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G-TEL, one of the local mobile phone manufacturers, has come up with a smartphone that is definitely going to get the whole nation talking after launching the slimmest smartphone on the Zimbabwean market. Technically, this would have been the world’s slimmest smartphone, but unfortunately, this was quickly turned around by recent new offerings to the market, thereby landing them the third slimmest title.

Speaking during a Press briefing, G-Tel head of sales and marketing Mr Robert Gonye said he was excited to bring the new-look phone, which is definitely the slimmest phone to be released on the African market.

“We are bringing in the slimmest phone on the market, which will take over from its predecessor, the Gtel Explorer MX1, and this phone is packed with new features to change the game,” Mr Gonye said.

Previously, Huawei P6 was the world’s slimmest smartphone at 6,1mm and still is locally while Astro`s V2 came second at 6,5mm and we are headed for more exciting times as new technologies enable more creativity.

Internationally, the same phone could have got them the title of the world’s slimmest smartphone, but news recently filtered that the Gione 5,1, which previously held the title at 5,5mm has beaten its record again taking the title from the Huawei Ascend P6 at 6,1mm.

Another Chinese player called Vivo is also hinted to be finalising their smartphone, which will be packed up in 3,8mm shell and should this finally hit the market, it will be the world’s thinnest smartphone launching at no more than 4mm as sceptics are already questioning the feasibility of such a smartphone.
To add so much sparkle and weight to their phone, the Gtel SL 5.5 comes with so much elegance and touch of class with a rich glass finish on the back, making the smartphone to look really exquisite, with an executive feel.

Outside the visible beauty, the new offering by Gtel will be yet another octa-core processor, coming with a giant 1,7Ghz octa-core processor, otherwise it has eight separate processors inside the main one. Loosely translated, it comes with the exact similar processor power with their predecessor, the Gtel MX1.
They have maintained their 5 inch smartphone size and slightly lighter than their MX1 and more refreshingly the new phone is landing on Android Kit Kat, thus 4.4 and a 13mp back camera plus a 5MP front camera.

On storage the new Gtel flagship will run on a 2G RAM memory chip for faster data execution while they have backed it up with a 16gb storage.
This fares well against the iPhone 5s as the two phones basically have the same technical specifications on storage and RAM memory while the iPhone 5s has some unique advantages over the Gtel. With the gorilla screen, wi-fi bands and LTE enabled adapter, the new Gtel punches back quite some heavy blows.

iPhone 5s bites the dust on the processor power as they bring in a dual core processor at 1.3ghz. On camera, the Gtel has a supreme 13mp and 8mp, back and front camera respectively while the iPhone has an 8mp and 2mp respectively.

However, our tests on the two smartphone cameras proved that the back camera is way better than that of Gtel, as they power it with new technology, allowing high resolution pictures to be taken even during motion, while pixilation is only visible when image is stretched above limit, which the Gtel SL 5.5 does not have.

Today smartphone makers the world over, including iPhone have become so obsessed with making thinner phones as this is one sure way to prove that so much battery power can be packaged in a smaller casing, reducing weight and bulkiness, while giving longer hours of usage.

The same concept, however, has been heavily criticised by experts in the industry as newer smartphone have drastically dropped their talk time duration, a case mainly attributed to smaller battery cells.

On dexterity, the new Gtel has maintained the same button positions for comfort and ease of use, but I have always wondered how they make it so difficult for the user to take screen shots, as positions will be forced to change, a feature the Huawei and iPhone 5s have swiftly solved with their button positions.

Due to obvious size differences, it would be unfair to compare the Gtel phone against iPhone 5s although on high definition, they are equal, we could not also set apart the same feature with the Huawei Ascend P6, a phone that can closely fall in their same range.

Coming on the form factor and weight, their new offering is relatively lighter though with a larger screen , this may be a darling of many who love entrainment as it gets better on a bigger screen while issues of battery will quickly come in as they run on a 2.2mah powered battery.

Consumers have also raised their concerns that old smartphones, although they are not slicker, they used to provide much more longer hours above the current 8hrs with little to no smartphones on the market lasting more than a day with battery power.— TechnoMag

TechnoMag is Zimbabwe’s premier technology magazine more in depth on www.technom.ag or follow us on Twitter @TechnoMagzw, www.facebook.com/technomagzw <http://www.facebook.com/technomagzw> mail [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>