Price: $325
Ratings: 4/5
Camera
The 8MP snapper is rather disappointing,
especially for me - since I am harder on cameras than most. Indoors, the images
it takes are too soft and details are rather mushy. In perfect lighting, things
are better - but not a whole lot. HD Video capture is quite a lot better, but
not that impressive.
The
Gionee Dream D1 - Surprisingly Amazing
Misc
The Gionee has all connectivity features
you should expect from a modern-day smartphone, let's not forget that it's a dual-SIM
phone and primary SIM will have 3G goodness. The loud speaker was another
pleasant surprise but the audio quality on earphones wasn't.
First impressions
Another smartphone cheaper than the competition
from China? Well, before you dismiss it, you really should take a deeper look.
Because the Gionee Dream D1 is unlike any other Chinese smartphone that can be
easily dismissed just by hearing its name. For starters, it's got a stunning
4.65" Super AMOLED Plus HD display protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 2.
Plus it's running on a quad-core processor with 1GB of RAM on Android's latest
OS - Jelly Bean (v4.1). So, what did we think of it? Read on.
The
8MP snapper is rather disappointing.
Review
As soon as you hold the Dream D1, you
notice how lightweight it is - and immediately start paying closer attention to
the overall aesthetics of it. The back panel has a nice textured feel to it and
there is a metal rim encasing the front and back - which feels quite premium in
hand. Android's Jelly Bean OS has been my personal favorite ever since it's
been launched so I'm quite glad to see how smoothly things run, though Gionee
has put some kind of skin on top of the OS, though no official name has been
given to it. The icons looks a bit too colorful for my taste, but that can
easily be changed by using any of the multitude of launchers available in the
Play Store, but the original skin does feel slightly laggy. The Super AMOLED
Plus display is the star though, even though colors tend to look a bit
saturated, everything is bright, vivid - and crisp too, thanks to the 720p
resolution. The customization of the OS extends to the file explorer and Music
Player too - everything is visually appealing and likeable. Pushing the Dream D1
on the benchmarks proved that it was no slouch, but got some mixed results on
the graphics capabilities. Barring Dead Trigger (where the gun turned to some
funky colors after a while), every other game ran smoothly and the experience
was enjoyable. Surprisingly the back panel didn't heat up as much either,
another brownie point for the D1! Speaking of which, the 2,100 mAh battery
lasts throughout the day with moderate to heavy use - but if you keep using
Wi-Fi or 3G, it does drain up a little quicker, but nothing out of the
ordinary. Multimedia consumption was brilliant with DTS being on-board and
videos on Super AMOLED is always enjoyable!
As
soon as you hold the Dream D1, you notice how lightweight it is - and
immediately start paying closer attention to the overall aesthetics of it.
Verdict
With only a few other competitors cropping
up in the same price range with similar specs, the Gionee Dream D1 truly
deserves more brownies than most people will be willing to give it. It's got
great specs and features, excellent multimedia and graphic rendering
capabilities, and a smooth Android experience that you'd normally get from
phones that cost twice as much. If only the camera was a bit better, it was an
easy recommend for everyone.
Specifications
·
Dual-SIM 3G Smartphone
·
4.65" HD Super AMOLED Plus Display
·
1.2 Ghz Cortex A7 quad-core processor
·
1GB of RAM, PowerVR Series5XT GPU
·
Android v4.1 Jelly Bean
·
8MP camera with HD video recording
·
4GB internal, microSD support up to 32GB
·
2020 mAh battery
In the same league
UMI X2
UMI
X2
·
Price: $250
·
5-inch 1080p display
·
1.2GHz quad-core processor, 2GB RAM
·
13MP rear camera with flash,
·
Dual-SIM
Micromax Canvas HD A116
Micromax
Canvas HD A116
·
Price: $290
·
5-inch LCD Capacitive Touchscreen
·
Android v4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) OS
·
Dual SIM (GSM + GSM)
·
8 MP Primary Camera
·
1.2 GHz Quad Core Processor
