Coolpad is trying to make its presence in south Asian countries with the prime target being India where most do the Chinese manufacturer like OPPO and Vivo establishing itself as a brand. So, in Nepali market where the mobile market is growing for the lower price premium looking phones, which Chinese manufacturer are particularly famous for.
Seeing this opportunity, Coolpad has made its presence in Nepali market. The brand was launched in a grand event at Hyatt Regency. At the event, the company launched 4 products Cool1, Note 3s, Mega 3 and Mega 2.5D. Here we have a review for the Coolpad Note 3s.
Looks and feel of Coolpad Note 3s
We had a champagne white Note 3s for the review, which is the only color available. The phone has 3D curved edge and arc design on the back with aluminum alloy on the sides of the phone. The phone fits nicely in a palm, but one-handed use is a bit tricky and unsure because the glass rear makes it a bit difficult to maintain a solid grip.
The power button is on the right, but the volume buttons are on the left, which is somewhat unusual for Android phones. Most of the recent phones are using Type C USB, so the Micro-USB port on the bottom starts to feel a bit old-school. There’s a 3.5mm audio socket on top and a hybrid SIM tray which will take either two Nano-SIMs or one Nano-SIM and one microSD card.
Coolpad does include a simple translucent plastic shell in the box, but it covers up the glass and makes using the recessed fingerprint sensor on the rear a bit awkward. Interestingly, the adhesive screen protector in the box has notches in its corners so that it can stick to the curved glass without getting pinched. There’s also a basic 1.5A charger, Micro-USB cable, and headset in the box.
Specifications of Coolpad Note 3s
The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 415 SoC which has eight cores running at 1.36GHz. The processor used is a bit older and is a lower category, but it has a relatively powerful integrated Adreno 405 GPU for graphics.
It has 3 GB of RAM and internal storage of 32GB, but expandable up to 128 GB. One downside of expandable storage is that you will end up with a single SIM. The display is 5.5 inches 2.5D curved IPS display and has a screen resolution of 720X1280p with a pixel density of 270ppi.
There’s a 13-megapixel camera with a f/2.2 aperture on the back and another 5-megapixel one on the front. On the Coolpad Note 3, you will find the fingerprint sensor on the rear just below the camera. The battery capacity is just 2500mAh, which seems a bit low for such big phone. Still, with Quick Charge 2.0, you can fully charge the phone in just 2 hours. Other than these things, you get the standard Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi b/g/n, LTE, and sensors.
The phone has Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow operating system. Unlike other phones from Coolpad, there is no CoolUI 8 on the top of Android. So, you can enjoy the stock Android experience from the Note 3S.
There is some bloatware on the phone, preinstalled. Cool Store and Cool Service aren’t of much use but the AppLock, which lets you secure individual apps using a fingerprint, and Reos Music, a fairly interesting music and video player with YouTube, FM and online radio, and even a track ID service built in were quite handy.
Performance of Coolpad Note 3s
If you just use the phone for a voice call, text, and social networking, then you will not feel anything lacking with the Note 3s. But, if you use a lot of apps and games and constantly jump between the apps, you can find the apps load times quick and smoothly.
The Snapdragon 415 use on the Note 3s isn’t that for a heavy performance but is better than the MediaTek processors used on most of the device in this price segment. AnTuTu returned a score of 38,313 while Geekbench’s multicore score was 1,547. Graphics performance was particularly strong in this price segment.
The glass used on display was quite reflective and due to that, there might be an issue to see on the far edge of the screen. The screen itself is fairly good – colors could have been a little richer, but the sharpness and overall quality are more than enough.
Sound through the speaker at the back is clear, but lacks bass. The headset on the bundle is just ordinary if you plugin in earphone most of the times then you better buy a good earpiece or headset.
Camera of Coolpad Note 3s
The camera app looks similar to that of iOS, even the button layout is same. Unlike the iPhone camera, there was a bit of shutter lag with the camera. There is a glitch with the camera at the indoor condition if you point the camera at yellow area then the whole phone turns to yellowest but at Night mode everything turns to be normal. This could be due to a software issue, an update can solve this. Beauty mode works with both the rear and front cameras, which can detect your age and can customize the beauty level. You can manually focus and set the white balance, ISO, exposure and saturation with the Pro mode available on the camera app.
Under the daylight, photos produced from the camera are crisps, with reasonably good detailing but somewhat muted colors. At the Night, depending on the light the phone varies but tends to noisy. You can record 1080p videos at 30 fps. Just like the photos the video as taken at daytime are good.
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Battery Life of Coolpad Note 3s
The battery life is the phone is average because of the low battery capacity. With moderate use involving browsing and gaming, there will be some juice left by the end of the day. Also in heavy use, the phone doesn’t heat up. On one circle of charge average screen on time is of 4 and half hours. With the help of Quick Charge 2.0, you can charge the battery from 0 to 100 percent in 2 hours.
Verdict
Overall the phone is pretty good, we must say, only if we consider the price range. Moreover, you can get stock android experience, with a neat and fast interface. And a fingerprint sensor at the back is an extra feature that you normally do not get in this price range. If you are planning to buy a smartphone in the range of Rs. 20,000 we definitely recommend this one. The close competitors could be Xiaomi Mi Note 3 and One Plus X.
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