Tag: Gionee

Gionee Elife S5.5-The Final part of review-Is the software part same impressive?

1. Gionee Elife S5.5 – Time to move beyond biases and stereotypes

When you are reviewing an entirely new product about which you never knew anything before, nor you would have reviewed any sister product of it to understand part of things, then it becomes absolute necessary to give it undivided attention and comparatively longer period of use to understand the bottlenecks & possible issues that may start nagging over time. Because such issues can never been checked during two three weeks period as product remains comparatively new.

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I should thank Gionee on this part that they allowed me to retain the unit for a longer while to understand it and to put it in real world use (I kind of forgotten that it’s a review unit and sure gonna miss it hard as it became part of life).

I remember the time when I was to review a keypad phone while my own phones been all touch phones. During entire period of review, I restricted myself to use the touch phone to feel the essence of living with that particular keypad phone. Same was the right thing to do when it was about an entirely new brand.

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So how did Gionee Elife S5.5, which is sure a marvel on hardware front and head turner wherever I go, fared on software front? Did it performed at par with iPhone 5S or Nexus 4 which I had? Does it produce images worthy of 13MP camera? Does the battery sails through day? Does the glassy build survives in long run?

A number of questions which I intend to answer in the rest part of blog….

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Gionee Elife S5.5 – Time to move beyond biases and stereotypes

Yes! Its again been long, since when I wrote last time, but I hope to make it up again with a detailed review of the product, about which I talked out in last blog post, the slimmest phone in the world right now, Gionee Elife S5.5. Slimness is obvious introduction, but trust me, this review would make you learn really a lot about the product and slimness would be just a little part of that.

Let’s know the brand first….

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Brand Gionee: Preface

If we look at landscape of phones or more precisely smartphones, then sometimes it looks literally unbelievable that what has happened within less than a decade. We seen how less relevant conventional calls and messaging have gone in last decade, we seen how outdated non-touch phones became in a short period of time and we seen once towering personality of phones, the Nokia, going out from even top three manufacturers from once 80% market share. Same happened around prices of smartphones,  which risen up with unbelievable rise in smartphone specs and crossed even cost\ capabilities of desktops even.

In high priced game of HTC, Samsung, Apple etc, players like Micromax, Karbonn, Xolo etc also tried their bit, but even if some of their products succeeded a bit or offered a valid alternative, the difference between premium products and their products was always visible even by single look at product. But then, Gionee entered into the market.  Trust me, you need to read further and see this product in action to know why I feel a strong endorsement for this particular product. It definitely helped me in enlightening myself about the new players, the bright future ahead and I expect it would leave the same effect on you as well, that never write anything off, the landscape has changed in past and can change again.

Before starting the review, one should have a look at my earlier two posts 1 & 2 to have an idea about the company and why it galvanizes hope even in early interactions. This is a company, who entered in a market where “china” was literally synonym with duplicate, mediocre, unreliable etc (Might not be true for all in reality but the common perception) and rather than bending own ways to handle the market perception like many other competitors, decided to take it heads upon over itself to change the entire landscape.

Be it kind of products finishing/ logo etc, be it bold & unprecedented market strategies, be it kind of blogger interactions, be in unique Tier 1 retail relations, Gionee seems to be combining all the good parts of their competitors like Nokia, Apple, Samsung and Huawei into one and its definitely seem to be getting it right till now at least. 

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A visit to Goa via GioneeSlimFest – Day Two – World’s Slimmest Mobile Phone Launched

It might have been just few hours of landing on the land of beaches, the royal treatment had made us forget about the real purpose of the event that was the launch of the world’s slimmest mobile phone. Trust me from hospitality to dinner\ lunches\ breakfasts to raw energy to the aura, we had seen nothing in slim format till that moment. Everything was that fat and royal.

We had already taken breakfasts so it was time to join the hall for the launch event.

