How do you make a market even more competitive? How do you deliver more power to a consumer at a lesser price, but still deliver almost the same experience? This is something Coolpad as a company is doing. They managed to impress almost everybody with Note 3, and now with Note 3 Lite, they are here to target consumers who want to pay a little less, but still get almost the same hardware.
After testing Coolpad Note 3 Lite for over a week, I Must say I’m impressed with the phone on many fronts. While it is almost like Coolpad Note 3, there are few differences our readers should know.
So, lets check them out:
Performance :
Let me put forward the difference between Coolpad Note 3 & its Lite version first. Since we reviewed Note 3 as well, it makes sense for you to understand how they differ.
Keeping in mind that Lite comes with a Quad-core chipset compared to an Octacore chipset in Note 3, I was expecting the Lite 3 be a little slow, but that was not the case. In fact the performance difference would be negligible in day to day usage. I think that keeping 3 GB of RAM was a great decision on Lite since it ensures that the phone performs smoothly in day to day usage. As for the difference due to the quadcore vs octacore chipset, there is only a difference between 1.5 to 1 sec between the two.
Make sure to check this video to watch the speed test.
We tested this with Asphalt 8, WhatsApp, Facebook, Clash of Clans, Netflix, Chrome, YouTube, and few more. So I am sure you will have no complaints here.
Battery Life :
The phone on average per complete charge lasted for about 16 hours with 4 hours of Screen On Time. This is impressive. I have not seen Android phone at this price range & configuration lasting so long.
I tested this on 4G network with 2 SIM ( Airtel 4G + Vodafone 3G). I had used WhatsApp, Facebook, Foursquare, Asphalt 8 : Airborne, Twitter, Clash of Clans, 2 Email Accounts.
Build, Design & Display:
The build quality of Note 3 Lite looks, and feels the same as Note 3. Compact & Solid. Hand it over to anybody, and take a look at the phone, and you wont feel its another cheap plastic phone. I am pretty sure that the phone will be able to survive bumps, and drops though I have not really tried it out on my own. That said, the change from Note 3 is matte finish on the rear, and golden rim around the edges which looks attractive.
One thing that has changed under the rear panel is potion of microSD card. Note 3 has the second slim slot, and sd card slot on top of each other. In Coolpad Note 3 Lite, this has moved down close to speaker, while second sim slot has changed postion as well. Overall this is much better arrangement.
The phone houses a 5 inch / 720P IPS LCD screen which is on the compact side. During my usage, I found it very convenient to use, but this will vary from person to person. Compared to Note 3, viewing angle on Note 3 Lite is on the lower side. Does it look bad? Actually no. Just like how causal user wont find a lot of difference between the performance of the device, the same goes for display as well.
Software:
The Coolpad Note 3 Lite comes with Android 5.1 Lollipop out of the box, and is decorated with company’s own UI–Cool UI–which rather looks well done, and easy to use. Here few things you will love on both the phones:
- Notification is full of quick toggles, and you will not need any customisation.
- Quick Switch between SIM data.
- Long Standby Mode when you need to save battery for calls.
- Gesture Support e.g. Double tap to Wakeup, Slide up to unlock, slide down to take photos, and so on.
- Control Notification on individual apps.
- Dual Windows Mode is available, but not very smooth.
Price :
The best part of the phone is its price. While we have seen phones rolling out great hardware combination at lower price, they all suffer from sub par performance after extended usage. The Coolpad Note 3 Lite takes all of them down with its overall hardware combination and performance it delivers. At Rs 6,999 you get impressive performance, decent battery, camera to shoot gorges pictures and selfies and a fingerprint sensor.
Coolpad Note 3 Lite costs you Rs 2,000 less compared to Note 3. Keeping in mind that performance is almost the same, and the major difference is its battery it makes sense to invest in Note 3 Lite. You really don’t loose much. You still get a big screen, same camera, 3 GB RAM, good build quality and so on.
What about other things?
Camera, Gaming performance, fingerprint sensor are exactly the same on Note 3 Lite as it was on Note 3.
