Gionee S6, a device that sports a full metal build and a sleek profile finally got into my hands for a review, and I was not going to let it go easy. The phone features a 5.5-inch display, just the right size for me to use a device. Here’s a full review of the Gionee S6 after using it for over a week now as my secondary device.
Gionee S6 Full Specs
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Gionee S6 Hands-on Overview, India Price, Features, Comparison[Video]
What are Usage Reviews, Tests and Opinions?
This review is based on our quick tests and usage did with the phone, we try to push the device to its limits and find out the results which will matter if you plan to buy this phone. We hope this review helps you to get your queries answered about the device.
[stbpro id=”info”]Also Read: MWC 2016: Gionee S8 with 3D Touch and Dual WhatsApp Support Launched for 449 Euros[/stbpro]
Performance
The Gionee S6 is powered by a MediaTek MT6753 processor coupled with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. On the performance side of things, this device did not stutter during any task that I threw at it. I was constantly using social media apps on this phone, browsing the internet on Chrome, taking pictures and playing games like Dead Trigger 2 and Asphalt 8. While doing any of these tasks, I did not feel that the phone is slowing down or anything.
App Launch Speed
The app launch speed on the Gionee S6 was fast or rather blazing fast. As soon as I touched on an app, it would launch without any delay whatsoever. Even when there were a few apps open in the background, the apps would launch without any issue.
Multitasking and RAM Management
RAM Management on the Gionee S6 is pretty good. When you first boot up the device, you get around 2.1GB of free RAM out of the 3GB RAM. Even while using multiple apps together, the apps did not need to be reloaded as you’d have expected. The phone kept the recently used apps in memory almost all the time.
Scrolling Speed
For testing the scrolling speed on a web page, I loaded up the GadgetsToUse homepage itself and then scrolled through to the end. The scrolling was smooth and quick. There was no stutter in scrolling on the website.
Heating
While using the device, the device did not heat up to anything major. It did heat up occasionally when gaming for a really long period of 30 minutes, but it still did not get uncomfortable to hold.
Benchmark Scores
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Camera
The Gionee S6 features a 13-megapixel primary camera and a 5-megapixel secondary camera. In a nutshell, the phone features a decent camera that works well even in low-lighting scenarios. The pictures taken with the device, either with the primary rear camera or with the secondary front camera came out to be beautiful. I have already covered a full dedicated camera review for the Gionee S6, and if you’re interested to know more about the camera, head over to that review.
Camera UI
The Camera UI on the Gionee S6 is also pretty simple and clean. It is laid out well, with the ability to access all the options and features of the camera with some simple taps here and there. Inside the camera app, you get various options to choose the mode or the scene you want while taking a picture.
Day Light Photo Quality
Low Light Photo Quality
Selfie Photo Quality
Gionee S6 Camera Samples
Video Quality
The Gionee S6 can record videos up to 1080p using the primary camera and up to 720p using the secondary camera. The video quality from both the cameras is outstanding and even the voice quality that the videos record is good. The noise cancellation on the device does work sometimes only though when recording videos.
Battery Performance
The battery on the Gionee S6 is a huge 3150mAh non-user replaceable enclosed one. While using the phone for over a week, the phone easily lasted me a full day’s of usage and still had enough battery left to get me through half of the next day. I’d end up charging the phone once in 2 days only.
Charging Time
The charging on the Gionee S6, even though it does not support Quick Charging, was surprisingly fast. I wouldn’t say that it was Quick Charge fast, but it definitely was fast. I could get the phone to over 60% charge in less than an hour with the supplied 10W USB Charger and the USB Type-C cable.
Looks and Design
The Gionee S6 features an all metal build with a premium feel in the hand. The front of the phone features a 5.5-inch full HD display along with a 5-megapixel camera up top. At the bottom, you’ll find the touch capacitive buttons. On the back of the phone, you’ll find the Gionee branding, along with the 13-megapixel camera and LED Flash and a secondary microphone for noise cancellation. On the bottom of the phone, you’ll find the USB Type-C port along with the speaker grilles. On the right side, you’ll find the volume rocker and the power button and on the top, you’ll find the 3.5mm headphone jack. The left edge of the phone houses the SIM card tray.
Gionee S6 Photo Gallery
Quality of Material
The quality of the material used for building the device is great. It feels premium and feels really good to hold in the hand. This is because of the all-metal build of the smartphone.
Ergonomics
The size of the phone is something that might be too big for some people. I compared the device with my Nexus 6, which sports a 5.96-inch display and they both have nearly the same height, but the Gionee S6 is a bit less wide when compared to that phone. Overall, if you have big hands, it will fit in with no problem at all but for people with shorter hands, you might want to either get a case to get you a good grip on the phone or look for a smaller phone.
Display Clarity, Colors and Viewing Angles
The display on the Gionee S6 is an AMOLED display and just because of that, the display clarity, colors and viewing angles are all great. Color reproduction on the phone was good, and even when viewed at extreme angles, the display was visible.
Outdoor Visibility (Full Brightness)
The brightness of the Gionee S6 is pretty good when it comes to outdoor visibility. I put the phone on full brightness and took it outside to test in the sunlight. The display was still very much visible without any problem.
Custom User Interface
The Gionee S6 comes with Gionee’s own User Interface, called the Amigo UI. The device runs Amigo UI v 3.1 based on Android Lollipop 5.1. The user interface is just like we have seen on previous Gionee phones. The phone does not feature an app drawer, and everything is just placed on the home screen. Apart from that, you can access the quick settings toggle by sliding from the bottom of the screen from any app on the phone.
The icons of the apps are generally given a rounded-square shape, but some of the system apps have a circular icon, without any overlay to make them into similar looking icons. This is something that troubled me because when I’m using a smartphone, I’d like to see consistency all around the phone for a better user experience.
Sound Quality
The sound coming from the speakers on the Gionee S6 is decently loud and clear. Although the phone has 2 speaker grilles, only one of them is the speaker. It would have been good to see a stereo speaker on the device but alas, we are left with a single speaker only.
Call Quality
Daily when using the phone, I would be on a call for around 2 hours at least and I was using a Vodafone India SIM card with this device. I could hear the person on the other end clearly almost all the time. Sometimes I wasn’t able to hear but disconnecting the call and reconnecting fixed that, hence I suspect a problem with the Vodafone network in my area.
The person on the other end of the call said that my voice was echoing sometimes randomly, and that was not fixed when reconnecting the call. Other than that, most of my calling experience with the phone was great.
Gaming Performance
While testing for the gaming performance of this device, I played various titles including Dead Trigger 2, Modern Combat 5 and Asphalt 8. While playing Asphalt 8, I saw a few minor hiccups for the phone here and there, but other than that all the games ran smoothly on the phone. This performance is achieved with the 3GB of RAM coupled with the 1.3GHz Octa-Core processor.
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Game Lag & Heating
While playing games for a short while, the phone did not heat up at all, but when my gaming sessions lasted as long as 30 minutes at a stretch, I could feel the phone heat up. Even though the phone did heat up, the phone was still not uncomfortable to hold.
Verdict
The Gionee S6 is a great device, no doubt. It is priced at INR 20,000 approximately and in my opinion, it is able to justify this price tag easily. The user experience when using the device is great, the performance when playing games is great and even the camera is good. There was not much that disappointed me about this phone other than the fact that it acted weird on some of my calls and minute heating when playing games for a long period of time.
