By Sourabh Kulesh
New Delhi, Nov 14 (IANS) As the competition in the mid-range smartphone segment gets fierce in India, Chinese players are offering too many specifications in their devices. Coolpad has been among the top Chinese players when it comes to launching such feature-packed devices.
The Rs 10,999 Coolpad Note 5 has been bundled with a lot of power. It has 4GB RAM -- the most affordable smartphone with this huge RAM at this price.
Here is what we think of it.
The unimetal royal gold device sports a 5.5-inch Full HD immersive display with a 2.5D glass covering it. Owing to its wide built, the device is not meant for people with small hands but it should not be a problem given the display quality in this price band.
Coolpad Note 5 has a 13MP rear camera with dual-LED flash and to the delight for selfie lovers, it houses an 8MP front-facing camera with LED flash; so selfies in low-light conditions were not a problem.
The smartphone comes with 32GB of in-built storage that can be expanded up to 64GB with a MicroSD card via a hybrid dual-SIM tray.
With 4GB RAM, Coolpad Note 5 is definitely ahead of rivals like Lenovo (Vibe K5 Note) and LeEco (Le 2) which offers 3GB RAM.
Most of the smartphone players are trying to woo the customers by offering massive battery and guess what? Coolpad Note 5 has a huge 4,010mAh battery that ran for almost 32 hours with normal daily usage.
For heavy users, who need to be connected on the go and consume maximum content on their smartphones, the device returns 17 hours of running time.
Coolpad Note 5 offers 1.5GHz octa-core Snapdragon 617 processor and an ARM Cortex-A53 GPU and runs on easy-to-use Cool UI 8.0 based on Android Marshmallow.
The smartphone also comes with the fingerprint scanner which was quick and responsive (like Xiaomi Note 3 and OnePlus 3). The scanner, placed on the device's back panel just under the camera ring, unlocked the device in a jiffy.
Another cool feature the smartphone offers is Dual apps, meaning a user can have two copies of applications like WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger and others running at the same time on the same device. This is handy for people who use two SIM cards.
What doesn't work?
The Snapdragon 617 processor and 4GB RAM are not quite a better combination as it ends up working like a 3GB RAM device with Snapdragon 650 processor. It would have been better to use Snapdragon 650 processor with a 4GB RAM device for better performance even if the device cost a little extra.
Coolpad Note 5 looks like any other Chinese smartphone with no change in built, looks and colours.
Also, the hybrid-SIM tray is a downer for people who use two SIM cards. They can either expand the memory by microSD card or use two SIM cards.
Conclusion: At Rs 10,999, Coolpad Note 5 with a huge battery, front camera flash, 4GB RAM with an octa-core processor is great value for money. People looking for options other than Xiaomi or LeEco can go for this.
(Sourabh Kulesh can be contacted at sourabh.k@ians.in)
