Gionee launches Marathon 5 and Elife 8 smartphones

Amid much fanfare, Gionee launched its latest smartphones Marathon M5 and Elife E8 in Beijing on Wednesday.

“While everyone looks to provide the cheapest smartphone, we look to provide the best quality at the most reasonable price,” said Gionee’s Chairman Liu Lirong, at the launch event.

While the Marathon M5 targets the problem of low battery life, the Elife E8 aims to tackle the problem of poor picture quality, he added.

The M5 comprises two batteries, with a total capacity of 6,020 mAh, an improvement on the previous model M3, which had 5,000 mAh.

“The battery will last up to four days,” says William Lu, President of the brand. Apart from this, under an ‘extreme’ mode, a system of smart power consumption devised by it, the model can last up to 62 hours on standby mode, even on 5 per cent charge.

The M5, the brand claims, can charge within a short span of time and is also capable of reverse charging: it can be used as a power bank to charge two mobile phones at the same time.

Summing up, he said that “the product stands for endurance, with its super battery pack, fast charging and low power consumption.”

The second model, the E8, took a year to develop its “show-stopper feature”, which the company claims, is its 23.7 mp rear camera with a true-tone flash.

A true-tone flash enables users to manually moderate the flash variant and set it according to the user’s requirements. The E8 is capable of producing photographs of up to 100 megapixel resolution.

Gionee says this is the first android smartphone to offer ‘lossless’ zoom — that is, despite zooming in, a picture would not lose its quality or pixelate.

“With only two steps, as opposed to five in most other smartphones, in two seconds the camera will capture five frames,” said Lu.

The phones will be launched in other markets in the course of time.

(The writer is in Beijing at the invitation of Gionee.)

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