Coolpad Cool 1 is one of few dual-camera smartphones at a mid-range price of around 30,000. The phone comes with a capable Snapdragon processor and an immersive display.
Dual cameras are all the rage these days. If one camera is not enough, let’s put in a two camera set up for better pictures, right? Although the dual cameras look like a gimmick at first, the new tech trend has gained a momentum and is able to offer great camera performance. But, do you need a dual camera phone and is Coolpad Cool 1 the one you should get? Let’s find out in our review.
Design and Build
Cool 1 has an aluminum unibody design curved at the sides. The slight curves make the phone easier to hold. At top and bottom, the phone has polycarbonate material that adjoins the whole body. The phone has volume control buttons and power buttons on the right side. There’s a slight camera bump on the back and a polished fingerprint sensor. The phone has an average build and we have seen better body and designs at the price range.
Display
Coolpad Cool 1 comes with an impressive 5.5-inch IPS LCD display offering Full-HD(1080p) resolution and 403ppi pixel density. The phone is bright enough to watch on direct sunlight and offers dynamic movie and gaming experience. Plus, the phone’s display saturation can be adjusted from the settings to suit your needs as well. There are not many complaints about the display, besides the glaring thick bezels around the screen.
Performance
Cool 1 has some downsides but it covers them very well with its excellent performance and processing power. It boasts a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 octa-core CPU along with an Adreno 510 GPU. The phone handles daily activities smoothly, while gaming in this phone is a breeze as well. The phone can easily run graphic-intensive games like Asphalt and Sniper 3D without any lags. The phone only heats up slightly around the camera after half an hour of gaming but cools down when left for a minute. Coolpad has also included a 4GB RAM in Cool 1 that makes this phone efficient while running multiple apps at the same time.
Camera
Cool 1 has a dual-camera setup at the rear and an 8MP front camera with a wide-angle lens. The phone does capture good selfies and takes better photos in low-light as well. The camera software doesn’t do many touch-ups(beautify the image) and for me, that’s a good thing.
The dual-camera has a 13MP RGB(color) sensor and a monochrome(black/white) sensor on the back. Together, they produce fine images with good contrast and exposure. The saturation is a bit off in auto mode but can be adjusted in Pro mode to produce perfect shots. The images have more noise and lack enough detail.
SLR mode in Cool 1 offers DSLR-like the feature of blurring out the background to focus on the subject — to be exact, like a bokeh effect. The ‘SLR mode’ thus captures decent portraits. There’s a neat feature for SLR mode images, where you can adjust the intensity of blur for these bokeh pictures.
The phone can record up to 4k videos and offer other neat features like Slo-Mo video rec, Pro-mode, Beauty mode and much more.
Software
Coolpad Cool 1 runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow with EUI skin on top. The phone lacks an app drawer and drop-down quick settings. The quick-settings can be accessed by long-pressing the menu button. There’s a one-handed mode for using the big phone with one hand easily. It is a bit irritating that the running app is paused whenever quick settings are accessed to turn wifi off or access other options.
Battery
The phone also has a big battery of 4060mAh capacity that supports Quick Charge 2.0. The phone has the new USB Type-C port instead of the common USB-2.0 port. The new Type-C USB offers faster charging and data transfers and is the future. We welcome this change in this price range and encourage other brands to do the same. The phone easily lasts a day even with heavy gaming and media consumption. On daily use, the phone lasted me a solid 32hours of screen-on time.
Verdict
Coolpad Cool1 offers powerful performance and dual-cameras along with a large battery. The phone is definitely a good buy if you like a powerful phone. Design and build are alright, whereas the cameras couldn’t be better than this.
The phone gives you a powerful android experience with beefy specs and should appeal to power users. Coolpad Cool 1 has a lot to offer, as a great performing phone with an average camera and the battery life just makes the deal more appealing. All in all, the Coolpad Cool 1 pretty much justifies the 30,000 price tag and without hesitant, this is one of the best mid-range smartphones with dual-camera.
