Gionee Announces World's Thinnest Smartphone
Gionee goes for world's thinnest.
A show like Mobile World Congress is a lot more focused than the likes of CES. While the latter is more of an 'anything goes' kind of affair, MWC is all mobile, so company's have to try harder to stand out. To that end, we are expecting next week to bring a lot of 'firsts,' 'biggests' and 'smallests.' Kicking things off is Chinese company Gionee with what it's claiming is the world's thinnest smartphone.
Measuring in at just 5.5 mm thick, the Elife S5.5 is thinner than the Oppo Finder (6.65 mm) and the Droid Razer (7.1 mm) and almost 2.5 mm thinner than the Elife E6, which measures in at 7.9 mm. The device bumps the current champ, the Vivo X3, off the top spot. That phone measures in at 5.75 mm.
Under the hood, you're looking at a quad-core CPU (1.7 GHz), 2 GB of RAM, a 5-inch display, a 13-megapixel camera in the back, a 5-megapixel camera up front, a 2300 mAh and Android (version not specified) with Gionee's Amigo UI on top. Support for both 3G and LTE is offered via two different models of the phone, with the latter due out in June. The 3G version is already up for pre-order in China, according to Engadget.
We'll have to wait for MWC to get a real idea of how this phone feels as well as specifics on the specs (we don't know what version of Android it runs on, anything about the display other than size, what kind of SoC is in there). We'll also look for specifics on a U.S. launch, as Gionee is apparently planning a launch in 40 countries. Let's hope we're one of them.
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Jane McEntegart is a writer, editor, and marketing communications professional with 17 years of experience in the technology industry. She has written about a wide range of technology topics, including smartphones, tablets, and game consoles. Her articles have been published in Tom's Guide, Tom's Hardware, MobileSyrup, and Edge Up.
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vern72 Getting the thinnest phone of the bunch doesn't mean a lot to me. As long as the phone is about 1cm or thinner and has a good battery life, that's the main thing I look for in a form factor.Reply -
InvalidError On such a thin device, I would start to seriously worry about stresses on the frame and not accidentally bending it.Reply
Personally, ~10mm is thin enough. Much thinner than that, the edges start digging into flesh when you squeeze it by the edges, which is not particularly comfortable when holding a device for several minutes at a time. -
Mike Friesen ReplyOn such a thin device, I would start to seriously worry about stresses on the frame and not accidentally bending it.
I have a friend who accidentally bent his ipod touch fifth gen, and that is 6.1mm, and a lot shorter besides! The screen eventually lifted off the frame, which was bent about 5 degrees. -
Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer I know I'm an outlier, but I'd rather have a phone that's three times thicker but has a removable battery... :/Reply -
velocityg4 I'd rather it be as thick as regular smartphones. But with massive battery life. We were getting close to a month on the old fangled phones. Now we are back to a day, possibly two if you don't use it much.Reply -
lpedraja2002 Those chinese phones look incredibly appealing, wish we would get that brand over here.Reply -
rcfant89 Is there really any practical advantage of shaving a millimeter off a smartphone other than for marketing purposes? The average user just wants more battery life. And how about waterproofing phones? ~90-95% of smartphones from Japan are waterproof, why are we so far behind?Reply -
icycool_q1 You think we can get this shit in Australia? :) At the rate out GVT is going, we might have 100mbit by 2020.Reply