Gionee Elife S5.5 Officially Arrives in China on March 18

Mobile phone users in China interested in the purchase of a very slim smartphone before the end of this month are in luck, as Gionee has officially confirmed plans to make its 5.5mm-thin Gionee Elife S5.5 available for purchase in the country starting March 18.

The smartphone, announced with the thinnest body in the world, will be put up for sale in over 40 countries around the world after the initial release in China, the company has also announced. Moreover, the Chinese mobile phone maker has confirmed that a 4G LTE-enabled variant of the device will hit shelves sometime in June. As GizChina notes, users interested in buying the 3G variant of the device will have to pay 2299 Yuan ($374 / €269) for it, which seems more than affordable, considering the specs packed inside it. According to UnwiredView, however, the mobile phone might actually be a bit more expensive in other markets around the world, although Gionee hasn’t offered specific details on the matter as of now. Gionee Elife S5.5 features a 5-inch touchscreen display capable of delivering a 1920 x 1080-pixel resolution, while being powered by an octa-core MT6592 processor.

Moreover, the new device arrives on the market with 2GB of RAM inside, as well as with 16GB of internal memory. Unfortunately, the phone’s slim body did not allow for the inclusion of a microSD memory card slot, and users won’t be able to add some extra storage to it. On the back, the slim handset packs a 13-megapixel camera with Sony’s mobile sensor, paired with a 5MP front camera for making video calls while on the go. The fact that it comes with the new MediaTek chipset inside provides Elife S5.5 with support for various network frequencies in China, including TD-SCDMA, WCDMA and GSM. Gionee Elife S5.5 was unveiled with a 2300mAh battery inside, which should ensure at least one day of usage, the company notes. The mobile phone maker has loaded the Gionee Amigo operating system on top of this handset. The platform is based on Android, which means that users will also receive access to a great deal of applications when buying the handset.

We had the chance to play with the smartphone for a bit at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last month, and we found it very attractive, especially due to the very slim body and sharp edges. The phone performs very well, and feels impressively snappy, most probably mainly due to its thinness. Considering the price tag it will feature in China, Gionee Elife S5.5 will certainly appeal to a lot of users there.

Gionee Elife S5.5
Images credits to Gionee

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ASUS ROG New G750 Gaming Notebooks with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 800M GPUs Unleashed

Like other gaming notebook manufacturers, ASUS has also taken the opportunity to reveal new laptops bundling the new NVIDIA GPU standard.

Meet the new additions to the ASUS Republic of Gamers line-up, the G750JZ, G750JM and G750JS. All of the three laptops sport Intel’s Core i7-4700 processors and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 800 Series GPUs. ASUS has also added its own TurboMaster GPU overclocking software that allows for even more enhanced performance, beyond what the specs offer out of the box. There’s also a nifty new technology that help push the new notebook beyond normal boundaries, in the form of the new NVIDIA Battery Booster. This new tech is able to offer a 2X battery life while gaming and provide gamers with the ability to use NVIDIA ShadowPlay to automatically capture and share their gameplay. Battery Boost is capable of assessing the characteristics of each individual game in order to deliver the best balance between performance and power.

All the three models mentioned above will support 4K display and as many as three external displays via the HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.2 interfaces, giving gamers the opportunity for a multi-screen experience. More than that, the laptops offer dual-band, dual-steam Wi-Fi via the Killer Wireless-N 1202 wireless interface, compatible with 2.4GHz and 5Ghz. The ASUS ROG G750JZ, G750JM and G750JS will be made available for purchase very soon, starting at $1,399 / €1,007.

ASUS ROG launches three new gaming laptops

ASUS adds NVIDIA GeForce GTX 800M to its ROG line
Images credits to ASUS press release

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New Razer Blade Gaming Laptop with QHD Display, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M Launches

As we previously reported, NVIDIA has just announced a line of new GeForce GTX mobile graphic processors, which will breathe new life into gaming laptops.

There’s the all new GeForce GTX 860M, 850M, 840M and 830M that are based on the Maxwell architecture, that are going into laptops whose thickness is under 22 mm / 0.4 inches. On top of that, there’s the high-end graphics processors GTX 870M and 880M, based on the older Kepler architecture, that have been overclocked to provide more power. Anyway, one of the first gaming power-houses to benefit from the new GPUs seems to be the Razer Blade laptop. The device has been updated with NVIDIA’s new GeForce GTX 870 graphics card, so it’s now able to smoothly run 3D graphics. The new model is just 0.7 inches / 1.7 cm thick and weighs 4.5 pounds / 2.04 kg. The update Razer Blade comes boasting a 14-inch screen with a whopping 3200 x 1800 pixel resolution. Underneath, powering everything is an Intel Core i7-420HQ quad-core processor combined with 8GB of RAM and backed up by 128GB of solid state drive. Customers have the option of choosing between 256GB or 512GB if they feel they need more space.

The Razer Blade also has 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, 2MP webcam and a solid 70Whr battery. Its default operating system is Windows 8.1 But what really makes the new Razer Blade stand out is of course is the display and new graphics card. The new GTX 870M bundles 3GB of dedicated video memory and grants support for NVIDIA’s new Battery Boost technology. Battery Boost is a new feature that’s capable of adapting the GPU settings based on the game’s specific requirements. Basically, the system is able to assess the characteristic of each game in order to provide the perfect balance between performance and power consumption, ensuring users are able to play the game for as long as they want. The Razer Blade’s display is an IGZO/IPS screen with 262 pixels per inch and 250% higher contrast ration than the screens seen on earlier models.

Razer claims the new laptop will be capable of providing up to 2-3 hours of battery life while in game mode (which really little unless you’re playing the latest games) and 6 hours when used in normal mode. Furthermore, there’s also a new Razer Blade Pro available, coming with a 17-inch display and 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution. The lappy bundles NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 860M graphics and might be considered a little less portable (0.9 inches / 2.28 cm thick and weighing 6.6 lbs / 2.99 kg). As amazing as these new models sounds, they won’t come cheap. Prices for the new Razer Blade start at $2,220 / 1,598. Images gallery below, click for larger image.

New Razer Blade ships with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M
Image credits to Razer

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