Coolpad Note 3 Review

Coolpad launched its low-cost phone Coolpad Note 3 with fingerprint sensor and 3GB RAM. With the launch of this phone, Coolpad wants to gain name and market share both. As a new company, very few people know about the company. So by offering high-end features and good service, Coolpad is trying to reach most of the people of the country. For the price of Rs. 8999, this phone is packed with powerful hardware and decent performance. If you are looking to buy, you must read this post to know more about Coolpad Note 3.

Design

Design of Coolpad Note 3 is good with large screen-to-body ratio. It has plastic body which is pretty normal for the phone in this price range. It looks premium with its steel frame around the body. This frame is slightly raised along side of display to prevent it from touching the surface if you place it down. For better grip, it has curve around the corners of back panel. This phone measures 151.00 x 77.00 x 9.30mm in size and weight of the phone is just 155 grams.

It has power button at the right side and volume rocker keys at the left side of the device. It has 3.5 mm jack at the top side and microUSB port at the bottom side. Speakers are at the back side.

Back cover is removable but battery of the phone is non-removable. Back cover is flexible.

Display

Coolpad Note 3 comes with 5.5 inch HD IPS LCD display. Display is bright and offers sharp colors. Viewing angles are also good. Watching videos and playing games on this display is a good experience. I didn’t find any issues with the brightness of the display in any kind of condition.

Display is not protected with any glass protection. So, you will have to take care of display from scratches.

Processor, RAM and Storage

This phone is powered by a 1.3 GHz Octa core Cortex A53 Mediatek MT6753 processor with huge 3GB RAM and Mali-T760 MP2. Overall performance of the phone is awesome. It offers good multi-tasking and good gaming performance. While using the device for around a week, I didn’t face any kind of lag.

Benchmarking score of the phone is also good. Considering the price range of the phone, it was ranked good in different benchmarking services.

It comes with 16GB of internal storage from which around 10.5GB is available for users in new phone. It also lets you expand storage via a microSD card. You can also set the default installation location. The phone also supports USB OTG for storage. So, storage will not be an issue in this phone.

Software

Software is another notable thing in this phone. No matter how good is the hardware, it is the responsibility of software to offer the performance. And Cool UI 6.0 based on Android Lollipop does its job in better way. I personally like the user interface of this phone. Cool UI is smooth and offers brilliant look. It is inspired by flat design. Icons are pixel perfect. At home, there is also an icon to set a random background in single tap.

There is no app-drawer and all apps are scattered in different screens.

It also supports double tap to wake up and gestures to open app by drawing characters on screen.

Fingerprint sensor

It offers fingerprint sensor security to unlock the phone. You can save up to 5 fingerprint profiles. It also lock specific apps to prevent unauthorized access. You can also set the apps on fingerprint to open that app directly if unlocked by that particular finger. Fingerprint sensor unlocks phone quickly. I found it faster that the fingerprint sensor of iPhone 6 Plus. Fingerprint can recognize your finger on any side.

Camera

It comes with 13 megapixels autofocus rear camera with LED flash, f/2.0 aperture and 5P lens. It also has a 5 megapixels front camera with 1.4 micron pixels. Rear camera can also record 1080p videos at 30fps. Camera also offers features like Geo-tagging, touch focus, face detection, HDR and panorama.

Camera app looks good with easy to understand options. You can capture photos by tapping on camera icon, pressing volume up, down key or even tapping on fingerprint sensor.

In bright sunlight, camera performs really good. But in low-light indoor photography, I didn’t find images good. You can check the camera samples added at the end of the post.

Front camera performance is good. By default, it opens with beauty mode active. You can set the beauty mode’s performance by using the slider. You can also enjoy beauty mode in the video recording.

Connectivity and Battery

It offers various connectivity options including 4G LTE, 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, hotspot,, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS with A-GPS and micro USB. It also supports USB OTG. It is a dual SIM phone and also offers microSD card slot.

It is packed with 3000 mAh battery which offers full day of battery life in mixed usage. While adding two sims with connected to Wi-Fi all days using it as primary device to get whatsapp, email and facebook notifications, it ran around 15 hours before showing low-battery warning.

Verdict

In this price range, Coolpad Note 3 with fingerprint sensor, 3GB RAM and good performance is worth to buy. Camera offers decent performance but in low-light, it is not as good. But for Rs. 8999, you should compromise in few things.