Introduction
Does the Coolpad Cool1 justify its market price with its list of specifications and modern functions? Let’s find out together.
Coolpad Cool1 first became available on the market exclusively through Amazon’s online store in India, and it is a mid-range device that showed up at the end of 2016 and it has everything that has become standard in 2017 – double main camera setup, fingerprint scanner on the back, great unibody design and an enormous battery. Coolpad is a product made as a result of merging of two Chinese companies, LeEco and Coolpad, and “LeEco inside” label on the back only serves to prove this.
In our test we have the Silver color version, and next to it also available are Gold and Rose Gold. Inside the factory box of the Coolpad Cool1 we can find: Type-C cable, Coolpad charging adapter and a SIM tray tool.
Coolpad Cool1, which is a “LeEco” in disguise, seems like a complete thing, but we might just be wrong, so stay with us to check it out!
Video review
Unboxing
Display
Although we got used to seeing infinity displays in 2017 and 2018 that have awesome usability and screen to body ratio, the Coolpad Cool1 brings us something more ordinary. The display takes up 73.3% of the front panel, it is a 5.5” FullHD 1080p display with a 16:9 aspect ratio, and all this translates to a really good number of 401 pixels per inch (PPI). This number is more than good, and there is really nothing to say against the FullHD resolution even in 2018 – the views are perfectly sharp, web browsing is very convenient, and video materials also looks amazing on the Cool1 (Video Display Enhancement will even further improve the contrast and fluidity in terms of video reproduction). Still, if this resolution on a 5.5” diagonal is too much for your eyes, there is an option through the Scale View menu to increase the size of the views, and you can also increase fonts.
This panel is built in IPS LCD technology and it can reproduce more than 16 million colors which are, as usual, very nicely reproduced, pretty realistically and with no oversaturation. However, if you don’t like the factory settings of the Coolpad Cool1, you can choose among the following Color Mode settings:
- LeEco (preset)
- Vivid
- Natural
- Soft
What really isn’t the strongest attribute of the Coolpad Cool1 is contrast which could definitely be a little bit more pronounced. The brightness of the panel is great, and next to manually adjusting the intensity, you can choose the auto mode which will use the ambience light sensor in order to adjust the brightness to the environment, and it is located just to the left of the front speaker. When we speak about protection of the panel itself, Coolpad opted for Corning Gorilla Glass 3. A great addition is the LED notification light which will let you know in case you have a missed call, SMS, e-mail etc.
Hardware and OS
We come to, perhaps, the most interesting part of the Coolpad Cool1 – the hardware built in. Coolpad played it safe, and in collaboration with LeEco they opted for a Qualcomm chipset. They chose a Qualcomm chipset that is reserved for the upper middle class, and it offers good performance, especially taking into account the market price of the Cool1. The exact chipset is Snapdragon 652, and it is based on big.LITTLE architecture. The 64-bit CPU in this chipset is divided into two clusters, both of which have 4 processing cores. The performance cluster packs 4 Cortex-A72 cores clocked at 1.8 GHz, and they secure high performance in demanding tasks. The power-saving side of the CPU consists of 4 Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.4 GHz. These 4 cores are in charge of everyday and less demanding tasks, and their main goal is preserving battery life. Next to the CPU, the second part of the chipset is the GPU. The GPU built into the Snapdragon 652 is Adreno 510, it copes excellently with the FullHD resolution of the Cool1 and offers great performance in 3D games as well as during browsing the web or viewing videos.
The last component here is the memory. Coolpad Cool1 has 4GB of LPDDR3 RAM, and 32GB of internal storage memory. The main disadvantage here is that there doesn’t exist a microSD card slot (not even as a hybrid SIM slot), so you’re stuck with only 32GB. We say “only” because, taking into account that the Cool1 can take 4K videos and applications are getting bigger over time, 32GB very quickly can become too little.
A good way to show what the Cool1 is capable of is to run an AnTuTu Benchmark test – we did it at it showed a score of over 83000, which places it above the classic mid-range representatives of 2017 and 2018: the Huawei P10 Lite, Galaxy A5 2017, LG Q6 etc.
Geekbench scores are: 1419 Single-Core and 2932 Multi-Core performance, with the render score of 4538.
General impression of the Cool1’s work is great! All screen transitions and animations throughout the user interface are executed very fluidly with no signs of slowing down. Still, after longer high-demanding use (Lightroom, 3D Gaming), the chipset tends to overheat and drop the performance down a notch. Nothing too significant, but nonetheless, present. This device does not have any software buttons, but it has 3 capacitive buttons located below the display. The fingerprint scanner is located on the center of the back panel of the device, just below the main camera sensor. Position is great, and functionality-wise it is great – works very quickly and precisely. The Cool1 uses a mono speaker for sound reproduction which is located on the bottom of the device, to the right of the Type-C connector. Sound quality is only average.
Something that is here, and that we could see in LeEco devices as well, is the IR blaster which will, combined with the Remote-Control application that comes preinstalled, perform a function of a remote controler for any of the following devices: TV (Le TV), TV Box, Smart TV Box, DVD, amplifier, AC unit, projector etc.
