Coolpad Note 3 Review

Coolpad entered India early this year and had some decent success with their budget smartphone, the Dazen 1. Now the company is offering their second budget device, the Coolpad Note 3. Unlike other devices in this budget segment, Note 3 is packed with great hardware and offered at very low pricing.

There are quite a lot of interesting aspects about this phone, first being it packs a 3GB RAM and second one being a fingerprint scanner included in the phone.

The device comes with a 5.5 inch HD (1280 X 720P) display and is powered by 1.3GHz Octa-Core 64-bit MediaTek MT6753 processor with Mali-T720 MP2 GPU. There is also 16GB internal storage which can be expanded. Here is the detailed review of the phone.

Design and Build:

Design-wise, the phone is a pretty good looking device although there isn’t anything stand out in the design language. It has curved edges and rear panel and it comes with a matte finish which actually feels good. The rear panel houses the fingerprint scanner, 13MP rear camera and LED flash. The Coolpad branding and the speaker located at the bottom. The front panel has black edges on the either sides of the display giving a feel that there isn’t any bezel, but you get to see it only once you turn on the display.

The phone comes with navigational buttons, but they are not backlit. The power key is on the right side, while the volume keys are placed on the left side. The 3.5mm audio jack is located at the top and the micro USB at the bottom along with the microphone. The rear panel is removable and houses the 3000mAh battery which is non-removable. There are dual SIM cards and micro SD expansion slot.

At 9.3mm thick and 155g in weight, the Note 3 isn’t the easiest of devices to handle. But overall, the Coolpad Note 3 is a well-designed phone and feels pretty good in hands once you get used to it.

Display:

Coolpad Note 3 comes with a 5.5 inch HD (1280 X 720p) display and the quality was decent for a budget phone. While the brightness levels were pretty decent, the display was reflective and might not be ideal for outdoor use. Colors weren’t really saturated and at times it feels a bit dull to use. The viewing angles were decent and so was the touch response. But thankfully there is option to change the color tone from standard to vivid in the settings (screen effects).

Overall, we feel the display could have been a tad better especially when Yureka Plus and K3 Note are offering Full HD displays at this price point.

Software:

The Coolpad Note 3 runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop out of the box with the company’s Cool UI. The Cool UI is very similar to Xiaomi’s MIUI with a customized look and feel which does not have any resemblance to stock Android experience.

The notification center has all the necessary quick toggles included. The UI offers some interesting options like Rock Wallpaper, which can change the wallpaper with the hit of a button or shaking the device. There is also Coolshow app which adds some themes and you can customize the look and feel of the UI.

The UI also offers additional tools like the recorder, FM Radio, File Manager, Memo etc.

There is also Multitask or dual window option where you can run two apps at the same time on the screen. The UI also has support for gestures like double tap to wake, slide up to unlock and more. You can configure these from the settings menu.

Performance:

The phone is powered by 1.3GHz Octa-Core 64-bit MediaTek MT6753 processor with Mali-T720 MP2 GPU and 3GB RAM. This is probably the first time we are seeing a mainstream device with 3GB RAM below the price of Rs 10000. The performance of the device with 3GB RAM was very good and there was hardly any area where we noticed any lag or issues. The UI was responsive and did almost all tasks effortlessly.

The phone comes with 16GB of internal storage and out of which 10.5GB is available to user in the first boot. You can also expand the storage in the device via micro SD card and make the SD card as the default write disk and also for app install.

The gaming performance of the device was excellent and there was hardly any frame skips or lags and it could play almost all games without any issues. The call quality was good on the device, but the external speaker performance was just average. The phone comes with 4G LTE support along with USB OTG which comes handy to connect pen drives to the device. The phone does heat up a bit when gaming (around 45 degrees) and also when using the camera for a prolonged time.

Related Watching: Coolpad Note 3 Gaming Review

The phone also comes with fingerprint scanner and the implementation is very good. The fingerprint scanner works as advertised and it is accurate, sharp and quick as well. Setting up the fingerprint scanner is also simple task. You can also lock apps using the fingerprint scanner on the device.

Camera:

The Coolpad Note 3 comes with a 13MP rear camera and 5MP front camera for selfies and video calls. While the camera app is feature packed with Pro mode and other features, they aren’t offering anything new. The samples taken with the device did not have great quality and they were noisy most of the time with very low sharpness.

The colors aren’t saturated, but it looks better in close up pictures. The low light photos were also decent with adequate lighting condition. Overall, we would have liked a better camera on this device especially when the hardware is class leading.

The phone can record videos in 1080p and the same was just average. The front 5MP camera is decent for selfies and video calls. Here are some of the samples taken with the device.

Battery Life:

The phone comes with 3000mAh battery which is non removable and the performance was very good. We tested the battery performance using social apps, email and other apps running in the background connected to 4G LTE connection and we could easily achieve a day of usage with almost 4-5 hours Screen on Time (SOT) which is very good.

While the phone does not come with ultra battery saving mode, it has the Long Standby mode to increase the battery. Overall, we are pretty impressed with the performance of the batter

Verdict:

The Coolpad Note 3 has a lot of features going its way including the 3GB RAM, Fingerprint scanner and other features which are new to sub 10k price point. Priced at Rs 8999, the Coolpad Note 3 offers great value for money with good performance, great gaming experience, decent software and good battery life. We wish the camera and display could have been a tad better.

Another worrying aspect is that Coolpad is relatively new to India and hence after sales service could be an issue. If you are not really worried on these aspects, the Coolpad Note 3 offers excellent value for money.