wow.

The Elife E7 sports a 5.5-inch LCD display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The numbers add up to a pixel density of 401ppi, which is tack sharp by any standard. E7 is also equipped with Gorilla Glass 3, which rounds up its high-end profile quite nicely.

Under the hood there's a 2.2GHz quad-core Krait 400 processor on a Snapdragon 800 chipset. The E7 with 16GB of internal storage will feature 2GB of RAM, while the 32GB model has 3GB of RAM on-board.

Back to the part where Gionee claims the Elife E7 sports the best camera that's currently employed by any Android smartphone out there. We're going to put it head to head against the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, which we have laying around to test Gionee's claims.

Before that, though, let's brief you through its specs sheet. It's 16 megapixels of higher than the usual 1.34µm pixel size, and there's also an 8 megapixel front-facing shooter. The primary camera lens utilizes a lens designed called Largan M8 and is said to deliver super sharp images.

Gionee Elife E7 camera samples

Here's how it compares against the Galaxy Note 3.

Gionee Elife E7 • Samsung Galaxy Note 3

As for its build quality, the Elife E7 isn't quite as spectacular - its glossy back looks rather poorly and doesn't feel too great either. Bezels could obviously be better too.

Gionee Elife S5.5 hands-on

As for the Gionee S5.5, it features a significantly better build quality. In fact, we have no trouble calling it superb.

The Gionee Elife S5.5 is gorgeous

The fancy metal frame makes it feel great in hand. It really does feel genuinely premium and the slim profile helps its cause a great deal.

The metal frame component

It's not all roses and sunshine, though. The camera hump at the back isn't ideal and is prone to scratching, if not worse. However, it's not enough to make us turn our backs on the phone's looks.

From all sides

This all makes the Elife S5.5 the thinnest smartphone in the world at just 5.55mm thick. The Elife S5.5 runs an Android-based Amigo OS, sports an octa-core 1.7 GHz processor, 2GB of RAM and a duo of 13 MP and 5 MP cameras (back and front).

The device also has a 5" screen, 2,300 mAh battery that should go a full day with 3G on - an LTE version will be arriving in June.

Here's the phone in action.

We've also ran a couple of benchmark tests to see if the S5.5 is as fast as it is slim.

AnTuTu 4

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4
  34016
• Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 (S800)
  33996
• Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition
  33198
• Transformer Pad TF701T
  32991
• Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 (Exynos)
  32796
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  31109
• Sony Xperia Z2
  30189
• Gionee Elife S5.5
  26539
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1
  24236
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  20216
• LG Optimus G Pro
  20056
• Asus Nexus 7 (2013)
  19131
• Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0
  17159
• Google Nexus 10
  12695
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0
  9070

Quadrant

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  21618
• LG G Flex
  20521
• Sony Xperia Z1
  20388
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  20052
• LG G2
  19815
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  18177
• Gionee Elife E7
  14150
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  12446
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  12376
• HTC One
  11746
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo
  11404
• LG Nexus 5
  8844