Coolpad Note 3 Review: A Powerful Phone At A Tempting Price Tag

After a flamboyant start with two prolific phones, CoolPad went quiet for quite some days. In just a couple of months, Coolpad Dazen 1 and Dazen X7 posed some serious threats for its Chinese counterparts, and lured buyers in massive numbers by offering top-tier specs at very reasonable price tags.

But now, after a comprehensive restructuring, the company is making up for the lost time with its all-new Coolpad Note 3. The name looks a little different, but the combo of high-end specs and tempting price tag is a still a major element of company’s newest offering.

The new Coolpad Note 3 ships at Rs. 9000, and flaunts a really impressive set of hardware and software specs. In a bid to grow above and beyond Xiaomi, Meizu and Lenovo, Coolpad has offered a new fingerprint sensor. So, let’s take a look what makes this handset perfect for budget buyers, and are there any noticeable flaws?

Design and Build Quality

The new CoolPad Note 3 is a fairly built smartphone. It is quite large, but considering modern-day standards, it looks pretty good from all angles. This time, the company has focused on large screen to body ratio, and has featured thin bezels with three capacitive buttons at the bottom for home, back and multitasking functionalities.

Added to this, a metal band with purplish tint runs around the phone, and is complimented by volume rockers on the left, and power button the right side. Last but not the least, the non-removable back panel of this handset gives a nice look and feel with soft-touch matte finish, but just like Redmi 2 and other phones, it is susceptible to smudges and fingerprints.

Display

The viewing experience on CoolPad Note 3 is near-to-perfect. It is a bright and Crisp IPS panel, which delivers lifelike images at a screen-resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. Since bigger screen-size eats some serious amount of pixel density, the lack of a full HD display panel is a major disappointment from this smartphone.

Anyways, whether it’s indoors or outdoors, the HD panel of this handset looks competent enough to deliver meticulous colors from all angles. Its sunlight output is also pretty impressive, and you can easily watch high-res videos without any issues or color shifts.

Hardware and Performance

As far as performance and benchmarks are concerned, there is nothing to complain about CoolPad Note 3. The budget handset powers up by an octa-core MediaTek MT6753 SoC with Mali-T720, and delivers smooth and lag-free performance while running heavy apps and games. The processing speed of this 64-bit chipset is not the best in this category, but with 3GB RAM, it keeps performance standards high at all levels.

Throughout the testing period, the performance of Coolpad Note 3 was witnessed to be slick and glitch-free. Apps ran pretty well, but they took little longer to start up in the first place. Even in AnTuTu and GFXBench benchmarks, the phone marked a score of 35617 and 1043 points, and looked fairly competitive with players like Galaxy J7, Mi4i and Xperia M4 Aqua in the game.

Camera Performance

At least on paper, the camera credentials of Coolpad Note 3 look good enough to cater standard photography requirements. The phone delivered admirably bright and color rich images in broad day light, but in lowlight environments, its images ended up unbalanced dull color tones with lost details.

Its f/2.0 aperture plays a significant part in giving decent images with fair amount of light. Unless you‘ll look deep into pixels, the snaps will come out clean and vivid. The selfie camera is also an impressive add-on but, if you’re looking for an improved photography experience, it’s better to switch towards other high-end players like the Galaxys, HTCs and iPhones.

Software

Software, being a major element, plays a significant part in enhancing Coolpad Note 3’s performance. It runs the latest iteration of Android, and features a slick interface with a slew of intuitive features. There are some small jitters in Cool UI, but on whole, the software of this phone has lived just up to our expectations.

The home-screen of this smartphone presents all applications in the form of a grid just as on the iPhone. Despite placing all apps at one place without an app drawer, it looks completely clean and uncluttered. You always have the option to switch towards Google launcher or a third party launcher, but the look and performance of Cool UI is fairly impressive.

The software of this phone looks very clean, and there is not much bloatware for uninstallation on first use. The Cool Service app and Cool app store added on the phone showcases a list of available service outlets in the city, and a curated list of some recommended applications for the users.

Other noticeable additions on the software front include C for replicating actions of capacitive buttons and multi-tasking for running two applications side by side on the same screen. You might witness some performance issues while running two apps simultaneously, but it’s really beneficial for those user who always wish to stay connected with friends and family.

Fingerprint sensor

The fingerprint sensor equipped with this phone is quick, responsive and snappy. Its slick performance is complimented by an app dubbed as Fingerprint management. In this app, you can add up to 5 prints and assign them as shortcuts for unlocking the phone or triggering some other app. Its performance is absolutely fine, and as the company touted, you’ll get a comfortable feel while using it with your index fingers. It responds in less than half a second, but it’s not useful when the phone is lying on its back on some other surface, and you want to unlock it quickly.

Connectivity

On the connectivity front, the performance of this handset stays right on the mark. It packs a plethora of connectivity options such as, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G, and 4G LTE, and delivers blazing download speeds without any lags or glitches. 4G is supported only on the first SIM card slot, while USB OTG is also on board for seamless connectivity with multiple portable storage devices.

Battery Performance

In our testing period, the battery of CoolPad Note 3 performed decently and gave sufficient amount of juice for nonstop work and play. The battery of this handset features a capacity of 3000mAh, and gives full-day usage without any issues. With two active sim cards and regular internet access, it gives you 12 hours of power, and on continuous video playback, it lasts for almost 8 hours. Hence, we can conclude that the battery life of this smartphone is exemplary, but is good enough to cater standard requirements. It can keep things up and running for quite some time.

Final Verdict

On a closer look, we found Coolpad Note 3 pretty interesting. At a reasonable price tag, it brings top-of-the line performance, stunning design, and long-lasting battery capabilities. In a crowded smartphone market with some incredible players, Coolpad has given a fine player. The company might face some issues in growing big in coming months, but as for this phone, there isn’t anything which goes missing. It has all essentials to offer full value for money, and you can easily keep it work and play.

Hence, we can say, Coolpad Note 3 packs a strong punch, but being strong doesn’t make it stand out against Micromax, Lenovo, and other leading players. Seeing the all new Micromax Canvas 5, Meizu M2 Note, Xiaomi Mi4i, and Lenovo K3 Note, it looks a little weak on the display department.

However, Coolpad’s focus on the highly competitive budget segment is a clear sign that there is more to come in coming months. We can certainly expect the company to unleash some affordable yet powerful phones in the highly lucrative budget smartphone market.

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