Smartphone market has evolved a lot over the past few years. If you just look at the low budget segment, one would notice lot of difference in the features you get for the price range. One such brand Coolpad has launched a device with some good features at low price point. Its the new Coolpad Cool 3 plus which we got our hands on and took it for a spin. Let us check out what exactly are the features, are they worth it for the price tag. This is a Coolpad Cool 3 Plus full review written after using the phone for few weeks and these are my opinion.
Coolpad Cool 3 Plus Review
Design
Coolpad Cool 3 Plus has a glossy plastic back which ofcourse doesn’t look premium, but still gives a nice touch to it. Now the color which I received was the Ocean blue. Now the color is too shiny and I didn’t enjoy it much. But then I took a opinion of some other people out of which some liked it and some didn’t. So make sure you check the color online before going for any option. When you first hold the device the back does have a plastic finish. The overall grip of the device is good. The device has a bit of compact form factor and you are good to go with one hand use. Overall the phone does seem durable on the insides but can take some damage on the outside. As for the volume rockers and power button are on the right, hybrid sim tray on the left, micro USB port & speaker grill on the bottom and headphone jack on the top. On the rear it has the fingerprint scanner which is still my fav place for it to be. Considering the price range, the design aspects of Coolpad Cool 3 Plus are quite decent.
Display
The device comes with 5.7 inch IPS LCD display. I am not really sure about any additional gorilla glass protection on the display. It has the dewdrop notch for the front camera on the display. Overall touch operation is decent on the device. The backlit works well in medium sunlight. Overall display quality and color reproduction are decent as per the price point.
Performance
Let us start with hardware performance first. The Coolpad Cool 3 Plus comes with a Mediatek Helio A22 quad-core processor clocked at 2.00 GHz. It has two variants in terms of storage – 2GB RAM & 16GB storage, 3GB RAM & 32GB storage. I got the later one, and it worked well in terms of performance. The multitasking was decent and the overall usage was good. As for the graphics and gaming requirements the device comes with Power VR GE8300 GPU. It can run basic games giving you entertainment at low budget too. You can always try running mid level or high-level games by lowering graphics on these low budget smartphones to get less latency and frame drops. I won’t promise anything to the hardcore gamers here as this is a smartphone in lower budget segment. Overall hardware performance is again decent. In terms of software, the Coolpad Cool 3 plus comes with Android Pie with 360OS on top of it. The operating system works smooth on the hardware that comes with this device. There are some third party apps that comes with the device which can be removed if desired.
Camera
Coolpad Cool 3 Plus has a 13MP rear shooter with LED flash. It has the 8MP front camera with dew drop notch. Now as for the rear camera, it takes decent snaps in daylight. Though the dynamic range is average as it makes dark spots more darker and over exposed bright spots. In the low light is struggles to take a good picture. Also indoors or in low light, make sure to be very stable while taking pictures as the camera will give some blurry image. The selfies are a bit of average even in the daylight. Overall there is nothing too attractive about the camera here.
Sound and Connectivity
The speakers of the Coolpad Cool 3 plus are on the button which give some decent clear sound output. As for the connectivity you get Wifi, bluetooth, GPS etc which are pretty normal to be found in every device. As for the SIM card, its a hybrid slot, so either SIM or expandable memory card. I think adding memory through an external card would slow down the performance of the device. You still have the 3.5mm audio jack available and micro USB slot for charging.
Battery
The device comes with a 3000 mAh battery. It would last a day if you would want that. For power users who would do lot of gaming, the device won’t last the whole day. As for the charging you get a compact charger of 5W rating. The current is quite less in this case so the charging takes about 2.5 hrs to full charge.
Price
The 2GB RAM with 16GB storage is available for Rs. 5,999 and the 3GB RAM with 32GB storage is available for Rs. 6,499. You can available some discount offers while doing shopping online.
Verdict
Overall the Coolpad Cool 3 Plus is a decent device for its price range. The display, build, and battery are decent. I won’t say expect everything from a low budget, but you can always go for the competitor Xiaomi with some Redmi series smartphone or pay some extra bucks and Realme smartphones.