The Gionee E5

Key Features

• Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
• MP4/H.264 player
• MP3/WAV/eAAC+ player
• Photo/video editor
• Document viewer
• Voice memo/dial

The E5 is easily the best built Chinese droid we’ve come across to date. The unibody plastic chassis lends an understated premiumness to the phone and the matt texture keeps fingerprints at bay, for the most part. The E5 is fairly slim at 7.9mm and light as well. There are three capacitive buttons in the front and a 5MP front-facing camera up top. The buttons on the side are well placed although we would have liked it better if the power button was on the side rather than on top.
The speaker grill is on the bottom along with the micro USB charging port. This design choice is also very reminiscent of Apple’s iPhone 5. Around the back, we just have the 13MP camera and a single LED flash. The Gionee branding is discretely placed at the bottom of the phone. Overall, the E5 scores full marks for design and aesthetics and easily rivals phones priced much higher.