Just like any other Chinese smartphone

The Gionee S6 has a long way to go to make it to the top

The Chinese-manufactured smartphone segment in India is a heavily crowded space with the likes of Xiaomi, LeEco, Oppo, Vivo and Gionee battling neck to neck to achieve the numero uno spot in terms of market share.

The latest International Data Corporation (IDC) report reveals a change, with Vivo and Oppo making it to the top five smartphone vendors for the first time, based on the number of units they shipped.

But for Gionee, the journey to the top is far from over. Its ambitious S6, priced at Rs 19,999, is pitted against the Oppo R7 Lite, but does it have what it takes to win the race? Let us find out.

Gionee, like any other Chinese model does not have a stand-out identity of its own like a Moto X Turbo edition or an Asus Zenfone as it has startling similarities to other Chinese models. Keeping that aside, it has done a pretty decent job with the unibody aluminium build and the rose gold colour adds to the phone's looks. It is comfortable to hold and the button placement enables you to use it with one hand easily.

The phone has been designed keeping in mind the aesthetic appeal of the present generation. In terms of hardware, the model weighs just 148 g and can easily slide into your pocket. It boasts of a 13-megapixel (MP) rear camera with LED flash and a 5MP front camera. A 5.5-inch 720p high-definition AMOLED display coupled with a Gorilla Glass 3 for protection is sure to give you a good movie watching experience.

The camera performance is impressive as pictures clicked in daylight show good clarity and colours. However, low-light shots aren't that great as certain amount of noise slithers into the picture, but overall quality is acceptable. A range of shooting features such as the professional mode, ultra-pixel mode and a barcode scanner adds on to the list of your options. The non-removable 3,150 mAh battery lasts for more than a day when put to real world usage.

The volume rocker and power buttons are placed on the right edge and the left side consists of the hybrid microSD and microSIM card slot. It is a dual-SIM smartphone, but, only one SIM card can be used along with a microSD card. The speaker vents and USB Type-C port are housed at the bottom while the 3.5mm earphone jack is placed on the top edge.

The model comes with an octa-core processor running at 1.3 GHz; it is the MediaTek MT6753T SoC processor, which is paired with 3GB of RAM. If one asks me, this is surely not the most powerful processor in this price range, because phones half its price also come with such features.

The phone has 32GB onboard storage, which can be expanded using microSD cards up to 128GB. It also hosts a number of other features such as, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, USB OTG, FM radio and Wi-Fi Direct. The phone supports 4G LTE on Band40 as well as VoLTE, so one can use it with the numerous service providers slated to come out with their 4G services later this year.

In sum, the Gionee S6, at Rs 19,999, fails to pack a punch when compared other phones in its league.

SPECS
Price: Rs 19,999
Screen: 5.5-inch, AMOLED
Weight: 148 g
OS: Android 5.1
Battery: 3,150 mAh