Recently we have seen an influx of smartphones in and around 7K price bracket and these devices are no longer built using outdated pieces of hardware. Coolpad Mega 2.5D is one such smartphone, with a price tag of INR 6,999. So, what’s so special about this one? Let’s find out.
Design and build
Talking about the design and build quality the Coolpad Mega 2.5D is certainly an attractive looking phone in its gold avatar. At first glance, the Coolpad Mega 2.5D looks like an all-metal smartphone, though only the frame is actually metal. Despite the plastic body, the phone feels well-built and looks as good as perhaps some of the more expensive smartphones. The phone weighs just 140g, making it one of the lightest big-screen smartphones we have come across recently. The display has a 2.5D curved screen and is elevated from the phone’s panel to give it an edge-to-edge look.
New Software with a Confusing UI
The phone runs the company’s proprietary CoolUI 8.0 skin based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, and it looked heavily customised. And obviously there is no app drawer and all app icons are spread across the home screens. The changes in the CoolUI 8.0 are a bit excessive and quite unnecessary. For example swiping up from below brings up the Control Centre, which has brightness control slider, a row of customisable toggle switches and shortcuts to apps. We agree that this control centre was intended to make easy one hand usage but honestly switching from traditional layout is confusing and annoying. There are some UI design choices we wish were done differently. For instance, the notification shade is translucent which makes it impossible to read an email notification when a dark wallpaper is set. The theme app that’s bundled with the phone is pretty poor as the choice is very limited and even the themes you get aren’t too pleasant to live with. Plus, some themes tend to break basic functionality of Android, which makes them all the more frustrating.
Performance
Coolpad Mega 2.5D is powered by a MediaTek MT6735P is just enough to handle day-to-day tasks such as social networking, web browsing, movie playback and YouTube. However we can’t deny the fact that there are significant frame drops not just in games but even during regular use. On playing graphic-intensive games such as FIFA 16, Asphalt 8 or Riptide GP2 it tends to feel a bit sluggish. Let’s just say this smartphone isn’t meant for gamers. CoolUI 8 is pretty snappy at first but after setting it up with a few apps and games, the performance isn’t great. After getting the first handson of the device we had only one thought-The company must have cut corners somewhere to be able to deliver this? The device being powered by 3GB RAM should perform multitasking very well but the bottleneck of this device being 1Ghz Mediatek MT6735P processor which isn’t quite the workhorse.
The Mega 2.5D is powered by a 2,500mAh battery, which is quite small, but the device challenged our expectations to last long enough. With extreme usage the handset lasted for 7-8 hours, which is quite impressive. The only downside being it takes almost two hours to fully charge the device.
Camera
The Coolpad Mega is aimed at the selfie-loving crowd and for that there is an 8MP snapper up front. And an 8MP autofocus rear camera with LED Flash, Sony sensor and f/2.2 aperture. With these kind of specs in terms of camera one might expect above average results from the camera module. However, the images samples that we took while reviewing the device were taken at day time and these images were decent enough keeping the price point in mind. Focusing speeds are slow and due to the shutter lag, you need to be very steady to get good picture. The Coolpad Mega 2.5D lacks details and true colours. It works fairly well under well-lit conditions, but pixelates the image under low-light conditions. The dynamic range is quite poor on the camera due to which the dark regions are very low on details. The camera app is simple and easy to use. To switch between different shooting modes like Video, Beauty, Night, and Pro you can swipe up or down to switch. You also get Panorama, Sound and Shot, and GIF modes.
Our Verdict
The Coolpad Mega 2.5D is no doubt a beautiful looking device with sturdy build quality and impressive design. The device is directly competed against the Xiaomi Redmi 3s, but poor choices in components is what holds it back. The performance of the device is ruined by a mediocre processor and heavy skin on top of Marshmallow that feels unnecessarily bloated. Yes, performance does seem to be average but is it’s not patheic for casual use. At a price point of INR 6,999, the Coolpad Mega 2.5D is certainly worth taking a look.
Pros:
- Premium design and build quality
- 2.5D glass on the front
- Decent battery
- Price
- Selfie Camera
Cons:
- Low-light camera not very impressive
- Mediocre performance
- CoolUI 8.0
[easyreview title=”Install or Not Scorecard” cat1title=”Hardware” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3.0″ cat2title=”Performance” cat2detail=”” cat2rating=”2.5″ cat3title=”Design” cat3detail=”” cat3rating=”4.0″ cat4title=”Value for Money” cat4detail=”” cat4rating=”3.5″]
