Is Gionee S11 Lite better than Redmi Note 5 Pro?

Chinese smartphone maker Gionee that ranks among the top smartphone makers, and even has the beating of Apple when it comes to sales in China, has been facing serious financial troubles in its home country. Faced with increased competition from the likes of Xiaomi, the company has taken to restructuring its operations across the various markets it operates in. 

The restructuring has recently seen it lay off almost half of its workforce at its main manufacturing plant in the Guangdong province in China. However, in India, the company is treading a different path with scaled up operations in a bid to increase its presence in the fastest growing smartphone market in the world. 

As per a report published in The Economic Times, the company plans to invest around Rs 650 crore in the current fiscal year as it attempts to break into the top five smartphone brands in the country. Speaking to the publication, Gionee India national sales director, Alok Shrivastava, said: "In 2018, we are looking to be among top 5 smartphones brands in India. We will increase marketing spend this year by approximately 30 per cent compared to the investment made last year."

The company has also vowed to improve on its line-up of phones in the country. To this effect, Gionee launched two new smartphones, the F205 and S11 Lite, at a launch event in Delhi on April 26. Though the former is priced at Rs 8,999 and will looks to target users in the sub-10k segment of the market, its the latter at Rs 13,999, that is the more interesting of the two as it will go up against the Redmi Note 5 Pro in the crucial sub 15k budget segment of the market. 

Design and display

The Note 5 Pro brings with it a more solid, industrial design with a new 5.99-inch tall and bezel-less display that merges into the phone's metal chassis. In terms of the specs, the Redmi Note 5 Pro's display is FHD+ panel with a 2160x1080p resolution and 403ppi pixel density. Interestingly though, Xiaomi has managed to put in this bigger display on the phone without increasing the size of the device from the previous year.

However, because of this, the bezels on the top and the bottom of the phone have been shaved to a near minimum to give this phone an edge to edge look. 

With the S11 Lite, Gionee has tried to go big on design. The phone comes with an 18:9 Full View Display, which the company claims makes "dealing with the phone more interactive". At the front, the device has a screen to body ratio of 82.2 per cent to enhance the multimedia experience on the phone.

However, a major drawback, that makes the display ill-suited to consuming multimedia content on it is Gionee's perplexing decision to equip this phone with a 720p display in a market segment where 1080p displays are the norm. 

At the back, Gionee's phone appears to give the impression of a premium glass back device. However, once you hold the S11 Lite in your hands, it becomes more than obvious that the phone uses plastic to cover its back. 

Overall, the two phones bring with them very different design schemes and have their own charms that would appeal to different audiences. While the Redmi Note 5 Pro is sturdy, industrial and is built like a tank, the S11 Lite because of the use of glass textured plastic at the back, feels light, but fragile. 

Specifications

The Note 5 Pro comes with a powerful Snapdragon 636, which makes it by far the most powerful and energy-efficient phone from the Redmi Note line-up. Paired with the SoC is up to 4GB of RAM and a maximum of 64GB of internal storage which is can be expanded by up to 128GB via a hybrid micro-SD card slot. Redmi Note 5 Pro which comes running MIUI 9 – Xiaomi's take on Android 7.1.1 Nougat, and is powered by a 4,000mAh battery.

The S11 Lite, on the other hand, comes with 3030mAh battery. The phone comes with 4GB RAM and is powered by 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 SoC. There is 64GB that is expandable and the phone comes running Gionee's custom skin, Amigo, which supports features like Auto-scene, Group-Selfie, Smart Eye Protection, App Clone, Split Screen.

Comparing the two, it's obvious that with the faster SoC and bigger battery, the Note 5 Pro is the definite winner here.

Cameras

With the S11 Lite, Gionee has gone down the path of bringing to the table a strong camera for clicking selfies. The phone comes with a 16-megapixel selfie camera with Bokeh Selfie mode. At the back the phone has been equipped with a dual camera set-up – 13-megapixel + 2-megapixel.  

The Note 5 Pro brings with it a dual camera setup at the back, placed vertically like on the iPhone X.

The set-up comprises a 12-megapixel primary sensor with f/2.2 aperture and a 5-megapixel sensor with f/2.0 aperture. The camera module supports electronic image stabilisation, phase detection autofocus. Xiaomi also claims that this depth-sensing dual camera setup also makes use of machine learning for greatly improving picture quality.

On the front, Xiaomi has equipped the device with a 20-megapixel selfie camera with a Sony IMX376 sensor, LED selfie light and Beautify 4.0 tuned for the Indian market. 

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