When it comes to software, the Coolpad Cool1 runs on Google’s Android – specifically Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow with EUI 5.8 user interface. Even though there is plenty of room for OS updates, we’re afraid that the Cool1 will remain on Android Marshmallow which is now pretty old, especially for 2018 standards when we can see devices with Android Oreo (8.0) or even Oreo 8.1 (Pixel line-up). A good side is that the software is pretty clean of any bloatware, and there are only some of these applications: Remote Control, My LeEco, Feedback, Clean Master and UC Browser. The user interface will not offer the classing Android menu which some users may not like. The multitasking (Overview) button is located below the display, to the left of the Home button. There is also an option to preset the times of device’s shut-down and power-up which can be very useful in certain occasions, and we can see this more and more often in Chinese devices. Simple, yet practical!
Camera
Another thing that also follows the trends of 2017 and 2018, even though this device came out in 2016 are the cameras. Let’s start with the rear facing sensors – yes, we speak in plural. Coolpad Cool1 has two 13MP sensors on the back. Coolpad opted for the combination of an RGB and a monochrome sensor, which means that here we don’t have that fancy optical zoom that we can see when a wide sensor and a telephoto sensor are paired. Speaking of the specifications of the sensors, we have the following: aperture of f/2.0 and phase detection auto focus (PDAF).
The list of options continues with Geo-Tagging, Touch Focus, Face Detection, Panorama and HDR. The device is equipped with a double, two-tone LED flash. Photos made in well-lit environments are pretty good. Sensors enable very detailed photos, and color reproduction is excellent, but not oversaturated. Noise levels are kept under control. Also, the shutter speed and the focusing speed are both very good. Macro photos are very detailed. SLR mode offers an option to take photos with DoF (Depth of Field) effects implemented through the software. These effects are not perfect though – the software struggles the most with the edges around the object, especially if the background, that has to be nicely blurred, has a lot of details.
Still, we are used to seeing the RGB sensor struggle in low light environments to produce good results. Noise levels go very high is such cases which, as a consequence, has the loss of fine details. However, Coolpad has an ace up its sleeve for such situations, so in low light environments we suggest you use the other sensor – monochrome. Since the monochrome sensor doesn’t have the Bayer filter, it has tremendous potential for taking night time photos with a reduced level of noise. And indeed – using the black-and-white sensor, you can make pretty good photos in night time scenes.
One huge advantage of the Coolpad Cool1 is the capability to record 4K videos, and this option is available mostly because of the very capable Snapdragon 652 and the camera sensors. Maximum video resolution is 3840 x 2160 pixels at 30fps (4K @ 30fps). Videos, although in 4K, suffer from a high level of noise in just little darker environments. On the other hand, videos taken during daytime have plenty of details with very sharp colors. Next to the 4K resolution, also available are HD 720p and FullHD 1080p resolutions, which we definitely support, especially taking into account that this device only has 32GB of internal storage memory. Of course, there is also the Slow-Motion capability in HD 720p resolution at 120fps. All videos are captured in .mp4 format.
On the front side of the device we can find an 8MP sensor that will secure amazing selfies. The aperture is f/2.2 while the size of the pixels is 1.4µm. Photos are very detailed with precise colors and low levels of noise. The Beauty Mode is also available, as is the HDR. The front facing sensors can take videos in SD 480p, HD 720p and FullHD 1080p resolutions at 30fps. All of these videos are also stored in .mp4 format.
Connectivity
The Coolpad Cool1 is a 4G DualSIM device that uses nanoSIM cards. This is a classic two SIM card slot, with no hybrid slot. As we have previously said, the lack of a microSD card slot is a huge disadvantage. What is, however, welcome is the use of a Type-C v1.0 connector that slowly becomes standard and that is definitely here to replace the microUSB port. The 3.5mm headphone port is also here and it is located on the top side of the device.
The list of wireless connections contains:
- WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
- Bluetooth v4.1 (A2DP, LE)
- Infrared (IR blaster)
- GPS (A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS)
NFC is not supported, and we definitely consider this a disadvantage.
Supported network frequencies are:
- 2G GSM: 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz
- 3G UMTS: 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100 MHz
- 4G LTE: 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 / 2100 / 2300 / 2500 / 2600 MHz
Battery
The battery is non-removable, Lithium-Ion with the capacity of 4060 mAh. The device supports Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0 technology which will offer a 50% charge in 30 minutes.
One full charge will offer up to:
- 450 hours in stand-by
- 120 hours of music reproduction
- 40 hours of video reproduction
Final words
Great build quality combined with an attractive design, good performances and a gigantic battery are all our weaknesses. All this combined with very good front and rear cameras and very good price, and success is almost guaranteed. Of course, not everything is that amazing. The main disadvantages are only 32GB of internal storage and the lack of the NFC system. If you don’t mind that the Cool1 will probably stay on Android 6.0 firmware and you seek for a device of great design and performances, the Cool1 is the right choice for you!
Do you like the Coolpad Cool1? We’d love to see your opinion in the comment section below. If you have any suggestions or you would like to see a specific device being reviewed, feel free to write to us either here on our Facebook page. If you liked our review, please subscribe to our YouTube channel, like us on Facebook, and sit comfortably as we’re working hard on new material for you!