Earlier, we have seen flagship phones coming in lighter versions to enable buyers to have them who could not afford the expensive variants. This trend was started by Samsung and followed by many brands. But in the case of Coolpad Note 3 Lite which is lighter variant of its highly successsful Coolpad Note 3, which was priced just Rs. 8,999 and which was a hit among the Indian users, Coolpad has set a new precedent about lighter versions. Probably, Coolpad wants everybody to own its device and has cut down on some features to make it cheaper by Rs. 1000. The major difference between Coolpad Note 3 Lite and Coolpad Note 3 is that the Lite version has a little bit small display, small battery and expansion slot for 32GB. Rest of the features are same and Fingerprint scanner has also been provided on Coolpad Note 3 Lite. Earlier, Coolpad has the distinction to come out with Coolpad Note 3 with Fingerprint scanner and 3GB RAM under Rs. 10,000 and now they have achieved one more plus point to bringht out one more device with 3GB RAM and Fingerprint scanner below Rs. 7000.
Design
The design of Coolpad Note 3 Lite is almost same as of Coolpad Note 3 except that golden colored rim made of aluminium has been added between the display and back cover to give it an impresssive look. The phone is made of plastic but it is of very good quality. This phone has rounded edges and the rear cover has textured design and provides good grip. Power button is on the right hand side and power rocker is on the left side, which are easily accessible. The back panel is removable and provides two slots for Sim cards and one slot is for microSD card.
The 13 MP camera has been given in the center of the back with LED flash, and fingerprint sensor is below the rear camera. The speaker is placed at the bottom below the company’s logo. On the front panel is given 5MP front snapper at the top along with a notification LED. At the bottom there are three capacitive keys, which are responsive but unfortunately are not backlit. The 3.5mm jack and micro-USB port have been provided at the top and bottom edges, respectively.
Display
The Note 3 Lite comes with a 5-inch IPS display with an HD (720×1280) resolution with scratch protection. compared to 5.5 inch HD (1280×720 pixels) display of Coolpad Note 3. The display of this phone reproduces vibrant colors and images turn out bright. Viewing angles are ok and surprisingly visibility under sunlight is quite decent. It is a delight to play games and watch videos on the screen of this phone. This phone has color temperature tweaking options to adjust the screen as per the required needs.
Fingerprint Sensor
The highlight of this phone is its Fingerprint sensor, which has 99% accuracy and takes less than 0.5 second to unlock. We have opened the phone several times by using our registered fingerprint and the phone has not failed us even once. This phone recognises upto five fingers for locking and unlocking the phone. With the Fingerprint sensor, you can also lock the apps on this phone and also click selfies. It is very simple few seconds step to register your fingers for this sensor. This fingerprint sensor really competes with high-end sensors provided on expensive phones.
Hardware and Performance
The Coolpad Note 3 Lite is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6735 SoC combined with 3GB of LPDDR3 RAM, which is also one of the highlights of this phone in this price range. This phone has internal storage of 16GB which can be extended upto 32GB via microSD card compared to 64GB extension capability of Coolpad Note 3. This is Dual-SIM smartphone and also supports 4G LTE, 3G and GSM network frequencies, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Both the SIM slots support 4G LTE. Coolpad also announced at the launch event that VoLTE (voice over LTE) functionality would also be added to this devie but did not reveal the time frame for the same. But this is no issue as India is not ready yet for this technology.
The switching between the apps and multitasking is cool affair on this phone. We played few games with heavy graphics and did not face the usual problem of too much heating. Call quality is quite good and this phone catches 4G signals quite well. You can hear good music via headphones and did not encounter any problem on this aspect also. In our opinion, this phone performed far beyond its capability and specifications.
Battery
This phone gets its juice from a 2500mAh battery compared to 3000mAh battery provided on Coolpad Note 3. The battery can last upto 10 hours with moderate usuage and if you are using the phone heavily then still you would require charging socket after 8 hours only and that is great achievement for this phone.The charger provided in the box unfortunately is quite slow and takes considerable long time to charge the phone fully when the battery is zero.
Camera
Camera feature has become one of the important features of smartphone and hats off to Coolpad for putting a decent 13-megapixel autofocus rear camera with LED flash,f/2.0 aperture, 6P Lens. This phone also houses a 5-megapixel front-facing camera with beautification mode, 4P Lens and Fingerprint selfie feature. Both front and rear camera have Smile, Dim light shot, HDR and Panorama modes for enhancing the quality of the photos. We have clicked few images in daylight with normal mode and the results are quite good. In low-light, the quality of images is not upto the mark and one should not compalin about this as this is budget phone and still performs very well even in optics department. For selife crazy audience, the front snapper provides good and detailed results, which are good enough for sharing with your friends.
Sample of few images clicked in normal mode in daylight:
Software
This phone runs on Cool UI 6.0 based on Android 5.1 Lollipop OS. Although we do not appreciate customised UI but still finds that it is smooth and can be customsied. There is no app drawer and comes pre-loaded with thirt party apps such as WPS office, WeChat, WhatsApp, Amazon, Facebook etc. and Coolpad’s own Cool Service, which gives information about service centers of Coolpad.
Our View
This phone will not disappoint you if you are in the market for a budget phone in the range of Rs. 7000. This phone passes the test in all departments. You can play games and it will not heat up. Its fingerprint sensor performs very well and competes with flagship devices. The camera quality is quite good and ideally suitable for sharing clicked images on social networking sites. This phone will not fail you whole day even if you forget to carry the charger with you.
In such a scenario, we can say that Coolpad Note 3 Lite is really a master among the budget phones with 3GB RAM, fingerprint scanner and other powerful features. This is really cool device and is a deal in the price set by the company.
