The under Rs 10,000 segment is a hotly contested section of India's burgeoning mobile market. Coolpad has released yet another budget contender in the form of the Coolpad Note 5 Lite which aims to take on the current segment leader -- the Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime.
At Rs 8,199, does Coolpad's latest smartphone have what it takes to dice it out with competitors from Lenovo, Motorola and Xiaomi? Or does it make too many compromises in the quest for a competitive price? Let's find out.
Design
There is no denying it. The Coolpad Note 5 Lite is one of the best looking smartphones in its price range. Built out of metal and glass, the smartphone looks incredibly premium and can easily be mistaken for a device several segments up the price ladder.
The smartphone is built well and feels hefty and reassuring in the hand. The back is an all metal affair which houses the secondary microphone, 13MP rear camera, loudspeaker and the fingerprint sensor, which is located right below the camera sensor.
The 2.5D glass on the front looks sleek and lends to the device's in-hand feel. Underneath the display are three capacitive buttons for multitasking, home and back which are easy to use but are sadly not backlit, which can be quite a hindrance at night.
In a day and age of gigantic smartphones which are almost impossible to use with one hand, the Note 5 Lite comes off as a breath of fresh air with its rather compact and petite chassis.
What is rather surprising (at this price point) is the fact that the sides are also made of metal, with the volume rocker located on the left edge and the hybrid SIM slot and power button situated on the right hand side. The keys are tactile and firm and do not feel mushy.
The rear mounted fingerprint sensor, while not one of the fastest ones out there, is quite accurate and easy to use. The central location makes it easy to locate blindly and as it is an active fingerprint sensor, it can be used to unlock the phone directly, without having to press the power button first.
The single speaker at the back, while loud enough, does get tinny and distorted at high volumes. It's position is also pretty awkward with the sound getting muted every time you place the device down on a flat surface.
At the bottom we find the primary microphone and the micro USB 2.0 port for charging and data transfer. The top of the smartphone is barren except for the 3.5mm headphone jack.
Hardware and performance
The Coolpad Note 5 Lite is powered by the quad-core Mediatek MT6735 processor clocked at 1.0Ghz paired with the Mali T720 GPU and a 2,500mAh battery. Additionally, the smartphone comes with 3GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage which can be expanded via a microSD card (of up to 64GB).
The performance of the Note 5 Lite can be summed up in two words - below average. The smartphone in general feels laggy and slow.
While the smartphone handles basic tasks like opening system apps, writing messages and taking pictures quite well, it gets really bogged down with even a modicum of heavy use. This is one of the first devices I have reviewed in a while which exhibits black blocks whilst scrolling through websites in Chrome, fails to keep pace with typing using the default keyboard and exhibits at-least 5-10 app crashes in one day.
With intensive use, the situation becomes worse. Open a few tabs in Chrome, run a game or two in the background and browse through a heavy application like Facebook and the smartphone really struggles to keep up. Mind you, this is not a case of me being overly harsh on a budget device. The Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime - the Note 5 Lite's primary competitor is faster and a much better performer with its Snapdragon 430 SoC.
Built out of metal and glass, the smartphone looks incredibly premium and can easily be mistaken for a device few segments up the price ladder.
If you are a heavy gamer, you should definitely avoid the Coolpad Note 5 Lite. Heavy games exhibit lags and frame-rate drops and after a few minutes of gameplay become virtually unplayable. Even less intensive games such as Asphalt Nitro exhibit constant judders and frame rate drops. On a positive note, Casual games like Candy Crush Saga run fine.
Multi-tasking is decent with the 3GB of RAM on board but its efficacy gets compromised by the lackluster CPU. What compounds the matter further is the fact that the software, in its current iteration is very buggy and unstable.
Display
The Coolpad Note 5 Lite comes with a 5.0-inch 720p IPS LCD display which is pretty average overall. While the lack of a 1080p display may be disappointing for some, colors are crisp and vibrant and sunlight legibility is decent.
