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US readers, the Gionee S6 could be your next cheap buy, and it's awesome

Android

Updated: Nov 16, 2015, 4:46 AM

Chris P.

US readers, the Gionee S6 could be your next cheap buy, and it's awesome

If you're a US native, it's unlikely that you've heard of Gionee — a Chinese company that has been pushing out some rather nice devices lately. But there's one very good reason you should get excited about its new S6 smartphone: it'll likely be re-branded under Miami-based BLU and sold on the cheap. Case in point: the Gionee Elife E8 flagship is available as the BLU Pure XL in the States, and we mostly liked what we saw in our review, especially at just $350 unlocked. There's a good chance the Gionee S6 will also receive a similar treatment, given the two companies' seemingly strong relationship.

Speaking of the Gionee S6, we've got a slim (6.99mm) phone made almost entirely out of aluminum (89% of it, apparently), weighing 147 grams, and packing a 5.5-inch, 720p AMOLED display. Underneath, Gionee has planted one of MediaTek's 64-bit, octa-core MT6753 processors, clocked at 1.3GHz and coupled with an ARM Mali-T720 GPU. In terms of memory, we're looking at 3 gigs of RAM and 32GB of internal storage, expandable through the secondary, hybrid SIM card slot which also accepts microSD. As for imaging, Gionee is using a main, 13-megapixel sensor with very wide, f/2.0 lens and very quick phase detection auto focus, while a 5-megapixel selfie snapper sits up front.

Finally, the Gionee S6 is advertised as having a dedicated sound chamber that supposedly delivers richer sound. The phone is powered by a very large (relative to its size), 3,150mAh cell, which is topped off with the help of a reversible USB Type-C port, and Android 5.1 Lollipop with Gionee's custom UI on top of it on the software side. The phone is up for pre-orders in its homeland of China already, costing the equivalent of just $266 or so. Time will tell if BLU will see it fit to add the S6 to its portfolio, but if it does — it might be a pretty sweet deal for those of us on a budget.