Coolpad expanded its budget smartphone portfolio with the Note 3 and gained immense popularity. The attractive features and premium specs of the handset grabbed nationwide attention as shoppers swarmed to buy the handset during its flash sales. It is easily one of the worthiest handsets one can buy under Rs. 10,000 as it brings on board good design, fingerprint scanner, decent camera and reliable battery.
We received the Coolpad Note 3 for review over the weekend and here's what we think of it in first glance.
Design and display
Coolpad Note 3 has a simple yet elegant design, which makes you fall in love with at first look. It has a large display, which may be uncomfortable at times, but upholds the big-screen demand in phones these days. Coolpad Note 3 measures 151 x 77 x 9.3mm and weights 155 grams.
The Note 3 has a single glass design on the front with extremely thin bezels. There are no physical buttons on the screen but the capacitive touch buttons take the charge. The usual front camera sensor, speaker and proximity sensor are placed on the top. Coolpad Note 3 packs a 5.5-inch HD display with 1280 x 720 pixel resolution and 178-degree viewing angle.
Moving on, the Coolpad Note 3 has a metal frame around the sides, rounded edges and a slight curve towards the rear side. This enables a comfortable grip despite the 5.5-inch diagonal screen size. The volume rocker keys are placed on the left side while the power buttons sits on the right. There is a 3.5mm audio jack at the top and a micro USB connector is placed at the bottom of the handset.
Turning over to the rear side of the device, we find the camera sensor with LED flash. There is an additional placement just below the camera, which as you can guess is the fingerprint scanner. Towards the bottom, there is a small company's logo and a speaker grille.
The back cover of the Coolpad Note 3 is removable but the battery is not. Underneath the plastic cover, which has a textured matte finish, there are two micro SIM slots and the microSD card slot.
Performance and security
Coolpad Note 3 is not just a good looking phone but it also delivers good performance. The handset has an integrated fingerprint scanner placed on the rear panel just below the camera sensor. We must say, it scans your finger and unlocks the phone in micro seconds, which is quite impressive given the handset's price.
Besides integrating the latest security standard, Note 3 is powered by 1.3GHz 64-bit Mediatek MT6753 octa-core processor, 3GB RAM and company's own Android 5.1 Lollipop based Cool UI, which gives a fresh feel. The handset enables multi-tasking feature that allows you to take advantage of the large screen size to run two apps simultaneously.
Camera
Coolpad Note 3 has a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture and LED flash. On the front side, there is a 5MP snapper with 5-element HD lens. For the price, Note 3 has a pretty good camera but there are rivals in the same price range offering similar sensors.
Despite that, Coolpad Note 3 camera is the one to impress. The UI is kept simple and there aren't many options clustered for you to get confused. Holding the phone in landscape mode, there is a capture button on the right alongside access to different camera modes (Face Beauty, HDR, Dimlight shot, Gesture Shot, Smile Shot and Panorama) and gallery.
There are three dots towards the top, which lets you get into the settings, change effects and activate HDR directly. You can also switch to video mode or Pro mode to by swiping up or down the screen. Using the Pro mode, you can initiate object tracking, a feature usually not seen in budget phones.
Towards the left side of the UI, there is a flash icon and selfie camera switcher. When you switch to front cam, all options except the flash and effects are available for you to use.
Storage
Coolpad Note 3 offers 16GB built-in storage with an option to expand up to 64GB via microSD cards. Interestingly, the pre-installed apps aren't too many to consume the onboard memory, giving 11GB for consumer use. The core system takes up a little more than 5GB and the apps take around 500MB.
Battery
Coolpad Note 3 has an impressive 3,000mAh battery. While we are yet to test the battery life under real-world scenarios, the battery size gives a strong hope of a lasting runtime. We will shortly share the results of handset's battery when used full time with mixed usage of gaming, calls, chats and other operations.
Price and after sales service
Coolpad Note 3 is available for Rs. 8,999 exclusively via Amazon India. For those who are concerned about the after-sales service for the handset, refer to the list of available service centers across India. It has a total of 244 service centers across the country.
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