Gionee unleashes eight near bezel-less phones, including M7 Plus, M7, S11s, and more

Chinese manufacturer Gionee is going all-in on near bezel-less smartphones. The Shenzen-based OEM held an event on Sunday where it unveiled a staggering total of eight top-to-low-tier phones for its home market, all of which feature elongated “FullView” displays.

Leading the charge is Gionee’s M7 range, with the faux-leather-backed M7 Plus (above) emerging as the highest spec device. The phone sports a Samsung-made 6.43inch AMOLED display with an 18:9 aspect ratio, comes with 128 GB storage and a 5,000 mAh battery as standard, and is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 660 chipset backed by 6 GB of RAM.

Gionee talked up the CNY 4,399 device’s business-grade security set-up, but it’s hard not to get distracted by that James Bond villain-like design that sits somewhere between the LG G4, Samsung’s Note 3, and a Vertu phone on the how-naff-is-this-leather-material scale.

The company also ‘revealed’ the battery-centric M7 Power (CNY 1,599) and the vanilla M7 (CNY 2,799) which had technically already been announced for the Indian market. The M7 Mini rounds out the M7 quartet, which are all set to launch next month, with a 5.5-inch 720 x 1440 resolution display, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 425 processor, a 4,000 mAh battery, and 2 GB of RAM.

Away from China, Gionee is pushing its youth-friendly S-series as its flagship range. Of the new batch, the S11s comes out on top with the “best camera capability in Gionee’s portfolio”, a shimmering glass-metal design, and a 6.01-inch Samsung AMOLED display outputting at 2160 x 1080.

The two dual-camera modules are made up of a 16 MP and 8 MP rear-facing sensors and a 20 MP and 8 MP pairing on the front. Gionee says the S11s packs hardware-level bokeh effects and an “enhanced HDR Effect”. The S11s is powered by a MediaTek Helio P30 chipset backed by 6 GB of RAM, and 64 GB of storage, and is set to launch in December priced at CNY 3,299.

For those after the S11s’ camera expertise at a lower price point, Gionee also announced the S11 which drops the megapixel count and processing power while retaining much of its sibling’s photography suite. The S11 launches next month in China for CNY 1,799.

Last but not least we have two additions to the firm’s F-series line, the F205 and the F6 (now called the S11 Lite). While it’s debatable whether any of the phones revealed actually deserve to be called bezel-less – “FullView” is apparently the de facto catch-all term for phones with small, but noticeable foreheads and/or chins – the respective CNY 999 and CNY 1,299 devices are a cheap way of jumping on the industry’s hottest trend.

What do you think of Gionee’s swarm of phones? Has the M7 Plus’ novel design piqued your interest? Let us know in the comments.