Look and feel
Body is a single block of plastic, which in our case was a very glossy black. The plastic has an interesting granite texture, but the surface is totally flat and is almost too smooth to get a grip on. Above the screen, you'll see only a small earpiece and front camera lens. The notification LED and sensors are well hidden.
Everything else is fairly standard: there's a volume rocker on the right edge, headset jack on top, USB port on the bottom, and SIM card tray on the left.
Features and software
The processor is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, running at up to 2.2GHz. The screen is crisp and bright, thanks to the full-HD resolution at 5.5 inches. It is highly reflective and gets washed out a bit in sunlight unless you really raise the brightness level. Wireless is covered with Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, Wi-Fi and GPS. The battery weighs in at a hefty 2,500mAh.
The E7 is a single-SIM phone with 3G but not LTE support. That and the lack of expandable storage are the only things missing from the feature list, but considering the state of LTE in India, the 32GB variant is still highly competitive with other manufacturers' top offerings. The E7 runs Android 4.2.2.
From the lock screen, you can swipe left to show shortcuts to the camera, voice recorder, torch and "FakeCall" apps, which are all pretty handy. Tapping the FakeCall icon makes your phone ring after 15 seconds, with a totally genuine-looking caller ID screen (which shows a name you can set in advance). If you pick up this fake call, there's even a prerecorded woman's voice saying "Hi, can you send me the file as soon as possible, please".
Swiping up instead unlocks the phone, and the icon grid just slides into view. There's a lot of wasted space, and between the weather widget on top and dock on the bottom, there's only space for 12 icons. The dock isn't visually distinct, so it's odd to see those four icons stay put while the rest slide around when you scroll between pages. You can also swipe down from any point on the icon grid to lock the phone again.
UC Browser is the default web browser, replacing Android's default option. Charm Cam offers a number of filters and effects which aren't of very high quality, but are fun enough to use. GioneeXender lets you create Wi-Fi mesh networks to exchange files between devices. NQ security claims to optimise your device, scan news apps and downloads, hide files and call records from spying eyes, and back up contacts.
Kingsoft Office is
a fairly capable app for viewing, sharing and creating documents in the
popular MS Office formats. WeChat, BBM, Facebook and Twitter are
preloaded for your various social needs, as are six rather low-quality
games. Many of the apps have poorly translated English labels and
options, especially a trio of utilities called Phone Accelerator, Power
Manager and Traffic Assistant.Camera
E7's has 16-megapixel camera.
Video recording was much the same, with great quality and the ability to dramatically shift focus with a tap anywhere on screen. The E7 defaults to 720p, though 1080p is available in the settings menu. There's also an anti-shake option, though Gionee hasn't mentioned what kind of image stabilisation is at play. You can only zoom in and out by pinching with two fingers on screen, so that's bound to make the phone shake.
The front camera is also pretty impressive, though you don't get the same sort of deep focus ability, and video recording tops out at 720p. 8 megapixels is far better than most cameras offer on their front cameras, so those who love taking selfies will be more than happy.
Verdict
There's a lot to like about the Gionee E7. It has a fantastic camera, great screen, top-end performance, and a battery that didn't let us down. The price is also quite unbelievably low - so low, in fact, that we have no problem recommending the more powerful 32GB variant over the base 16GB one.
Gionee Elife E7 costs Rs.26999
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