Coolpad Cool 1 Dual Review: A Cool Budget Camera Phone To Capture

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Coolpad often claims of transcending high-end, flagship grade features to affordable price points and with Coolpad Dual 1, the company once again endeavors to deliver a decent dual camera set-up at an unprecedented price, decent being the keyword here.

The Coolpad Cool 1 Dual is a joint venture between Coolpad and LeEco, and is more LeEco than Coolpad. Perhaps, it’s Coolpad’s manufacturing prowess or the evolution of technology, but the Cool 1 emerges a lot sturdier and polished than LeEco’s Le 2 that it takes after. We have been testing the phone and have had quite some time to marshal our thoughts. Let’s discuss if it’s worth your hard-earned money or not.

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Coolpad Cool1 Specifications and Features

Model Coolpad Cool1
Display 5.5-Inch,  Full HD, IPS LCD display
Processor Octa-core(1.8GHz quad Cortex A-72+1.2GHz quad Cortex A-53) Snapdragon 652 processor with Adreno 510 GPU
RAM 3GB RAM/ 4GB RAM
Internal Storage 32GB (Roughly 28GB free)
Software Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) based EUI
Primary Camera  Dual-13MP sensor, dual-tone LED Flash, PDAF, 720p video recording(f/2.0 aperture lens)
Secondary Camera 8MP Front-Facing Camera(f/2.2 aperture,80-degree wide-angle lens)
Battery 4000 mAh, fast charging
Others Dual SIM (Nano + Nano),  4G VoLTE,  Fingerprint Sensor, USB type C
Price Rs. 13,999

Design and Build

The Coolpad Dual looks a lot like the Le 2, but thankfully it still retains the 3.5mm audio jack. The fingerprint reader modeled in harmony with the elongated dual camera capsule helps keep things fresh.

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On the front, however, there is hardly any difference when compared to the LeEco’s offering. The Cool 1 Dual flaunts a good quality Aluminum unibody casing; the metal back and plastic strips flanking it on top and bottom gently and congruously curve towards the side edges, and then fold past a small chamfered lining to form the side edge.  The chamfer on metal parts and plastic chrome lining on top and bottom plastic shells merge flawlessly.

We have got the Silver color model with us with a white fascia and it indeed feels like a refreshing change of pace post the deluge of Gold and Rose Gold that we have endured through the entire 2016.

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The black borders around the display, however, look very unpalatable and the effect is further magnified due to the color contrast with the adjoining whites. At the same time, that’s something you wouldn’t notice very often if you have a dark accent wallpaper.

The phone has off-screen navigation buttons which blend with the chin and are backlit.  This looks good and works well when indoors, but you won’t be able to see the capacitive keys while using your phone outdoors.

There is a plastic chrome lining running all along the edges separating the display glass from the metal and plastic sides.  On the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port and dual Speaker grills concealing a single mono speaker for audio output. The audio jack and IR sensor are situated on top.

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By now you must have gathered that we like the Coolpad Cool 1 design and build quality. It looks good and is convenient to wield, in spite of its substantial 167 grams of heft.

Display

The 5.5-inch Full HD display on Le 2 is sharp and vivid. The color calibration and white balance feel perfectly adequate which makes it a very pleasant display to use. The software also has 4 color profiles that you can choose from to suit your specific taste.

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There is smudge resistant Oleophobic coating on the display glass and auto brightness works adequately. The touch glass is a tad reflective, but still, the visibility outdoors is fine.  All said and done, it is a good quality IPS LCD panel.

Also Read: All about Lenovo Moto M – User Queries Answered, FAQ, and Photo Gallery

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Camera

The camera hardware is the primary highlight here. And it didn’t disappoint. If you are looking for a workable dual rear camera system in this budget, this is perhaps your best bet for now. Honor 6X, another affordable dual camera phone, will soon go official and play a challenger to Cool 1 Dual pretty soon.

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A monochrome shot captured from Cool 1

Out of the two 13MP sensors on the rear, one is a monochrome sensor (and thus can accept more light due to the absence of Bayers color filter) and the other one is a conventional RGB color sensor. The data gathered by the two sensors is deftly merged by the camera software.

We have enjoyed clicking monochrome shots from the Le 2 and colored images too are quite good. The dual cameras also facilitate capturing images with f-stop number varying between f/0.95 and f/16. The cameras can sense the depth of objects in foreground and background and can thus use the data to refocus on images post capturing. You can also save refocused images separately.

