Gionee, one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in China, is officially planning to announce its latest flagship model in India, as the teaser by the company suggests. The Chinese company had made the phone official in its home country four months back in July. The invitations for a new phone launch event based in New Delhi on October 8th by Gionee does not provide any information about the model of the smartphone to be launched. But inside sources from Gionee suggest that the new Gionee Elife E8 is the phone planned to be launched.
The invite reads, ‘Block your date for some GR8 news. A new phone launch and a big entry into e-commerce’. The teaser has enough hints to suggest the launch of a flagship device. Gionee might also be planning to partner with online resellers to exclusively sell the phone through online channels, as seen in the case of other manufacturers like Motorola.
The new flagship device from Gionee is power-packed and doesn’t skimp on any known areas. However, the forte of the device is its 24 MP rear camera and an 8 MP selfie camera. The rear camera features optical image stabilization, and true tone flash. The phone also boasts an ergonomically placed fingerprint sensor below the primary camera, a standard feature in the new flagship devices. The Gionee Elife E8 is powered by 2 GHz MediaTek MT6795 octa-core processor paired with an IMG G620 GPU. It also packs a standard 3 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal memory that can be increased up to 128 GB with the help of microSD card. The display is a 6-inch WQHD Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels, and a pixel density of 490 ppi, which results in a crisp and sharp display on a large screen.
The phone runs a customized version of Android 5.1 Lollipop, which the company fondly calls Amigo 3.1 UI. It brings some added features and customizations. It also packs a massive 3,520 mAh battery and connectivity options like dual sim card slots, and 4G LTE support is also present, proving it to be a tough competitor among the similarly priced flagship devices. This phone is also expected to get the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update soon
The pricing of the device will be the most interesting part of the official announcement, as it decides the success of the device in face of a massive amount of competition from all kinds of devices like the new Nexus series, and the Moto X as well. Gionee Elife E8 is priced at RMB 3,999 which converts to $630, or INR 41,000. It remains to be seen how the device is priced in India. Another interesting announcement could be about Gionee’s involvement in the ‘Make in India’ initiative, which could help reduce costs as well.