By Anuj Sharma,

New Delhi, (IANS) : “Selfies” have come of age and smartphone makers the world over are building devices that help users record the best-looking self-portraits in a jiffy. So is Chinese smartphone major Gionee, which has launched the S6s that comes with a unique “selfie flash”.

The Rs 17,999 device has an 8MP camera with LED flash as well as a screen flash wherein the display brightens up selfies regardless of the light conditions outside.

Here is what works for the device:

The smartphone sports a metal body design, giving it a premium look and feel and comes with 2.5D water-drop Corning Gorilla Glass with “Native Damage Resistance” feature to prevent unwanted scratches on the screen.

The back of the smartphone carries curved edges at the ends which help provide a secure grip.

On the front, the users are greeted by a 5.5-inch, full-HD IPS In-cell display that projects sharp colours on the screen. You will definitely enjoy working with most of the apps or during surfing.

The 13MP rear camera with a SONY IMX258 sensor and flash captured beautiful shots with impressive clarity and detailing.

The 8MP front camera with LED flash clicks more natural-looking selfies and with face beauty filter on, the camera app airbrushes your face, making it brighter and cleaner than normal photo mode.

The LED flash selfies are richer in colour and detail than the screen flash ones.

However, Oppo F1s (priced at Rs 17,990) boasts 16MP front camera, captures great selfies and gives the Gionee S6s tough competition.

The camera app offers various features like panorama, HDR, smart scene, slow motion, time-lapse, professional mode and also allows you to capture six-second GIF images.

The “Text Recognition” mode in the camera app takes out text from an image, allowing you to digitise printed texts from an image, and even lets you edit — a feature many users who like to work on the go will find helpful.

The MT6753 octa-core processor paired up with 3GB of RAM delivered fair performance in almost all areas.

The Amigo 3.2 OS on top of Android 6.0 Marshmallow ran smoothly and is better in performance than previous versions.

The 3,150 mAh battery lasted for a day on moderate to heavy usage and gave enough power to run apps for almost two days when power saving was activated.

The S6s has several in-built features like video editor with themed and professional edits, gallery trash which helps you relocate and restore deleted photos in the trash within seven days, gallery hiding management and desktop management, among others.

What does not work?

At times we did notice a performance lag while multitasking on the device and while playing high-end games like “Asphalt 8: Airborne” — the smartphone struggled to perform well.

Conclusion: For people who use the selfie as a tool to share individuality (and some attitude too!) with others on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, Gionee S6s will not disappoint you.

(Anuj Sharma can be contacted at anuj.s@ians.in)