Gionee Elife E8 Review

Display and Multimedia

Another area where the Elife E8 shines is in this department. As mentioned earlier, it features a 6-inch AMOLED display with Quad HD resolution (2560 x 1440) which is equal to a pixel density of 489ppi. Given the type of display, the screen is sharp, has really vibrant colors with deep blacks, and good viewing angles. It can also handle outdoor brightness really well.

Diving deeper in the display settings will reveal the options for Adaptive brightness with the addition to Economical backlight which automatically adjust to save power. It sounds redundant but we noticed that the screen gets dimmer with Economical backlight on which makes viewing more comfortable when used in dark room.

As for sound quality, the Elife E8’s loudspeaker packs a punch. It’s loud and clear with the right amount of bass. Not to mention, it has DTS audio and supports HiFi when connected to headphones. Overall, the Elife E8 is a multimedia powerhouse for watching videos, viewing photos, and listening to music.

OS, UI, and Apps

Running the software department is Android 5.1 Lollipop with Gionee’s Amigo OS 3.1. It doesn’t use an app drawer as all the apps are displayed right on the home screen. The layout is still the familiar Android but with slight changes. Swiping down from the top would reveal a column of notifications along with a quick button for managing the notifications of apps. Swiping from the bottom down will reveal the Control Center, showing shortcut icons for the WiFi, Bluetooth, Mobile Data, etc.

As for features found inside settings, we have Smart gestures which is really cool as you can lock and unlock your screen or browser your photos with the wave of your hand. There’s a lot to choose from as you can see in the photo below.

Another winning feature of the Elife E8 is the fingerprint scanner. It works as advertised, accurate and quick to recognize prints. It can store up to five fingerprints and allows you to automatically unlock your device when it recognizes your print on the scanner.

When it comes to memory, the Elife E8 has 64GB of onboard storage which you can expand using microSD cards up to 128GB. Out of the box, the system uses 10GB. While the pre-installed apps, which is a lot, by the way, but can be uninstalled (Asphalt Nitro, Bubble Bash Mania, DU Battery Saver, DU Speed Booster, Gionee Xender, Real Football 2014, Spider-Man: Ultimate Power, SwiftKey Keyboard, UC Browser, G Store, Mood Card, WPS Office, Chameleon, WhatsApp, Theme Park), takes about 1.3GB. All in all, you’re left with about 52GB as usable which is still not bad.

Camera

Another strong feature of the Elife E8 is its camera. It has a 24-megapixel sensor with Phase Detection autofocus and f/2.0 aperture. Resulting images are great with lots of details and good colors, especially in bright conditions. Autofocus is fast and the large aperture also helps in producing close up shots with blurred backgrounds.

Performance degrades though when it comes to low-light. Details become smudgy and there’s struggle with the right exposure. The 8-megapixel camera, on the other hand, should satisfy those who are fond of selfies. Take a look at the samples below.

The camera itself is feature-packed. There’s Face beauty, Filter, Night, Professional, Magic Focus (which lets you adjust the focus of the image afterwards), Panorama, HDR, Smart Scene, PicNote, and Ultra Pixel (which takes multiple shots to create one large high-resolution photo).

Another in-camera feature worth mentioning is the Take Anytime which is capable of recording object movement trail and then merge it into one picture, motion blur shooting, and pedestrian removal shooting that lets you remove moving objects like people from your photos.

As for video recording, the Elife E8 supports up to 4K video at 25fps. Like the images, the video quality is good with great contrast, colors, and sharp details. The only downside is that you cannot upload the videos directly to YouTube as the site can’t process the file.

Next Page: Performance and Benchmarks, Battery Life, Conclusion