Coolpad Note 5 Lite is a affordable and budget smartphone under Rs 10k segment. It is a cheaper and scaled-down version of the Coolpad Note 5. The smartphone comes with a price tag of Rs 8,199. At this price, it has some interesting features like 3GB of RAM, 2.5D Curved Glass and a fingerprint sensor. Let’s see how the smartphone performs in day-to-day usage.
Build and Design
The Coolpad Note 5 comes with a full metallic unibody with curved edges. The smartphone’s design is similar to most of the devices available in the market nowadays.
The front panel has camera and sensors at the top. The bezel is somehow thick but unnoticeable as the body is all dark grey. There are capacitive buttons provided under the display screen. The volume button is present on the left side while the power key is on the right. The Coolpad logo is on the rear panel along with the camera, LED flash and a fingerprint reader.
Overall the build is good and the design is too, although it doesn’t have an extremely premium finish. The body is quite ergonomic and can be easily used with a single hand.
Display
The Coolpad Note 5 Lite has a 2.5D curved glass on the top of 5-inch HD display which comes with 1,280 x 720 pixel resolution. The colour reproduction is not very accurate but the display seems quiet crisp. It can be seen under direct sunlight as well as via different viewing angle.
Hardware and Software
The Coolpad Note 5 Lite is powered by a quad-core MediaTek 6735 processor clocked at 1.4GHz. It comes with 3GB of RAM. There is 16GB of internal storage with a 64GB expandable hybrid-type microSD card slot. Out of 3GB RAM, users normally get around 1.5GB of free RAM. Around 10GB of free storage is available to the users out of the 16GB flash memory.
The smartphone runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow with its custom Cool UI on the top of it. The UI seems attractive but it has a lot of preinstalled bloatware like Zuimei Weather, Xploree keyboard and many more. There is no additional app drawer, and all the apps lie on the main screen. The notification panel swipe down as normal but the quick toggle bar comes from the bottom side.
Performance
The Coolpad Note 5 Lite has an average touch response. The reaction time could be faster maybe it’s because of less RAM available. The apps also take time to open up but then easily swappable. The multitasking of the device is average.
The gaming performance of the device is good but it takes time to load games like Asphalt 8. There is also a noticeable lag when you pause and resume the game in middle. Small games are easily playable.
In our benchmark tests, it scores 30586 in AnTuTu, 11257 in Quadrant Standard and 59.9 in NenaMark 2.0. In GeekBench it scored 523 in Single Core and 1435 in Multi-Core. The scores are decent but comparing to the Redmi 3S which comes in similar price range, it is average.
The fingerprint sensor works well and unlocks the smartphone quickly. The calling and network connectivity is also good. There was no call drop or any connectivity issue during our usage. The speakers are good and give a good output.
Battery
The Coolpad Note 5 Lite comes with 2,500mAh of battery which gives around 8 hours of running time with normal usage. The battery seems a drawback for the heavy and moderate users. It gives around full day battery life to the minimal users.
Camera
It sports a 13-megapixel rear facing camera with f/2.2 aperture and LED flash. The camera works fine in the daylight and captures good images. The photos have a decent amount of details and colour reproduction. It also has different types of modes as per one’s needs like HDR, Night, Panorama, Pro, Beautify. The low-light performance is average and has noise in it.
The front camera is of 5-megapixel and shoots good selfies. It also has a beautify modes for the selfies which enhances the quality. Overall the camera works fine and gives good results.
Gizmo-Verdict
The Coolpad Note 5 Lite gives has build quality, great camera and better-than-average battery life. While the performance is not the best, it’s acceptable. At a price of Rs 8,199, it’s a decent smartphone to buy as the Redmi 3s is only available via flash sales.
