See What People Are Saying About The New Gionee A1 Smartphone

I was astonished with the new  Gionee A1’s large battery and powerful selfie camera, but we wanted to see how other Gionee A1 users were getting on with their device now that they’ve had some time to put it to the test. It turns out owners have plenty to say — both the good and the not so good…

Gionee has brought its A1 Plus as a step-up competition in the Indian smartphone market. To compete with the likes of OnePlus, Honor and others, the Chinese smartphone company has launched the A1 Plus as its first smartphone offering with a dual camera setup. It also took care of another standard trademark of smartphones in this category – the battery. What else does the Gionee A1 Plus offer? Let’s find out.

A lot of owners liked the Gionee A1’s design, which comes with a metal back and a glass finish at the front; a lot of users described it as “premium”. One owner said it does get a bit slippery, but thankfully Gionee offers a case as well as a screen protector in the box.

We also got a lot of positives on the camera and battery, a lot of female users talked about how great the phone was for selfies, and also a lot of guys talked about how you can carry around the phone for a day without charging.

We also had a lot of people online going on and on about how impressive the phone is, not a single issue with performance. Multitasking is on point, no hanging problem, Battery last long with full day backup, Ultrafast charging is awesome, multitasking is 10/10. One user on twitter described the Gionee A1 as “GBAM” we are not sure exactly what that means but we are guessing it’s a positive review.

We found the internal storage of the device to be more than sufficient for our use. It comes with 64GB of internal storage and if in case you would require more, there is an option to expand it to 256GB using an external MicroSD. The Gionee A1 Plus is powered by an Octa-Core MediaTek Helio P25 SoC, backed by a 4GB RAM. The combination makes the smartphone run at an optimal speed. Now the Gionee A1 Plus is not too fast or as fast as the device’s competitors are, yet it delivers a pretty smooth smartphone experience. Gionee has managed to equip the smartphone with enough firepower to make it land in that sweet spot where your smartphone gives you enough confidence to multitask with ease.

Focussing on the camera of the Gionee A1 Plus, the dual camera setup comes as the first in a Gionee device. The dual camera setup neatly hides inside the back panel without any protrusion and houses a 13-megapixel primary lens coupled with a 5-megapixel sensor to add depth-effect to the images. The camera app offers features like Face Beauty mode, Portrait Mode for depth effect, Panorama, Text Recognition, Time-Lapse, Night Mode, Slow Motion recording, smart scan and more. With the plethora of options, the camera greatly expands the ability to do more and more photography fun stuff with it.

It wasn’t all good though we still had some people talking about how all the Gionee smartphones all look like, and how the phone is not budget friendly but even with the criticisms, people who’ve bought the phone have found plenty of reasons to be satisfied with their purchase. Based on some of the reviews we got online and offline, it turns out the A1 is shaping up to be one of Gionee’s best-regarded phones yet.

The battery backup on the Gionee A1 Plus gains extra points for the smartphone’s ‘Ultrafast Charging’ feature. Just like the ‘Dash Charging’ on the OnePlus smartphones, the Gionee A1 Plus can easily refill to more than 30 percent of battery backup within 15-20 minutes.

The smartphone runs the latest Android 7.0 Nougat topped with an Amigo 4.0 skin. A swipe down on the home screen brings the notification panel, while the settings panel is located below and can be brought to front with an upward swipe. The fingerprint scanner is embedded into a push button located below the screen and is quick to respond. The scanner can also be used to initiate an ‘Edge Bar’ by swiping on it in any direction while the screen is unlocked. The Edge Bar essentially works like the one on Samsung Galaxy flagship devices, providing shortcuts to applications on the device.

More impressive than the dual camera at the back is the 20-megapixel selfie shooter at the front of the device. Gionee has always focussed on the selfie capabilities of its smartphones, the Gionee A1 Plus being no exception. The selfie camera carries equally impressive selfie lens that adds Bokeh effect to the selfies.

The Dual SIM functionality and 4G VoLTE support are certainly helpful.

Gionee A1 plus is much bigger as compared to other smartphones, both in size and in weight. So much so that the 226 grams weight of the phone makes it a strict no-no to people who prefer carrying handy smartphones or are looking for single-handed functionality. As for its functionality, the Gionee A1 plus offers a smooth experience and that is that. There is nothing out-of-the-box or different that it has to offer. Over a period of 1 month of using the smartphone, we have occasionally experienced lags and app crashes. Though the fingerprint scanner is fast, there are times when it does not work at all. Repeated attempts at the scanner are denied by the smartphone and then only pattern lock can be used to unlock the smartphone.

If you have the Gionee A1 Smart phone, share your experience with us in the comments. If you haven’t experienced it, visit http://www.gioneeonline.ng/