Gionee brings flashy and stylish phones with good design to mind. The smartphone maker made its name with super-slim phones from its Elife series, and now it has a new offering in its S series, called Gionee S6 Pro and priced at ₹23,999.
I am using the Gold version of Gionee S6 Pro along with a VR headset provided by the company. Though there is nothing unique about it, the phone's design has appeal with its great 5.5 inch HD screen. The front of the phone looks a little like Samsung phones and, like them, also has a fingerprint sensor.
The device is powered by an Octacore MediaTek Helios H10 processor with 4 GB of RAM. Even after I installed a couple of graphics-heavy applications, the phone mostly handled the multitasking quite well. One might experience some lag while switching between apps but that would be a rare occurrence and won't hinder the day-to-day experience.
Gionee S6 Pro's software choice is very interesting, with Gionee's Amigo UI 3.2 running on top of Android Marshmallow 6.0. Like most other Chinese phone makers, Gionee has ditched the app drawer. But there are some customisations, such as bunch of pre-installed apps. There is also a quick setting menu that can be pulled out from the bottom.
While there is nothing striking about the software, a more cleaned up version is likely to impress a lot of people. Having said that, there are no major annoyances as well.
The phone camera has a 13 MP Sony sensor with f/2.0 aperture. On most occasions, it takes very good shots though low light shots tend to be grainy. A very powerful flash ably compensates for the lack of light.
The front 8 MP camera does a great job with capturing selfies and comes with a bunch of beautification features to enhance the photo.
Gionee S6 Pro's biggest competition is the OnePlus 3, which is a beautifully made phone with a great processor, a huge RAM, clean software and a good camera. It'd be hard for Gionee to convince people to choose the S6 Pro over this phone. However, the former's offline availability should help with sales. Other contenders in the segment are Moto Z Play and Xiomi Mi 5.
Gionee has released a VR headset worth ₹2,499 along with the phone. It is mostly an evolved version of the Google Cardboard headset, with an intriguing design and build. The plastic body has a front casing for the phone, which is also equipped with a headphone jack to insert in the phone. At the top is a focus control and at the bottom an action button and the volume control.
The headphones are inbuilt into the headset so you don't have to struggle for sound with your existing pair of earphones. Gionee has a special VR app that takes you through the experience of the already installed apps.
Now, there are plenty of VR apps in Gionee's app store called the G Store. Otherwise, you can install the VR-compliant apps from the Play Store as well. The device is great for light VR entertainment, somewhat better than the Cardboard. It will also make an ideal gift for a tech geek.