GADGET GIZMO SPECIAL You Win Some, You Lose Some

GADGET GIZMO SPECIAL You Win Some, You Lose Some

We reviewed the Coolpad Note 3 in October 2015 and called it one of the best in its price range. At the time, it was the cheapest phone with 3GB RAM and the cheapest with a fingerprint scanner. On top of that, it was one of the fastest fingerprint scanners around too -waking & unlocking the phone in a split second. Since then, things have changed a bit. Le Eco launched the 1s in Feb and Xiaomi launched the Redmi Note 3 in March this year. Not only do they offer 1080p screens and fingerprint scanners, they offer more features (such as IR, better build quality) and higher performance at a slightly higher price. CoolPad had to update something and hence this `Plus' version.Essentially , it's a mid cycle refresh of the device and it now gets a 1080p full HD (720p earlier) display.There's also a new gold colour, available only in the Plus. The older CoolPad Note 3 will continue at a slightly lower price of `8,499. The device looks the same as be fore -it has a clean front with no logo, off-screen Android buttons and a matte removable back panel.The camera and fingerprint sensor are centrally placed. Volume buttons are on the left, power on the right, 3.5mm on top and micro USB at the bottom. Under the back panel are three slots: two for SIM cards and one for a micro SD (up to 64GB cards are supported). The interface, based on Android 5.1, is called Cool UI -it looks nice and works well. There are a lot of nifty features such as the floating `C-Button' for quick access to certain functions, an extensive shortcut menu, built in gestures, glove mode (high screen sensitivity), multi-screen (split screen for two side-by-side apps), customisable notifications and a quick shot mode (double tap volume down quickly switches on the camera and captures a photo in one action). That a lot of attention has been paid to the little things is evident from the `live icons'. For instance, the ClockAlarm icon will show the actual time (with a working second hand) and the `Clear' icon shows a graphical representation of the amount of RAM currently in use.

As before, the camera is quick to start up and capture. It's got surprisingly good quality for the price.There is a pro mode, but it doesn't offer shutter speed adjustments: just focus, white balance, ISO and exposure adjustment. Battery life is a day and a half with normal use.We didn't see any slowdowns with normal use but heavy gaming will upset the 1.3Ghz SoC on occasion.This has primarily to do with the increased screen resolution because it worked just fine on the 720p screen. Because of the higher screen resolution, the processor GPU has to process a lot more pixels and it can slip up with intensive tasks. Video playback is smooth though. It also looks exactly the same as before and the Android buttons are not backlit. You can consider this phone if budget is limited and you want a 1080p screen. If you can stretch a bit, the 2GB16GB Redmi Note 3 will offer far higher levels of performance for just ` 1,000 more.

Hitesh.Bhagat@timesgroup.com

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