Gionee V188 with 5,200 mAh Battery or Gionee Marathon M3, Arriving in the Philippines Soon?

Along with Gionee Elife S5.1, another prototype handset that our friends from Gionee Philippines showed me during my visit to their local headquarters a few weeks ago was this phone -- which has one really special feature that sets it apart from all the rest.

Currently, the smartphone with the biggest battery that's available locally is the THL T5000, which - as its name suggests, has a massive 5,000 mAh battery pack.

Once Gionee V188 (or its look-alike Gionee Marathon M3 with 5,000 mAh battery) hits store shelves across the country a month or two from now, this handset, it would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the T5000 at least in terms of that feature.

Powered by an incredibly large - albeit non-removable - 5,200 mAh Li-Po battery pack, Gionee V188 is said to be capable of delivering up to almost a month of standby and almost 24 hours of talk time.

I read that this phone can give you at least two days of uptime with rather heavy usage; This is clearly a handset that you won't have to plug in your office the whole day while you're working just to make sure that it will have enough power should you decide to go out with your friends at night.

Although the phone has a sizable battery, it's amazing how Gionee was able to keep the device's thickness down to just 10.1 millimeters. Weighing 182 grams, however, V188 is not one of the lighter handsets out in the market -- but hey, for me, that's a small compromise for having a phone that you can rely on to stay with you for a day or two when you're far from an electrical outlet.

Apart from its battery, other features of Gionee V188 are largely similar to that of other midrange Android smartphones currently. It has a 5-inch HD IPS display, 8 MegaPixel autofocus camera at the back, 2 MegaPixel front cam, Full HD video recorder, Dual SIM Dual Standby capability, and 3G HSPA+ support. The smartphone runs Android 4.4.2 KitKat OS skinned by the company's Amigo User Interface with its Quad Core 1.3 GHz ARM Cortex A7 and Mali-400 GPU based MediaTek MT6582 chipset, handles multitasking with 1 GB of RAM, and has 8 GB of expandable storage.

No word yet from Gionee Philippines - and its official distributor, Belexis Concepts - on the exact release date and pricing details of V188 (or Gionee Marathon M3, for that matter) in the country. Nonetheless, I'm guessing that it will land here either this December 2014 or January 2015 with price tag of around Php 10,000 (based on its international SRP). Here's to hoping it would cost a lot less.

TechPinas Smartphone Technical Specs Table (TSTST)
Name	Gionee V188
Type	Slate Form Factor (Full Touchscreen)
Price Category	Midrange
Dimensions	144.5 x 71.45 x 10.4 mm
Weight	182 grams
Available Colors	White, Black
Operating System	Android 4.4.2 KitKat skinned by Amigo UI
Display	5 inches (~294 ppi pixel density), 720 x 1280 pixels, IPS, capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Processor	Quad Core 1.3 GHz ARM Cortex A7 CPU, Mali-400 GPU, MediaTek MT6582 chipset
RAM	1 GB RAM
Internal Storage	8 GB, expandable via microSD card slot
Camera	Main: 8 MegaPixels, 3264 x 2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash Front: 2 MegaPixels front camera
Video Capture	Main: Full HD 1080p 30 frames per second Front: HD 720p (to be confirmed)
Audio and Video Playback	MP4, H.264, H.263, MP3, WAV, eAAC+ player
Ports	microUSB v2.0, 3.5 mm audio jack
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth v4.0, 3G HSDPA, 21 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps, HSPA+
GPS	Yes, with A-GPS
Sensors	Accelerometer, Digital Compass, Proximity, Light, Gyroscope
Network	2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900, 3G Network HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
SIM Card Type	microSIM
Battery	Non-removable Li-Po 5,200 mAh battery
Uptime	29.2 Days of Standby, 22 Hours of Talk Time
Value-Added Features	Very large battery, Amigo UI, affordable price tag
Announcement	Philippines: TBA
Availability	Philippines: December 2014 or January 2015, TP Guesstimate
Price	TP Guesstimate: Php 10,000