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As the invited guests were in two categories, media and retailers, so we were given the badges accordingly and also given pedometers to signify the health conscious slim model. The sitting arrangements also placed the bloggers and media guys in the front seats while retailers were given a backseat.

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We played around the pedometer a little as well and @Kalpik came out as a winner who was able to reset the pedometer successfully while most of us been struggling with that part.

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A visit to Goa via GioneeSlimFest – Day Two – The morning at beach

After a tiring first day which was spent mostly in journey and then in a charged evening\ night, majority of us couldn’t think of anything else than our cozy decorated beds in Five Star AC rooms of Grand Hyatt with magical dim lighting, but same wasn’t case for some “night walkers”, which I came to know at next day. So some of us had a better time than me while I rather chosen to enjoy sleep 😦

In the morning, when alarms started buzzing by 0600 hrs, I tried to give up the sleep and after a while contacted @NikhilPai, @Kalpik and @gauravshukla if they awake and ready to run to beach. Apparently @Gauravh1 and @NikhilPai happened to be early than me.

Beach being on west of the hotel and sun rays coming from the hotel end to sea mixed with foggy weather of the morning, this wasn’t the best of the view that beach could have offered but still it was enough for a great morning.

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A visit to Goa via GioneeSlimFest – Day One – The celebration night

Time to resume from where I left in last post….

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First of all, I was needed to dress up with the traditional Goa style shirts as was written in the instructions card which given to us at the reception. Obviously it was for all to unify all 1000 guests into one and turn it into some theme party. Later I come to know about the context behind the party which wasn’t related to slimmest Smartphone in the world at all, yet possibly most important of entire trip for some of us who been first timer with the brand.

Let’s talk of some pretext… this event wasn’t planned for bloggers and media alone, it wasn’t about the launch of World’s slimmest phone alone but it was about the celebration for the company reaching to a 500 cr mark (unable to verify the claim from authentic sources though) and also to announce the plans for the next big milestone. Gionee had been spending big time for their brand positioning since a while and this event along with unmatched energy of the product leadership team was sure enough for inspiring huge confidence in team of retailers from all across India.

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A visit to Goa via GioneeSlimFest – Day one – Flying to Goa

Hi friends, its been a while since I wrote the last blog post, well aware that how much you missed me, but hopefully would be posting at least two three posts in the context of above title and would try to make you live the moments with me.

It was middle of the month, a busy and hard time at office, kind of election season for we working professionals as well, considering the appraisal time around the corner, when a DM hit me from @Honeytech asking for contact info to invite for World’s Slimmest Phone Launch in Goa.

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Surprised? Not really as it wasn’t first invite to me for phone launches, but all those launches happened to be of Nokia ones and specially not in Goa, so it was definitely special. There been plans many a times, but I never happened to be in Goa and when this was coming as an opportunity then I was to check if dates free or not. Fortunately, I was able to manage the dates so replied back in positive.

After receiving the official invite on mail, second ray of thoughts hit me.

Gionee?? Yeah, heard of it when they released their E6 and later on knew a little about their 16/8 MP camera phone E7, but not really that familiar of the brand. Never happened to read the reviews in details or knew much about the company itself. Honestly put, never had hands on over any single of their product.

So, is Gionee really inviting me? Not only me, but number of other bloggers as well. Almost all important names I knew about been approached. I was really thinking now that what they are up to. Before even reaching to the venue, I was much more curious about the product than I would have been about any other product in recent past. Not really bad for a company to get someone curious even before looking at the product itself.

This was unprecedented to me. Last I can recall of any event of such size would have been the campaign in which Nokia had painted some of the flights in Lumia colors, but still that didn’t involved people close to these numbers. Man! it was roughly 35-50k INR expense per head by the company. Definitely a BANG!!!

I would come to product itself later on in some other post and also my thoughts about the company prospects for future, but rest of the post would continue in monologue mode with a lot of pictures covering the experience of Delhi to Goa and my critic comments on the same.

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