Earlier this year, the title of the world’s thinnest smartphone went to a particular device that hails from Chinese smartphone manufacturer, Gionee, in the form of the Gionee Elife S5.5 – and as you can tell by its name alone, this particular handset would measure 5.5mm thin. Having said that, it has since been surpassed not too long ago by its successor, if you will, thanks to the presence of the Gionee Elife S5.1 which sheds off another 0.4mm from its chassis, instantly making it the new king of the throne and even having received recognition by the Guinness World Records as the world’s slimmest smartphone. Still, those handsets were said to be sold only in China – or is it?
You might be surprised (pleasantly too, I might add) to find that the Gionee Elife S5.5 can be purchased over here in the U.S., although it has been given a rebranding to be called the BLU Vivo IV. You know what they say – a rose by any other name, would smell just as sweet.
BLU hails from Florida, and they churn out highly affordable smartphones, but with the Vivo IV, this happens to be a rebranded Gionee Elife S5.5. It looks similar from the outside, and shares just about everything else underneath the hood including a 5” Super AMOLED display with 1080 x 1920 pixels resolution, an octa-core 1.7 GHz MediaTek processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB of internal memory and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean right out of the box. It is said to retail for $299.99 as an unlocked device. Do take note that there is no LTE connectivity supported here.