CoolPad Note 3 Lite [Unboxing + First Impressions]

Popular Chinese smartphone vendor, Coolpad today launched the Coolpad Note 3 Lite in India which is a smaller version of the Note 3 in every perspective. Fortunately, we spent some time with the device. The device looks good value for money do give a read on our first impressions of the device below.

Unboxing the Coolpad Note 3 Lite

We have unboxed a retail unit and prepared a video, take a look at what all comes within the box.

Design and Display

The Coolpad Note 3 Lite is a smaller sibling of Coolpad Note 3. At front we have a smaller 5-inch display that allows easy one hand usage and the champagne color metallic band around the front display ups the phone’s premium quotient even further. There are three capacitive buttons under the display that do not light up while above the display lies the proximity sensor, a speaker grill and the front camera. On the right hand side lies the power/lock button and we found it a bit hard to reach compared to the original Note 3. On the left hand side we have the volume controls. At the bottom, the micro USB charging slot is moved to the left and a 3.5mm headphone jack appears at the usual top position. The back panel has got a textured grainy finishing that provides much better grip unlike the Note 3 which has a plain matte finish. Under the back panel lies the two SIM card slots (one micro while the other is for a full-sized SIM) and a micro SD card slot. The battery is not removable though.

What’s Under the Hood ?

The new and lighter version of the Coolpad Note 3 is powered by a 64-bit 1.3GHz MediaTek MT6753 quad-core processor and ARM Mali T720 GPU coupled with 3GB RAM and 16GB on-board storage which is further expandable via a microSD card. The device is bundled with 2500mAh non-removable battery. It also features eMMC storage that enables fast data transfer for example it would take just 20 second to transfer a HD movie. The Coolpad Note 3 Lite features a 13-megapixel rear camera with and f/2.0 aperture with 6P lens and LED flash and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera with 4P lens. The dual SIM phone supports FDD LTE (B1/B3) and TDD LTE (B40) bands in India. The company added that VoLTE (voice over LTE) functionality would also be made available, though did not specify the timeline for release.

Fingerprint Sensor v2.0

The fingerprint scanner on the Note 3 was surprisingly good, and the Note 3 Lite carries forward the trend, in fact even better. We saw how accurate and fast the FP scanner was on the Coolpad Note 3, and it seems the company has used the same sensor on the Lite variant as well. The sensor is very responsive and unlocks the device almost instantly without any lags or inaccuracy. Apart from routine screen unlocking the scanner can be used for a wide range of utility from locking private applications to clicking pictures. According to Coolpad, the fingerprint scanner is 99 percent accurate and takes 0.5-seconds to unlock the screen.

Performance

In the small amount of time that we were able to spend with the device, it seemed reasonably fast. We didn’t expect MT6735 to break the benchmark charts but for a budget smartphone, it is expected to carry out the day-to-day tasks with ease and that’s exactly the thing we will be looking out for in our tests. Despite of opening a lot of apps concurrently, the performance was slick and responsive. We are currently reviewing the phone and will soon come out with a detail description of its features and performance.

Our First Impressions

For ₹6999, the Coolpad Note 3 Lite looks to be a serious contender in value for money low-cost smartphone segment. The younger sibling of Coolpad Note 3 performs well and does a good job with its fingerprint sensor. From top of the line specifications and their Make in India initiative, Coolpad has tried to check all boxes with Note 3 Lite. It’s pretty amazing how powerful the budget smartphone are nowadays.

Stay tuned for our full review which should be coming around by the next week or so. Let us know if you have any questions that we can include in our detailed review.