Gionee has announced two rather interesting devices earlier this year, the Elife E8 and Marathon M5. The former one is the company’s current flagship, it’s a 6-inch phablet with high-end specs made out of metal. The latter one, on the other hand, is a mid-ranger with solid specs and a huge 6,020mAh battery (two 3,010mAh units). That being said, Gionee has actually decided to tease the arrival of the Marathon M5 Plus, and they’ve sent out invitations for their December 21st event yesterday. That being said, the company did not reveal any Marathon M5 Plus specs at the time, but now we have new info to share with you, read on.
A new leak surfaced, and it actually has tons of info in it. We get to see the phone in the flesh, along with its specifications. The Marathon M5 Plus will feature a 5.5-inch 720p (1280 x 720) 2.5D curved display, just like its predecessor, and will ship with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. The device will be powered by MediaTek’s MT6735 64-bit quad-core SoC clocked at 1.3GHz. As you may notice, these specs are actually identical to its predecessor’s. The Marathon M5 Plus will feature an 8-megapixel rear-facing shooter, which is actually a smaller sensor than the one on the Marathon M5 (13-megapixels). The 5-megapixel snapper will be available up front, and a 5,000mAh battery will also be a part of this package. Android 5.1 Lollipop will come pre-installed on this handset, along with Gionee’s Amigo 3.1 UI.
Now, as you can see, this handset actually sports almost identical specifications to its predecessor, aside from a smaller rear-facing camera sensor and a smaller battery. We have to admit that we didn’t expect this, the ‘Plus’ naming was supposed to mean this handset will either be bigger than its predecessor, or that it will sport higher-end specs (preferably both), but that’s not the case here, it even has a smaller battery than the Marathon M5. That being said, the Marathon M5 Plus will sport a fingerprint scanner up front, and will be the first Gionee-branded smartphone to sport a physical home button.