Coolpad Note 3 Lie is the younger cousin of Coolpad Note 3. The Note 3 Lite has a smaller 5 inch display and was launched today at Rs 6,999.
Soon after its launch announcement, The Mobile Indian got the device for review and here is what we have found about the Coolpad Note 3 Lite.
Design
The Coolpad Note 3 Lite looks like a replica of its predecessor but it is not a carbon copy. Not only it has a smaller display but its feels sturdier. The back panel has got rough finishing and provides much better grip. In the Note 3 Lie, the metallic thread around the front display is of golden colour and it looks much better than that of the silver thread of Note 3. Similarly, the rear camera and the fingerprint sensor have also got golden colour metallic thread around them, and it definitely looks great.
Like its predecessor, the Coolpad Note 3 Lite has also very thin bezel on right and left hand side of the display. There are three touch buttons under the display while above the display lies the proximity sensor, a speaker grill and the front camera.
There is another speaker grill at the bottom of the back panel. Towards the top of the rear cover lies the fingerprint sensor, just below the rear camera. A tiny flash light lies on the right of the rear camera while a microphone is at the top of the rear camera to cancel ambient noise.
Another microphone is at the bottom alongside the micro USB port. The volume rocker is on the left hand side while the power button is on the right. A 3.5 mm jack is at the top panel.
Due to the small size, the Coolpad Note 3 Lite is easily operable in one hand. Its curved sides help to grip the phone better. The back cover, which is of decent quality, is removable. Under the back panel lies the two SIM card slots (one micro while the other is for a full sized SIM) and a micro SD card slot. The battery is not removable though.
Display
The Coolpad Note 3 Lite offers a 5 inch display with high definition (1280×720 pixels) resolution. This is the best Resolution you can get under Rs 7,000. The display has got good brightness levels but I doubt it would may feel a bit low in summers. The display though has superb touch response.
The Note 3 Lite has got scratch resistant glass coating over its display which seems quite effective but does not prevent all scratches. You should therefore use a screen protector for peace of mind.
Battery Back Up
The phone has got a 2500 mAh battery which seems average. But Coolpad has really optimised the phone well as a result of which it offers really good back up. I normally got 1.5 days of back up with this phone during which I was using two SIM cards and constant WiFi connection. Also during this my usage involved about 2 hours of internet browsing, about half an hour of calling and another half an hour of gaming.
The phone comes with Efficient and Common charging modes. However, it fails to mention why there are two charger modes. The Efficient mode, it is mentioned that the charging time is minimised when it was charged with a high power charger or the original charger but the Common mode, it says that it “restricts the current with a common charger to extend the battery life cycle”.
So if the Common mode is good for battery life, why Efficient mode is recommended? Also, I didn’t find any difference in charging times between the two methods.
Camera
The Coolpad Note 3 Lite offers a 13 Megapixel auto focus rear camera and a 5 megapixel fixed focus front camera. There is an LED flash light in the back panel as well. The Note 3 Lite wasn’t that impressive as Coolpad Note 3 in terms of camera but it still manages to offer decent output.
As you can observe in its camera samples, the pictures look a bit dark but they do offer decent amount of clarity, if there is plenty of light. In low light, pictures get grainy.
By the way, it is among few phones in its price range to offer Pro mode. It has HDR, Panorama and different types of Effect modes as well. There is a Dimlight Shot mode which infact captures better images in low light than its HDR mode.
There are though few bugs in the camera app. The noticeable one (and most irritating one as well) is the Face beautification option which smoothens the pictures too much, which may not please all. The Face Beauty slider, which appears in the camera App as soon as you switch on to its front camera, does not do much to change this; instead it just changes the overall appearance of the object a bit like reducing the jaw line.
Interface
The Coolpad Note 3 Lite comes with the Android 5.1 Lollipop operating system and has a customised interface called CoolUI 6.0. The noticeable aspect of the UI is that it does not have a dedicated app drawer. So everything is laid out in the home page itself and sometimes it seems a bit messy. The phone comes preinstalled with many apps including few service apps of Coolpad. So the moment you switch it on for the first time you will have that stuffed feeling. Below are some pictures of its interface.
Performance
The Coolpad Note 3 Lite, despite being priced at just Rs 6,999, has huge 3 GB RAM. It has also the Mediatek MT6753 Chipset that has a 64 bit quad core Processor with maximum clock speed of 1.3 GHz. It has the Mali T720 graphics processor. The combination allowed me to play my favourite games like Sniper Fury
Storage wise too it is much better than many of its competitors as it has 16 GB of internal storage and a dedicated micro SD card slot of 32 GB capacity.
The phone has two SIM card slots and you can use two 4G SIM cards as well. For connectivity, there is WiFi (b/g/n) for internet as well. Besides, the phone offers WiFi Hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0 LE version and micro USB port. It has GPS for navigation.
For entertainment, it has music, video player apart from FM radio. As I said earlier, the phone has got fingerprint sensor for extra security. At Rs 6,999, it is perhaps the cheapest phone to offer a fingerprint sensor. The sensor works well. You can add several fingerprints as well.