Is Gionee’s 5mm thin GN900S the world’s skinniest smartphone?

Smartphones are starting to resemble compact discs with screens attached to them. The upcoming iPhone 6 for example, promises to be around 5.59mm thin, while its rival, the Samsung Galaxy S5, measures in at a comparatively plump 7.6mm. However, it’s Chinese manufacturer Gionee who takes the world’s thinnest handset cake. But that record’s about to be broken by the company themselves.

Not settling for a mere 5.5mm — the width of the current champion the Elife S5.5 — Gionees follow up device, dubbed the GN900S (model number), will be a mere 5mm from face to backplate. Considering that a CD (remember those?) is around 1.2mm thick, this phone is slender.

Sleek and slim looks wonderful on devices, but manufacturers are forced to either develop new manufacturing methods to compensate for the reduced working space or compromise. Apple’s discovering this with the iPhone 6’s 2mm battery woes. Gionee seemingly has taken to the latter.

Make no mistake, it’s no high-end handset by any means. It features a mid-range quad core CPU running at 1.2GHz, a meagre 1GB RAM and a comfortable 16GB storage, but the battery is a slightly disappointing 2050mAh. Granted, it’s a larger capacity than what’s planned for the iPhone 6 (1800mAh).

It also has a mandatory 720p screen measuring in at 4.8″– giving the handset a more than adequate 306ppi — while sporting two cameras both front (5MP) and rear (8MP) with 4x optical zoom.

It won’t set the smartphone market on fire, nor will it weigh down anyone’s pocket at 95g, but it may just cut a hole straight through the fabric. Annoyingly, while manufacturers continue to focus on trivial aesthetics and gimmicks such as thickness, more important features — like battery life and reception — go completely unnoticed. There’s no word yet on when the GN900S will be released.

Images: TENAA