Gionee is all set to launch its latest flagship phone- the Gionee A1 Plus in the Indian market very soon. The Gionee A1 Plus is the bigger variant of the Gionee A1 launched in India back in March 2017 at Rs. 19,999. Both the Gionee A1 and A1 Plus are aimed at power users and selfie lovers.
The Gionee A1 Plus, as the name itself, suggests comes with a powerful chipset, dual rear cameras, larger megapixel front camera and battery, and a bigger display than the Gionee A1. The A1 Plus will be announced some time by the end of this month. But before, here are our first impressions of the product.
The Gionee A1 Plus looks identical to the Gionee A1 from the front, but the display is bigger at 6-inches. Gionee has increased the display size but kept the screen resolution same at 1080x1920 pixels (Full HD) with a pixel density of 367 PPI. Furthermore, Gionee has changed the display type as well. The A1 has an AMOLED display, while the A1 Plus comes with an IPS LCD screen. That said, the A1 Plus doesn't offer the excellent sunlight legibility as the Gionee A1, which is a letdown.
The Gionee A1 Plus comes with a fingerprint scanner integrated into its home button, which is quick in unlocking the smartphone. And it's an active scanner, which unlocks the device even when the screen is turned off.
Internally, the A1 Plus packs a much better MediaTek Helio P25 than the Helio P10 chipset seen on the Gionee A1. The Helio P25 is an octa-core chip with four Cortex A53 cores clocked at 2.5GHz and other four Cortex A53 cores clocked at 1.4GHz. The GPU used in the device is the Mali-T880MP2. The chipset is mated with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage with support for storage expansion via a hybrid microSD card slot.
While the chipset seems to be powerful at least on paper, the real life scenarios have shown some other things. The device was not able to handle the Marvel Future Fight- a graphic heavy game. However, in my brief time, the device blew out all the basic operations such as calls, messaging, downloading apps, or using the camera app, etc.
The highlight of the Gionee A1 Plus is its cameras. The smartphone comes with a dual camera setup at the back and is Gionee's first smartphone in India to feature dual lens at the back. There are two cameras of 13MP and 5MP, where the former captures RGB shots, while the latter captures additional depth in the images for the bokeh effect.
The camera app also offers several modes including the Portrait mode. Up front, the smartphone comes with a powerful 20MP camera with f/2.0 aperture and 1/2.8-inch sensor. Gionee has added a front-facing flash as well to add more light to the images. We will test out the cameras in the A1 Plus in coming days and will post a detailed analysis in our full review of the product.
The A1 Plus is a treat for multimedia enthusiasts who love to watch content on their phones. It has two down facing stereo speakers, which delivers stellar sound. The loudspeaker of the A1 Plus is the best one I have ever heard of a smartphone.
The phone has connectivity options such as 4G LTE, VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac, Bluetooth, GPS. Sadly, the phone comes with a micro USB port, rather than the USB Type-C port. The A1 Plus runs on Android 7.0 Nougat based Amigo UI 4.0.
One more key aspect of the A1 Plus is the massive 4550mAh battery, which promises to deliver two days of battery with a single charge. These claims are likely to be true because when I opened the device, there was a charge of 59 percent. And I have been using the device constantly without a SIM card installed for more than one and half day and the device still got 14 percent battery left. Furthermore, the A1 Plus comes with 18W dual-core Ultrafast charge technology, which charges the device from zero to 100 percent in two hours.
Gionee is yet to reveal the pricing of the phone, but it's expected to cost around Rs. 28,000 or even a lower price would be much appreciated. The A1 Plus will be a compelling option in the upper mid-range category with its larger battery, powerful rear and selfie cameras and more importantly, the addition of dual stereo speakers is an appreciated move from the Chinese company.
We will be testing out the product for the next one week and will come up with a final verdict of the device. Do let us know your doubts about the Gionee A1 Plus by the commenting below.
