The Coolpad Cool 1 is the most affordable smartphone in India boasting a dual-camera setup.
China’s LeEco and Coolpad have both made their presence felt in the Indian smartphone space. Today, both companies have collaborated to launch a new smartphone in India, called the Cool 1. This smartphone is the result of LeEco acquiring a 28.6 percent stake in Coolpad earlier this year. But enough about the business. The Cool 1 has been launched in India with a price tag of Rs 13,999, and having spent the last few days with the device, here are my first impressions.
Looking at the Cool 1, the overall look and feel isn’t quite revolutionary, and it looks similar to most of the smartphones in the sub-Rs 15,000 price segment. But then again, it is hardly a surprise, considering devices in this category are more of a commodity, and the Cool 1 actually looks a lot like LeEco’s Le 2 smartphone.
So in essence, you get a device with a glass and metallic body. The front is dominated by the display, with the earpiece and selfie camera on the top, and capacitive navigation buttons at the bottom. At the back is the dual-camera setup, with dual-tone LED flash alongside, a fingerprint sensor underneath, and the logo — Coolpad LeEco inside — towards the bottom. Up top you will find the 3.5mm audio jack and IR blaster, while at the bottom you find the speaker grilles and USB Type-C port. The Cool 1 Dual doesn’t feel cheap by any means, but with most smartphones in this range looking similar, it doesn’t feel that different either.
The smartphone’s talking point is the dual-camera setup at the back, which makes the Coolpad Cool 1 among the most affordable devices in India to boast such a feature. This setup includes a pair of 13-megapixel snappers — one to capture RGB images and the other to capture monochrome images. The overall functionality is similar to what the likes of Huawei P9 offer, and the setup helps in capturing photos with plenty of details and sharpness. It also lets one click photos with DSLR-like bokeh effect. Accompanying the camera is a dual-tone LED flash, and it is also capable of shooting videos at 4K resolution. For selfie lovers, the smartphone features an 8-megapixel front-facing camera, with built-in beauty mode.
In the time we spent with the smartphone, the Cool 1’s cameras were able to capture good quality photos. When clicking photos outdoors in good lighting conditions, the camera is able to capture plenty of details and color reproduction is quite good as well. But indoors under ambient lighting conditions, there’s a visible drop in the quality of photos, especially when zoomed in. The bokeh effect also works well when lighting conditions are optimal, though there were times when the camera struggled to focus properly on a subject and blur out the background. We will take a closer look at the performance of both the front and back cameras in our review, so stay tuned.
The Cool 1 flaunts a 5.5-inch full HD (1920×1080 pixels) IPS display. The display feels good, is quite legible under direct sunlight, text look sharp, and viewing angles are pretty good as well. Under the hood is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 652 octa-core processor clocked at 1.8GHz and paired with Adreno 510 GPU. Coolpad has launched two variants in India — one featuring 3GB of RAM, and the other featuring 4GB of RAM. In essence, there is enough power to handle day-to-day apps, multitasking, and the occasional graphic-intensive game. While the smartphone was able to handle a game like Asphalt 8: Airborne, the back of the device did heat up after sometime indicating how the internals were working hard to keep everything ticking smoothly.
For those wondering what ‘LeEco inside’ in the logo means, the UI has basically been developed by them. The Cool 1 basically runs on Android Marshmallow-based EUI 5.8. The UI is same that is found on smartphones like the LeEco Le 2 and the Le Max2. The overall performance is pretty fluid, though you will have to get used to the absence of the app drawer. Another thing that one needs to get used to is the control center on EUI, which has been integrated into the multitasking window. So basically, when you open the app switcher, you not only see all the open apps, but also the brightness slider, music playback and shortcuts to the camera, calculator and flashlight among others.
There is a fingerprint sensor placed at the back, just below the dual-cameras. The company says that the sensor is fast enough to unlock the screen in just about 0.15 seconds. During my usage I did find the scanner to quite quick to recognize my fingerprint and unlock the device in a jiffy. The sensor is also useful when clicking selfies.
There is 32GB onboard storage on both Cool 1 variants, with around 25GB available for users. There is however no option to expand the memory using a microSD card. Connectivity options include dual-SIM card slots (nano), 4G with VoLTE support, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS. Making sure everything ticks is a 4,000mAh battery under the hood, which is good enough to last over a day on a single charge. The battery also comes with support for fast charging thanks for the USB Type-C port.
With the little time that we have spent with the Coolpad Cool 1, it has proven to be a device that can’t be ignored, despite debuting in a crowded segment. Things going in its favor are good build quality, a decent set of specifications and features, and especially the dual-camera setup at the back. In a segment featuring the likes of Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, Moto M, and the Lenovo K6 Note to name a few, the Cool 1 is sure to stand out courtesy of the dual-camera setup. Nonetheless, we will reserve our judgments till we have thoroughly reviewed the new smartphone. Until then, stay tuned.