Coolpad Note 5 Lite Review: A Great Competition to Xiaomi Budget Smartphones

The Coolpad Note 5 Lite (3505I), as the name suggests, is a stripped down version of the last year launched Coolpad Note 5. The Coolpad note 5 comes at the price of 10,999 at Amazon. So as I told you that Coolpad Note 5 lite is the lighter version of Note 5 that’s why its price is Rs 8,199 on Amazon India. The Phone comes under 10000 and can prove tough competition to other Chinese smartphone players in India such as Xiaomi, Lenovo and more.

What do you get in the Coolpad Note 5 Lite Box?

The Coolpad Note 5 Lite comes in two colors: Black and Gold. After unboxing the Coolpad Note 5 Lite, what we got inside the box is as follow:

 

• Coolpad Note 5 Lite Handset
• Coolpad Note 5 Lite 2500mAH Battery(Non-Removable)
• microUSB Cable
• Ejector Pin
• Charger
• Quick Start Guide

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Coolpad Note 5 Lite Design and Look Review

The Coolpad Note 5 Lite is going to leave a mark on existing budget smartphones with its good design. The device has unibody design but built with plastic which doesn’t look cheap and resembles the metallic phone looks. It has curves around the edges that allow it to easily sits in your palm and feels comfortable. The two silver color antenna band and same around the body gives it little bit premium finish. At the back side, it has a 13MP camera along single LED flashlight on the right side and fingerprint sensor just below the camera. All three have the chrome finished ring and at the extreme below you will find the speaker grills. The Coolpad Note 5 Lite comes in two colors – Gold and Space Grey.

The volume button is on the left side and hybrid SIM card slot and power button are on the right sides. Separating volume button and the power button that’s what I called an ergonomically design because there is a possibility to push power button accidentally while using volume button. The microUSB port along the main microphone resides at the bottom while the 3.5mm headphone jack on the top.

Coming to the front side of the Coolpad Note 5 Lite uses 2.5D glass with 5.0 inches display. The upfront portion of the display uses for the 8-megapixel camera along Sensors, Notification LED and the LED flash. At the bottom of the display, we got three capacitive touch navigation buttons. Overall, the design of Coolpad Note5 Lite has nothing new but also there is nothing wrong and seems pretty much good and beautiful at this price point.  The device measures at 145.3 x 72.3 x 8.7 mm and weighs at 148 grams.

Coolpad Note 5 Lite Display Review

Coming to the display, the face of Coolpad Note 5 lite is not bad, it has 5.0-inch IPS LCD display( 294 ppi) with a resolution of HD (1280 x 720 pixels). The 2.D glass of phone is scratch-resistant and protects your phone from minor scratches getting from daily use. The screen bezels of this phone are a little bit thick and have a screen to body ratio of 70.6 percentage. The colors were accurate and enough saturated to give a balanced and natural look of images and videos. The outdoor legibility is good but the same problem, which we face almost in every phone is the reflective glass.

 

Coolpad Note 5 Lite Software Review

The Coolpad Note 5 Lite is budget smartphone means you have to comprise somewhere like OS. The Phone runs on Cool UI 8.0 on the top of Android 6.0 Marshmallow but still, it is not bad because right now there are lots of high-end phones still running on Android 6.0. The UI customization is good, not so cluttered and has borrowed some iPhone’s features such as setting shortcuts and spotlight search. The interface is good but if you compared it with the look and feel of the Redmi 3S then it cannot beat that one.

Coolpad Note 5 Lite Camera

At this price point, most of the smartphone companies don’t give much importance to the camera quality. But in the Coolpad Note 5 Lite this is going to be changed, the Note 5 lite comes with a 13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and autofocus. The camera is good and gives you standard detailing pictures with natural colors. The camera autofocus is not much fast but it is acceptable. The camera app also comes with pro mode but there is no option to control the focus manually. Besides these, you will get HDR mode, beauty mode, GIF mode, Paranormal, Video and Night mode. The rear camera can shoot a 720p and 420p videos.

The front camera comes with an 8-megapixel selfie camera along with front LED flash.  The front camera quality is basic but the front flash will help a lot in low-light selfies but also the selfies comes out with little bit yellowish under flash. Overall at the price point, both the cameras are good and best to full fill the daily need of mobile photography.

 

Coolpad Note 5 Lite Camera Image Samples

Coolpad Note 5 Lite: Performance  review

Under this beautiful budget phone body it has 1GHz Quad-core MediaTek MT6735CP along 3GB RAM and 16GB storage that can expand up to 64GB.  Well, though 64GB is a little less for expansion when compared to other devices priced around Rs 8,000, however, not a lot of people in India going to buy a 128GB microSD card. We had used this device about 2 weeks and we didn’t face any issues at all. We used it to play heavy games like Mortal Kombat, the game works fine but it heavy games takes the time to get load and run. But after loading, there was no heating or lag issue. The device was responsive and pretty smooth while navigating across the whole user interface. The fingerprint of the phone is fairly responsive and can use to perform multiple tasks such as can click pictures, receive calls, open applications, close alarm, video record, double tap for screen-off and of course unlock your device. The touchscreen is fairly responsive but does attract quite a lot of fingerprint smudges. Call quality is good and we didn’t have any issues with 4G either.

There’s also Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, USB OTG, FM radio, GPS, and a non-removable 2500mAh battery. The phone has two Micro-SIM slots ( Hybrid) with 4G support on band 40 through both.

 

Coolpad Note 5 Lite Battery Life  review

The 2500mAh battery lasted for 6 hours and 20 minutes in our continuous video test on full brightness and volume. This is pretty much good for a 2500 mAh battery phone. Also in regular use, the phone can easily stand for a day with 4G usage. The phone took about 2 hours to get fully charged once drained out completely.

 

Review Synopsis
The Coolpad Note 5 Lite is a well-designed phone not unique but at INR 8000 it is. The phone almost offers all things which you need in a phone such as a good camera, fingerprint sensor, standard performance, 3GB RAM and 16GB onboard storage. Yes, the storage does matter as the phone comes with hybrid SIM card so either you can use two SIMs or a memory card and one SIM card. Overall, the phone comes under the good budget smartphone phone categories but surely, it has to face a tough competition at this price with the other phones like Redmi 3S Prime coming in the same category.