This dual camera trickery is featured under ‘SLR’ mode. It isn’t flawless and is a bit slow but is definitely fun to play with.  When you are shooting objects within 2-meter range and there is a substantial gap between image object and backdrop, SLR mode can be used to pop out objects. For instance the image below.

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SLR mode

The night mode helps when you need to click in very low lighting. The HDR mode too works great and helps bring out more details in images.  The Cool 1 Dual camera is far from perfect but its natural color tones and myriad features make it one of the best that you can buy in this price range.

The front selfie camera quality is above average, but motion blur creeps in rather easily in indoor lighting. The rear camera can record up to 4K videos, but the quality once again isn’t much to write home about if the lighting isn’t adequate. 1080P Videos are fine, though.

Coolpad Cool 1 Dual Camera Samples 

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Performance and Software

Coolpad Cool 1 is powered by the Qualcomm’s octa-core Snapdragon 652, which is one of the best contemporary Smartphone chips. If you buy it online, you will get 4GB RAM to back it up (3GB otherwise) and that’s as good as it gets at this asking price.
As you’d expect performance is pretty solid and should be able to satiate all classes of users.
We did run into a few random software bugs and did encounter a few frame drops while playing asphalt 8, but there were minor glitches which didn’t have much impact on the gaming performance.
Coolpad isn’t skimping on sensors either. All the conventional ones, including Gyroscope and Magnetometer, and the unconventional ones are present.
It does get warm with gaming,  and that’s something that could be more bothersome with the onset of the summer season. In our extensive testing, the temperature didn’t go beyond 42, which isn’t alarming at all.
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The software used is LeEco’s EUI. We didn’t expect content streaming suit and thus were surprised to see Live app, that lets you watch live TV lurking in the app drawer.
We have always admired LeEco’s approach with EUI and find it intuitive, but there are functional gaps that need to be bridged. Nothing that a third party launcher won’t solve, though. And it works better for us than Coolpad’s own Cool UI.

Battery backup, Audio Quality, and More

Battery backup has been excellent so far. We can easily make it through a heavy usage day with about 20 percent juice remaining. Considering that we had two active SIM cards plugged in, two different Google accounts and a bunch of regular social media apps syncing in the background at all times this is pretty good mileage. Our usage also includes moderate gaming and leaching 4G Data during daily commutes. Besides, the 10W charger ensures that you can replete the tank swiftly.

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On the weekend when we use our phone only for calling the Le 2 could easily last for 2 days. Audio quality from the speakers is fairly decent but not impressive. The fingerprint sensor on the rear isn’t the fastest that we have seen but it’s reasonably accurate and gets the job done. The call quality has been excellent. And yes, the handset does support 4G VoLTE and Reliance Jio network. Though 4G Jio data and calling worked in both SIM card slots, we could not get VoLTE calling to work on SIM slot 2 when both slots were being used.

Also Read: Vivo V5 Review – It’s not all about selfies 

Verdict

A good quality display panel, robust camera, capable processor and lasting battery backup help it deliver engaging smartphone experience. The only peeve point is the limited 32GB of internal storage space. You need to weigh if that would work for you. If it does, the Coolpad Cool 1 dual is definitely worth considering.

We have enjoyed our time with the Coolpad Cool 1 Dual and have no qualms about recommending it to anyone looking for a phone under 15,000 INR.

Pros

  • Chipset is quite powerful
  • Engaging dual camera
  • Good quality Display
  • Battery backup is great

Cons

  • Storage cannot be expanded
Deepak SinghDeepak Singh
Deepak has more than 8 years of experience in covering technology for several eminent publications in India. He currently leads an enthusiastic team of young writers at Smartprix and tries to uphold the highest quality standards.

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Discuss

1 Comment
User
Jordi
Anonymous
6 years ago

Hello Deepak, you made a nice review. I bought this phone and I’m waiting the shippment. I’m planning to install the new 7.1 JUI, better than the EUI. I had to choose wether note 4 and this one. And I picked up this one for the processor IPC, but I’d like to have the SD on the RN4. Did you like this phone? You think is good? The price was good. At the time of my purchase dropped to 115$.

Reply
User
Deepak Singh
Anonymous
6 years ago

Sounds like a good deal for $115. Assuming Coolpad after sales support is good in your region.