Gionee A1

With a starting price at Rs. 9878 available at PayTM, Gionee A1 is available in black, grey and gold with an internal storage of 64GB. Specially designed for selfie lovers, the phone sports a 16MP front camera with a front-facing flash. The Gionee A1 also compares with phones such as the Vivo V5 Plus and the Oppo F3.

The Gionee A1 uses A6000 aircraft-grade material that the company claims is used in making premium cars and planes. The device’s rounded sides and back also adds to its appeal. The front of the phone is primarily glass which reaches the corners of the phone and meets the curve of the metal rim. The phone’s polished back looks, and the body feels sturdy.

The power and volume buttons are on the right, and there is a fingerprint scanner embedded in the home button, with the “Back” and “Recent” buttons on either side of it. The Micro-USB charging port and speaker are on the bottom, while a 3.5mm audio jack is on the top. The front camera is placed on top of the screen which also has an LED flash known as the “Selfie flash”. The Gionee logo is etched in a circle, and it feels like the ideal location for a fingerprint reader. The Gionee name is imprinted at the bottom of the back side as well.

For a phone within this budget, the Gionee A1 features a 5.5 inch full HD display, with good viewing angles and other display qualities such as brightness and vibrant colours, thanks to the AMOLED panel. The 2.5 D curved glass that is used for the front panel possesses the finger sensor/home button by which you can unlock the phone by touching it even in sleep mode. An annoying feature is the lock screen, which displays different wallpapers every time you unlock the phone, and sometimes it also comes with links and ads. As seen in previous versions of Amigo OS, there is a lot of bloatware which is of hardly any use.

On another note, a few features such as Smart Gestures have also been added which allows you to answer calls, click photos and snooze alarms with the help of gestures.

In terms of performance, the Gionee A1 is anything but disappointing since the octa-core processor suffices for most jobs. Out of the 4GB of RAM, we discovered that at any moment, 1.8GB of RAM was always available.

One setback we noticed was that the phone got hot after just 30 minutes of usage, be it for gaming, navigation or talking on the phone. It has even restarted after getting heated up, which isn’t acceptable for a phone at any price point.

The Gionee A1 has a fantastic audio enhancement in terms of volume and clarity from earphones as well as speakers. Even in areas with a poor network, the phone has excellent audio clarity.

The Gionee A1 has a 16MP front camera with an f/2.0 aperture, and the back camera is 13MP with a dual-LED flash. 

The front camera displays great selfies with impressive sharpness and detailing. The front camera has a selfie flash which is quite useful as it stays on like a torch so you can see the effect before you click your selfie. Taking a selfie in low light might be an issue since the front camera maximises the screen brightness which casts an unnatural glow on your face.

The rear camera works pretty well too. It is fast and good at taking difficult macro shots in focus. The images taken during the day takes on natural colours, and other aspects are well balanced. The rear camera faces a few issues in low light, where the images have visible grain and little sharpness.

The battery performance is one of the biggest highlights of this phone. It comes with a non-removable 4010mAh battery, and the phone can charge to a 100 per cent in less than 2 hours. During a video loop test, the battery life lasted for roughly around 12 hours and 30 minutes, which was quite impressive. With multiple apps left open in the background, the battery still lasted for over 34 hours.

In this mid-range price segment, the two big selling points of Gionee A1 are the battery life and the camera quality. However, the phone’s heating problem is one of the biggest setbacks and is hard to ignore. The phone also runs on Android Nougat, which is a bonus in itself and along with purchasing the phone, you can also get a two-year warranty paired with a set of JBL headphones. The Gionee A1 is also competing with phones such as the Moto M and Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime in this price range.