Gionee A1 review: The mid-segment flagship phone for Rs 20k has most bases covered

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Gionee A1 review: The mid-segment flagship phone for Rs 20k has most bases covered
Gionee A1 review: The mid-segment flagship phone for Rs 20k has most bases covered
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It was at the Mobile World Congress that the Chinese mobile major Gionee revealed its new Series A phones and the first one, Gionee A1, has since been launched this week in India. India is considered a key market for Gionee and that can be understood from the very fact that they have signed up Virat Kohli as their Brand Ambassador. The other popular model advertising the brand is Bollywood star Alia Bhatt. The A1 phone has received mixed reviews after the first look by experts.

Specifications and Features

The customer preference in India appears to favour a 5-5.5inch display screen. Accordingly, the A1 comes with a 5.5inch AMOLED display at a resolution of 1920x1080, which is decent enough and to give the phone the flagship status, the manufacturer has opted for a metal rear panel with the front being adorned with a standard 2.5 D Gorilla Glass. Gionee A1 comes with the fingerprint scanner which stands merged with the Home button and the user experience seems to be smooth in activating the phone’s display, according to reviews (http://www.digit.in/mobile-phones/gionee-a1-first-impressions-india-performance-camera-build-design-34240.html).

Android N with Gionee’s in-house UI

Amigo OS, the Chinese mobile giant’s proprietary software has been provided as the user interface programme over the basic Android Nougat OS the Gionee A1 operates on. There are some special features the UI brings to the user, particularly in accessing some of the apps a bit quicker and more directly. The phone has a decent 4GB RAM and of the 64GB Rom, around 12GB gets taken up by the OS and other essentials leaving the user with around 52GB storage space. There is provision for storage to be expanded up to 256GB.  

Processor and Performance

Gionee A1 sports a 2.0 GHz Octa Core processor and the exact description is MediaTek Helio P10 SoC. Again, the review posted on Digit.in seems to suggest that the actual performance on usage is not too bad to complain about but not so exciting to be celebrated either. Some of the testing parameters, particularly when compared to some of the equivalent models from other phone manufacturers, do throw up poorer numbers for Gionee A1.

13MP Rear Camera and 16MP Selfie Camera in the Front

Gionee had very early in its foray into the Indian market, positioned its phones as “selfie-friendly” devices and the Gionee A1 is no exception. If you have watched the TV commercials with Alia Bhatt, the stress is on the selfies and the main rear camera of 13MP is no pushover either. With an F2.0 aperture, the camera can allow more light to enter, yielding clear and bright pictures. The ability to edit the pictures and make it smoother, whiter or slimmer along with an eye enlarger option, give the user some choices to work on the shots they have taken.

Powerful 4010 mAH Battery

The Gionee A1 comes with a 4010 mAH battery which the company claims, on its website (http://a1.gionee.co.in/), is good enough for two days’ usage on a single charge. The review referred to above on Digit.in however does not seem to fully endorse this, as they have used some stringent usage norms like gaming and music streaming. But the battery is definitely a plus in the overall scheme of things.

On the whole, the Gionee A1 has most things needed for a smartphone in the mid-segment to perform and at a launch price of around Rs. 20,000, it is worth giving it a try.  

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