Food that looks good whets your appetite. The same is true for mobile phones. Good looks and design are of paramount importance when choosing a smartphone. The performance of the handset matters only if the design is good. Gionee is one of the few players to have mastered the concept of making beautiful looking smartphones, packed with high performance features.
With 89 per cent metal body and weighing 147 gm, the Gionee S6 looks premium and isn't heavy to hold. At 6.9-mm thickness, it is easy to grip. It has a flat back with curved edges with the necessary buttons and ports. There is a USB Type C port at the bottom edge with speaker grills on the sides. The 5.5-inch display with HD resolution looks saturated, but the super AMOLED display makes colours look vibrant. It offers good viewing angles and has Gorilla Glass 3 protection. Gionee has added what seems to be the standard set of specifications today - a 1.3 GHz octa core MediaTek T6753T processor, paired with 3 GB RAM and 32 GB of internal storage. There is also a dual SIM slot of which the secondary slot can either be used for a SIM card or a memory card of upto 128 GB.
The S6, powered by Amigo UI based on the Android Lollipop operating system, seems to be inspired by iOS - it has no app launcher and the apps are placed on the homescreen. The overall operations are smooth with the device managing to score 38,216 points on the AnTuTu benchmark. There wasn't any lag while playing games or streaming YouTube videos, but the metal body started heating a bit after a few minutes.
Gionee has also loaded a HotKnot feature that allows data exchange when the screen touches another device. The 13-MP rear camera complements the performance. It locks focus quickly and captures good images during daylight. However, it struggles in low-light imaging with visible noise. The overall camera app is neat with a host of options including professional mode, take anytime, magic focus, HDR, smartscene, Barcode scanner and more. The battery back-up was impressive; the 3,150-mAh battery lasted a day with heavy use. Another drawback of the Gionee S6 is the lack of fingerprint sensor, which the competition is offering.