However, the viewing angles are rather mediocre. Contrast goes for a toss and colours get inverted whenever the device is viewed from an angle. While the maximum brightness level is more than adequate, the lowest setting is a bit too bright which makes the smartphone a pain to use at night without installing a screen dimming application.
Software
The Coolpad Note 5 Lite comes with Coolpad's own Cool UI running atop Android 6.0 Marshmallow. In the 7 days I used the smartphone as my primary device, the smartphone averaged at least 5 app crashes every day with Google Play Services and Coolpad's own Cool Manager being the worst offenders.
The software is otherwise snappy. Basic tasks like scrolling through the UI, opening system apps and pulling down the notification shade are quick and snappy, with little or no lag.
Apart from the app crashes, the biggest problem with Coolpad's Cool UI is the lack of polish. Small things like the fact that Icon text is not visible with the majority of on-board wallpapers and that icons for third party applications get cut from the top and bottom and appear weirdly squashed really take away from the overall experience.
Just like Apple's Control Centre, Quick toggles are invoked by swiping up from bottom of the screen and are not located within the notification shade. The fact that the capacitive buttons are located just below the display leads to a situation where you inadvertently end up hitting one of the capacitive keys for home, back or multitasking every time you want to summon the quick toggles.
The Coolpad Note 5 Lite is a smartphone characterised by its looks and design prowess. But peel that shiny exterior away and you are left with a smartphone that is the literal embodiment of the saying "all show and no go"
Cool UI does come with certain nifty features. The fingerprint sensor on board can be used to perform a myriad of functions. You can press and hold the fingerprint sensor to close an alarm, answer a call and take a photo whilst in the camera app. The sensor can also be double tapped to turn off the display when the smartphone is on.
Additionally, upon taking a screenshot, the smartphone offers users the option to share the screenshot, add certain effects and use scroll capture to capture a long article or image.
Camera
The 13MP rear camera is pretty much what you would expect at this price range. It takes decent shots in well lit situations but really struggles in low light and complex shots. Under adequate lighting conditions, the images produced are crisp and vibrant with natural color reproduction.
In low light scenarios, a fair bit of noise and pixelation creeps in and the level of detail falls drastically. In scenarios with multiple light sources, the exposure goes for a toss and the resultant image is very muddled. The camera also struggles to capture details in complex shots such as dense foliage.
The 8MP front shooter is surprisingly competent and takes crisp and vivid shots in well lit situations. It performs reasonably well in low light too thanks to the front LED flash, which is a rarity in this price segment.
Battery Life
The Coolpad Note 5 Lite comes with a 2,500mAh battery that is adequate at best. During my week of testing, I averaged a screen on time of around 4-5 hours and got through the day with approximately 5-10 per cent of charge left.
As I use my device very intensively, a lighter workload might fetch you slightly better battery life. The device takes approximately 2-2.5 hours to be fully charged which is slightly below average in today's time.
Verdict
The Coolpad Note 5 Lite is a smartphone characterised by its looks and design prowess. Design wise, it is one of the best smartphones in its price range. The glass and metal construction lend an extremely classy and elegant look to the device. Beyond doubt, the smartphone can easily be mistaken for a device several segments up the price ladder.
But peel that shiny exterior away and you are left with a smartphone that is the literal embodiment of the saying "all show and no go". While the device is adequate for basic tasks, it just cannot measure up to to competitors like the Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime and the Motorola G4 Play when it comes to performance. The buggy and unstable UI and average display further pull the device down.
On a positive note, the device comes with decent battery life and a competent front camera equipped with an LED flash.
All in all, If you prioritise looks over everything else and need your smartphone to have a front LED flash, the Coolpad Note 5 Lite makes for a good buy. Also, If you don't have the patience to deal with Xiaomi's flash sales, you can consider the Note 5 Lite.
For everyone else however, the smartphone just does not present itself as a sensible option amidst much stronger competition from the likes of Xiaomi, Lenovo and Motorola.
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