Android

World's new 'thinnest' phone is just 5.5 mm thick, Gionee Elife S5.5 goes on preorder for $370

posted by Daniel P. / Feb 19, 2014, 2:53 AM

World's new 'thinnest' phone is just 5.5 mm thick, Gionee Elife S5.5 goes on preorder for $370

Chinese smartphone makers are on a roll lately, and Gionee's latest Elife S5.5 comes as a living proof. Well, not exactly living, as it's still on preorder, but the company claims it is the thinnest smartphone ever, at 5.5 mm. This puts the 5.75 mm Vivo X3 to shame, and will certainly be a sight to behold.

As for the other specs in the sheet - we'll be getting a 5" display of undisclosed resolution, 1.7 GHz quad-core processor, 2 GB of RAM, 13 MP rear camera, and 5 MP frontal one, as well as a 2300 mAh battery. This capacity seems pretty good for such an anorexic phone, and Gionee claims that the Elife S5.5 will be able to get you through the working day on battery juice alone.

The slim handset will have both 3G and LTE versions, with the 3G one now up on preorder for the decent sum of $370 unsubsidized, while the LTE variant is scheduled to arrive in June. What's more interesting is that the company claims it will gradually launch the phone in 40 countries worldwide, so once those markets become clear, you can start saving for the next king on the "world's thinnest" throne.

source: Engadget

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32 Comments

1. Jason2k13

Posts: 1451; Member since: Mar 28, 2013

anyone own a Chinese phone around $300 with mediatek processor? is it reliable? and hows the camera? and of course battery life to. Im thinking of buying one for a cousins birthday.

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 3:00 AM 1

9. nvrhde

Posts: 77; Member since: Nov 10, 2012

Y not , Moto g

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 3:16 AM 2

12. xperiaDROID

Posts: 5629; Member since: Mar 08, 2013

This phone has better specs than the Moto G.

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 3:30 AM 7

16. nvrhde

Posts: 77; Member since: Nov 10, 2012

But this is 370

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 4:02 AM 2

25. AppleHateBoy unregistered

This phone is the "Bleeding Edge" (pun intended) of mobiles.

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 9:37 AM 0

10. eisenbricher

Posts: 973; Member since: Aug 09, 2012

I own a mid range phone with mediaTek, and also lot of my friends too. Not bad I'd say. It's been well over an year and the phone is still going strong. I don't know much yet about performance of latest octacore but the Quadcore MT6589 that I have works good. A little underpowered for games but it NEVER heats up. Camera, build quality totally depends on the manufacturer. You'll get less talktime than similar Qualcomm chips, but standby times are still very good.

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 3:20 AM 2

19. lallolu

Posts: 731; Member since: Sep 18, 2012

Your reply is really concise. I have always wondered about the real life usage of the mediatek processors. I assume you have the quadcore version.

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 5:10 AM 0

11. X.E.R.O. unregistered

Depends on what you use it for. I've tried a phone running MT6589 (Quad Core Cortex A7 + PowerVR 544 GPU)and it can run the most basic of tasks smoothly but lags with graphic intensive games. As for the battery life and camera, it varies from phones.

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 3:23 AM 0

18. kaikuheadhunterz

Posts: 1157; Member since: Jul 18, 2013

My mother has a $99 Chinese phone with a dual-core Mediatek processor. It can easily last a day of gaming (not necessarily intense gaming), which is impressive given its battery capacity is only 1650mAh

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 4:20 AM 0

23. jacobspeeds

Posts: 40; Member since: Feb 26, 2012

indians are using $200 micromax phones with mediatek processors and they dont seem to have any complaints...not sure abt gionee tho

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 6:50 AM 0

28. hurrycanger

Posts: 1758; Member since: Dec 01, 2013

Micromax is just an import company in disguise. Some of its phones are actually Gionee Elife phones with a different logo.

