Coolpad has upped the tempo in the sub-7K smartphone segment with the launch of its new Coolpad Note 3 Lite smartphone today. Priced at Rs. 6,999, the phone brings really good specifications to the table. Till now, we have seen only 2GB RAM at this price point, but the Note 3 Lite brings 3GB of RAM to the competition, making it the first one to do so. Speaking of firsts, the phone also carries a fingerprint sensor at the back and is the cheapest device to do so. The rest of the spec-sheet is also decent and does point could make this the best phone in its category. Although, we would need to test the phone more thoroughly (in our full review) before we pass that judgement. For now, here are our first impressions of the phone.
Let’s kick things off with the design. If you remember the original Coolpad Note 3, you will see tons of similarities. The Note 3 Lite is like a shrunken version of the original Coolpad Note 3. The phone comes with a 5-inch display, which translates into a smaller form factor. This also means that unlike the Note 3, the Note 3 Lite is easier to hold in one hand. The build quality remains the same though, which means it felt grippy and sturdy.
Coming to the display, the phone's 5-inch display looks good on first impressions. It has good viewing angles and pretty decent colour reproduction. It is a 1280 x 720p panel, which is quite the norm these days. Two problems, which we had with the Note 3 have not been resolved on the Note 3 Lite — the display still isn't very good with sunlight legibility and catches fingerprints quite easily. The three navigation keys are placed below the display and remain without a backlight.
Talking about the performance of the phone, it is still too early to give you a conclusion, but in the small amount of time we were able to spend with the device, it seemed reasonably fast. There is a quad-core Mediatek MT6735 SoC powering the device, which is the same as that in the Meizu M2 and the Acer Liquid Z530. We tried clicking pictures, opened multiple apps and even shot a small video with the phone and it felt completely at ease. The phone comes with a fingerprint scanner, which can store upto five fingerprints and seems fast enough. It felt as fast as the one on the Coolpad Note 3, which is saying something, for a phone in this price range.
Coming down to optics, the budget friendly Note 3 Lite offers a 13MP shooter at the back. The shutter response is good and the gallery opens quite fast. Talking about the 5MP front-facing camera, the company said it has been tuned to take better selfies.
As for the UI, it is pretty much the same as the one we saw on the Note 3. It is simple and easy to navigate through. The 2500mAh battery is sealed in and the company claims that the phone will provide about 10 hours of battery life, which we shall test later. Another feature Coolpad talked about, was the fact that it supports VoLTE calling. VoLTE or Voice over LTE means the voice service is delivered as data rather than the usual circuit-switched way. This way VoLTE can carry three times more voice data than normal voice services. However, there is one big hitch, while the phone does support the feature, the service is not yet available in India.
Buy Coolpad note lite at Rs.6999 on amazon