Gionee S6 Pro review: A decent mid-range offering

Gionee is known for pioneering smartphones with a blend of premium design and a good battery life. Continuing the present S6 design, the company has introduced its new offering dubbed as the S6 Pro that sports enough fuel to keep your smartphone running for a longer time.

Unlike the Marathon series, Gionee’s S series smartphone focuses more on design and performance over battery life. Priced at Rs 23,999, the new S6 Pro comes with a 5.5-inch IPS LCD display powered by a 1.8GHz MediaTek Helio P10 octa-core chipset and paired with 4GB of RAM. It has 64GB of internal storage and runs on Amigo 3.2 OS. It features a 13MP rear camera and an 8MP front facing snapper. Lastly, it has an integrated a fingerprint sensor in the home button for added security and is backed by a 3130mAh battery.

Gionee sure tried to fit in some serious specs under the hood. But is it enough to make the S6 Pro your primary choice? Let’s find out.

Design

The S6 Pro boasts a metallic finish giving it a premium look and feel. The chamfered rim that runs along the edges of the phone is covered with a paint to ensure the edges don’t feel sharp while gripping the device. However, the blue-coloured coating can be peeled-off in order to flaunt the device in its full glory.

The smartphone has a fingerprint sensor that is integrated in the home button on the front panel, which is fairly accurate and unlocks the phone quickly. The home button also doubles as a shortcut button that can be used to launch apps just by swiping left or right. On the rear panel there is a camera that protrudes out followed by the Gionee branding that appears identical to the fingerprint sensor found on several smartphones, which is misleading for the users.

Display

The display on the S6 pro isn’t the brightest or sharpest out there, but it certainly delivers the right balance. Under direct sunlight, the auto brightness works comprehensively to make the text sharper and brighter. On the performance front, we did not find any issues. The UI is smooth and gaming is considerably great. No heating issues either.

Colour reproduction of the display is rich and pictures look crisp. The sunlight legibility is good too, but it doesn’t allow users to switch between warm and cool colour setting. However, users do get the option of a spilt screen mode to run two apps simultaneously.

Camera

Gionee has added a decent set of cameras in the S6 Pro and the sensors do a pretty good job with image in broad daylight. However the low-light photography on the device isn’t as impressive as required. Though the camera app offers HDR modes, the background tend to get overexposed. However, the rear camera manages to capture good wide-angle shots. Here are few shot we took from the device.

Performance

The Gionee S6 Pro has a MediaTek’s Helio P10 MT6755 octa-core processor at its heart clubbed with 4GB of RAM. The device managed to handle most of the tasks with ease and we didn’t notice lag while playing high end games or switching between the apps.

Although the S6 Pro handles most tasks comfortably, but it still lacks the powerful Snapdragon 820 processor offered by its contemporaries such as Xiaomi Mi5 and LeEco LeMax 2. The S6 Pro offers 64GB of internal storage which is expandable up to 128GB. The smartphone is fuelled by a 3130mAh battery that is capable of lasting for a whole day after moderate usage.

Verdict

The Gionee S6 Pro sure is a decent performer that stands its ground amongst the mid range price bracket. But it is hard to recommend this phone over the likes of LeEco LeMax 2 which is priced less than Rs 20,000 and offers a quad HD display with Snapdragon 820 processor, offers free content from YuppTV and Eros Now and delivers a better audio output.

Overall the Gionee S6 Pro is decent bargain for a mid range product. It offers a good display, decent set of cameras and impressive battery life. The Gionee 6S Pro has the potential to be your primary smartphone, if you look beyond the flaws of the smartphone, there are other options available in the similar price bracket.