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 11:54 AM 0

29. hurrycanger

Posts: 1758; Member since: Dec 01, 2013

For $300, why not just get a Moto G? Its specs cannot compare, but I'm confident to say it can do more! Or you can add $50 for the Nexus 5. The Moto X is pretty good too, and it's currently only $325. :D Now I will have to say that Gionee phones can have very good battery life. I own a BLU Life Play (which is actually the Gionee Elife E3). The battery is 1800 or 1900 mAh, and the display size is 4.7 inch. It gets about 5 hours of screen time after a full day on one single charge. That's pretty good. The camera is so so. The megapixel count can be high, but it gets a lot of noise and stuff. Front camera from these phones get a lot of noise, too. Still, unless you want to take artistic photos with your phone, it shouldn't be a problem. As for the mediatek processor, it's good for basic smartphone needs like calling, texting, web browsing, facebook, youtube, music. Web browsing is just as smooth on MTK comparing to Snapdragon. However, It's not even close to Snapdragon for gaming. Some good apps and games don't even support MTK. Now for the build quality, I can't tell about this phone, but the Gionee Elife E3 is a piece of crap, seriously. It destroyed 2 of my microSD cards. The charger died after 2 months. I can see through the bottom side of the phones and clearly see the light of the capacitive buttons inside, lol. The battery got dented for some reason I can't figure out. (and I've read some people saying the usb port on the phone failed after a month of use or so, which fortunately didn't happen to me). I think if you want to get a phone below $200, you can sure come to these Chinese mediatek phones and give a try. If you're gonna spend more than $200, maybe just get something else. I don't own the Elife S5.5, and I don't know whether it's good or bad. But from my experience (and from the online reviews I've read), I would never get one from Gionee again (including BLU in the US and Micromax in India).

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 12:13 PM 0

30. downphoenix

Posts: 3165; Member since: Jun 19, 2010

given how thin it is, I wouldnt waste your money on it. You would need to put it in a case just for it to be at a comfortable level of thickness. Otherwise it will be too easy to slip from your hands.

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 2:42 PM 0

31. IndianTiger

Posts: 3; Member since: May 28, 2014

Dude, you can blindly buy this. I'm sure your cousin will be surprised for sure. This is really very good phone in this budget. You can compare this with leading brands. You won't get this many features in this price range. The clarity is really stunning. The look is too good. My colleagues are surprised to see this mobile when I bought this couple of weeks ago. You can go for this..!!

posted on May 28, 2014, 11:42 PM 0

32. ryanlockovich

Posts: 27; Member since: Jul 17, 2014

I don't own one but I heard the mediatek processors aren't that great. I'd go for a snapdragon processor.

posted on Aug 21, 2014, 12:46 AM 0

2. pwnarena

Posts: 1129; Member since: Feb 15, 2013

isn't gionee indian?

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 3:06 AM 0

5. eisenbricher

Posts: 973; Member since: Aug 09, 2012

lol no, they are Chinese.

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 3:09 AM 1

7. nvrhde

Posts: 77; Member since: Nov 10, 2012

Edited

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 3:14 AM 0

8. X.E.R.O. unregistered

No, its Chinese. I Googled it.

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 3:14 AM 1

13. xperiaDROID

Posts: 5629; Member since: Mar 08, 2013

No, Gionee is Chinese, their Chinese name is called "金立" (Jin Li).

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 3:32 AM 1

17. X.E.R.O. unregistered

which means "Golden Stand"...whatever that means.

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 4:11 AM 1

3. amansingal14

Posts: 309; Member since: Sep 08, 2012

Guys, congos, you just got a smart razer which can trim your beard and make calls at the same time, just for $370. Even better, this thing runs on a quad core processor and boots Android.

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 3:06 AM 2

4. X.E.R.O. unregistered

I'm impressed, China upping their game.

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 3:08 AM 1

6. Akfred

Posts: 76; Member since: Nov 08, 2012

Some Chinese android phone are mare, but this one Seem promising. I own one Chinese brand (Tecno) Battery life is total rubbish, lags everywhere.

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 3:11 AM 1

14. xperiaDROID

Posts: 5629; Member since: Mar 08, 2013

Not all Chinese phones are reliable, those I'm talking about are from the no name companies. The reliable ones are from Huawei, ZTE, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, I don't know about Gionee but their phones look promising.

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 3:36 AM 0

22. aditya.k

Posts: 496; Member since: Mar 10, 2013

Gionee surely are a good brand. Just take a look at their reviews on flipkart and you'll know it.

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 6:48 AM 0

24. MATOZ

Posts: 74; Member since: Aug 10, 2011

By the way you missed: Motorola (Lenovo) thats gonna be a Chinese company... hehe.

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 7:02 AM 0

21. Cyberchum

Posts: 1025; Member since: Oct 24, 2012

Which Tecno model? Some people buy a low end product but still expects it to perform like a high end one. They'll keep on installing RAM hogging softwares that run all the time and still expects no lag I've seen that a lot with some of my pals.