Chinese handset maker Gionee’s latest device, the Elife S5.1, has been officially recognised by Guinness World Records as the world’s slimmest smartphone.

Launched in China last month, it measures just 5.31 mm (0.209 in) at its widest point, making it over a millimetre slimmer than the 6.9mm iPhone 6 and the newly released 6.7mm Samsung Galaxy Alpha.

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Despite its super-svelte dimensions, the device is a fully-featured smartphone running on Android 4.3.

It boasts a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 720x1280 pixels, and is powered by a 1.2GHz quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, supported by 1GB of RAM.

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As well as featuring 16GB of non-expandable built-in storage, it also sports an 8-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera.

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In order to make the smartphone thinner than its predecessor – the 5.5m-thick ELIFE S5.5 which was released in February, Gionee’s research and development team conducted tens of thousands of experiments and optimizations to their building process for touch panels, back cover, camera, PCB board and battery, before eventually being able to successfully create the record-breaking gadget.