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Review: Gionee S6 Pro is a Good Device Competing with Better Ones

Is Gionee S6 Pro a better buy than Xiaomi Mi 5 and the One Plus 3? What about the value for money? Read the review.

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Trust Gionee to grab attention with a few clever additions. Their last few smartphones stand testimony to this – the Gionee Marathon had super stand-by owing to a 6,020 mAh battery. Then there’s the recently released Gionee S6 S with a selfie flash.

But the Gionee S6 Pro, priced at Rs 23,999, is a no-fuss smartphone. It looks like any regular smartphone nowadays. So does it offer something to hold your attention? Just scroll further to find out.

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Snapshot

Pros:

  • Metallic build. Premium look
  • Full HD crisp display
  • 4GB RAM. Fast performance
  • Good fingerprint sensor
  • Decent camera

Cons:

  • Finishing slightly off the mark
  • Average battery life

What’s Good?

The Gionee S6 Pro is a "97% metallic" phone, as Gionee claims. It looks quite robust and fits perfectly in the palm owing to a curved back panel. The phone has antenna lines along the top and bottom of the back panel, as seen on the iPhone 6.

Is Gionee S6 Pro a better buy than Xiaomi Mi 5 and the One Plus 3? What about the value for money? Read the review.
The phone has visible antenna lines on the back panel, as seen on Apple iPhone 6 and 6S. (Photo: Shiv Kumar Maurya/The Quint)

The ‘Pro’ is also suffixed for a reason. The 4G VoLTE-enabled smartphone has 4GB RAM paired with an octa-core 1.8GHz MediaTek processor. When you get so much power in your hands, you’re naturally going to download some high-end games. But fret not, the 64 GB of space on-board shall take care of it. It’s further expandable to 128 GB. It runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow with a custom UI, Amigo, overlaid.

Is Gionee S6 Pro a better buy than Xiaomi Mi 5 and the One Plus 3? What about the value for money? Read the review.
The phone uses a USB Type-C port to connect to the charger, and has dual speakers which are loud enough. (Photo: Shiv Kumar Maurya/The Quint)

The smartphone has a fingerprint scanner which also doubles up as a home button. It needs a bit of getting used to though, since it’s quite thin and hence only registers a small patch of your skin. The scanner also has an ‘edge bar’ which activates on gesture-based actions on the fingerprint scanner. For example, if you slide your finger from the left edge, a quick navigation menu pops up.

Is Gionee S6 Pro a better buy than Xiaomi Mi 5 and the One Plus 3? What about the value for money? Read the review.
And yes, it has a headphone jack too. It’s not that difficult, eh, Apple? (Photo: Shiv Kumar Maurya/The Quint)

Another area where the Gionee S6 Pro is certainly a worthy competitor in this segment is the camera. Housing a 13-megapixel camera at the back and an 8-megapixel shooter at the front, it clicks quite vivid and detailed shots. But beyond the usual are the add-ons, which come in the default camera options. There are different modes for camera usage. It has a ‘text-edit’ mode also, wherein you can edit the text in a photo clicked by the phone. In our usage, it worked quite well for most of the English fonts.

Is Gionee S6 Pro a better buy than Xiaomi Mi 5 and the One Plus 3? What about the value for money? Read the review.
A sample photograph taken in auto mode. (Photo: Shiv Kumar Maurya/The Quint)
Is Gionee S6 Pro a better buy than Xiaomi Mi 5 and the One Plus 3? What about the value for money? Read the review.
A sample picture in regular mode. (Photo: Shiv Kumar Maurya/The Quint)
Is Gionee S6 Pro a better buy than Xiaomi Mi 5 and the One Plus 3? What about the value for money? Read the review.
As the light dips, noise creeps into the photograph, giving it all a very hazy effect. (Photo: Shiv Kumar Maurya/The Quint)

And all of it appears on a clean 5.5-inch Full HD display. It has been optimised for virtual reality too.

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What’s Bad?

Battery drain was one of the serious issues crippling the smartphone we reviewed. The 3,130 mAh battery drained quite fast. It will have you looking for a charger after six-seven hours if you’re an active user.

Is Gionee S6 Pro a better buy than Xiaomi Mi 5 and the One Plus 3? What about the value for money? Read the review.
The phone’s quite thin and manages to fit in the palm quite easily. (Photo: Shiv Kumar Maurya/The Quint)

The build quality also got us concerned because the blue lining on the chamfered edges came off after carrying it in pocket just a few times. Also, the device got really hot while charging, or even when using the camera for an extended time. There’s a lot of ‘handle with care’ written all over there.

Is Gionee S6 Pro a better buy than Xiaomi Mi 5 and the One Plus 3? What about the value for money? Read the review.
The lining on the chamfered edges came off after a week’s use. (Photo: Aaqib Raza Khan/The Quint)
Is Gionee S6 Pro a better buy than Xiaomi Mi 5 and the One Plus 3? What about the value for money? Read the review.
The corners were the worst hit. (Photo: Aaqib Raza Khan/The Quint)
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Why Buy It?

The Gionee S6 Pro holds out a good proposition if you consider the performance it brings to the table. But the problem? The table has other phones too, such as Xiaomi Mi 5 or LeEco Max 2, in a similar price range. If the Gionee S6 Pro impressed you with its performance but you wish for more bang for your buck, do check out the One Plus 3.

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