Gionee A1 Unveiled in India; Goes Up for Pre-Booking on March 31

Gionee A1 was 'unveiled' by the Chinese smartphone manufacturer on Tuesday at an event in New Delhi. While Gionee did not disclose price or other details like availability, it revealed that the smartphone will become available for pre-booking from March 31 via offline retailers, before being made available online via Amazon India. Pre-booking customers will get a 2-year warranty, and the choice of a pair of JBL headphones or a Swiss Military Bluetooth speaker.

The Gionee A1 was first unveiled alongside the Gionee A1 Plus at MWC 2017 last month. The company's new A-Series smartphones have two major USPs - a big battery, and, superior selfie photo quality. Also included on the two models launched at MWC is Waves MaxxAudio processing. The Gionee A1 will be available in India in Black, Gold, and Grey colour variants.

To that end, Gionee has put a 16-megapixel front-facing fixed focus camera on the Ai, with an f/2.0 aperture, a 1/3.06-inch sensor, a 5P lens, and a selfie flash that the company says it has customised to "spread light onto faces more evenly and softly." It adds that the "soft lighting effect is able to enhance facial complexions, giving users a natural glow and rosiness."

Gionee is also boasting of its own independent facial enhancement algorithm, which it says automatically detects a users face and applies custom beauty settings. Other features being touted include the bokeh-selfie mode.

The Gionee A1 sports a 4010mAh battery, and the company is also emphasising its new 18W 'ultrafast charging' that it says can charge the battery fully in 2 hours.

The dual-SIM Gionee A1 smartphone runs Amigo 4.0 based on Android 7.0 Nougat. It bears a 5.5-inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) display and is powered by a MediaTek Helio P10 (MT6755) SoC. As for the rear camera, the Gionee A1 bears a 13-megapixel camera with a 1/3.06-inch Sony IMX258 sensor, and dual-LED flash.

The Gionee A1 bears 64GB of inbuilt storage that's expandable via microSD card (up to 256GB). It measures 154.5x76.5x8.5mm and weighs 182 grams. Connectivity options include 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11/ a/b/g/n, Bluetooth v4.0, and Micro-USB.