Coolpad Cool play 6 first impressions: Here are the top features of the new dual rear camera smartphone.
Coolpad is known for pricing its smartphones aggressively in India. The Chinese handset maker plays in the budget and mid-budget segment in India, which is certainly dominated by the likes of Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo. Hoping to boost sales in festive season in India, Coolpad unveiled its latest smartphones called Cool Play 6 in Dubai, and it comes with dual rear cameras.
Coolpad Cool Play 6 is being touted as the ultimate gaming device thanks to 6GB RAM and 4,060mAh of battery. The Cool Play 6 is comes at Rs 14,999 and open sale for the device begins September 4 exclusively on Amazon. We spent some time with Coolpad Cool Play 6 at the launch event and here’s our first impression.
Coolpad Cool Play 6 Design and Display
Coolpad Cool Play sports a metal unibody design, which looks stylish. The back houses vertically-aligned dual rear cameras in the centre with dual LED flash placed on the right of the camera lenses. Fingerprint scanner comes right below the dual camera setup.
There’s power button and volume rocker keys on the right. Antenna bands are visible on top and bottom of the back cover. Cool Play 6 uses a USB Type-C port for charging and a 3.5 mm headset jack has been placed on top. Overall, Cool Play 6 looks great in terms of design and the build quality is quite nice.
Coolpad Cool Play 6 isn’t too slippery, which makes it really easy to use even without a cover. Of course, a cover is always recommended for extra protection. The front has thick bezels on top and bottom, which seamlessly integrate with the edges and rear of the smartphone. There are no back-lit capacitive keys and I was a little bit disappointed by the lack of it, especially while using the phone at night.
The power button and volume rocker keys on the right. Antenna bands are visible on top and bottom of the back cover. Cool Play 6 uses a USB Type-C port for charging and a 3.5 mm headset jack has been placed on top.
Coolpad Cool Play 6 features a 5.5-inch Full HD display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The screen is good to look at and icons appear sharp. However, I had to really turn the brightness levels to maximum while using the phone in bright sunlight. I opened the camera app to click pictures on a hot afternoon in Dubai and had to really struggle to look at what I was clicking.
Coolpad Cool Play 6 Camera
Sample camera image from 13 MP rear camera
Coolpad Cool Play 6 gets dual rear cameras (13MP+13MP) cameras at the back, where one lens is monochrome, while the other can capture pictures in RGB. We got a chance to tinker around with Cool Play’s camera in length and it does a pretty good job of clicking photos. The results are detailed, and sharp pictures along with great colour reproduction. Coolpad Cool Play 6 offers a Night mode for the rear camera to click pictures in places where there’s lack of ample light. I used the mode inside a museum and frankly, the pictures turned out to be really impressive considering the price.
Image of museum, taken in low light mode.
Coming the the bokeh mode, it is quite nice to shoot pictures where you want the subject to be on focus. Of course, it would be unfair to expect Apple iPhone 7 Plus standard on a Rs 15,000 phone. However, the images clicked in night mode as well as ‘bokeh’ mode take a lot of time to render. I had problems getting the phone to focus in low light.
Bokeh mode of the Coolpad Cool play 6 rear camera
Other features include slow video, mono photo, long exposure, panorama, and more. There’s a beauty mode as well along with photo filters to choose from before clicking a picture and these features have pretty much become the standard in phone these days.
The front camera 8MP front camera is pretty average, and takes decent pictures in both dimly lit places as well as outdoors. Keeping in mind this is a Rs 15,000 phone, I was satisfied with the colour reproduction and details in shots.
Coolpad Cool Play 6 Processor, Battery and Software
Coolpad Cool Play 6 is essentially aimed at hardcore smartphone gamers, or that is how at least the company is pitching the device. There’s 6GB RAM, supposed to help with seamless gaming sessions and 64GB internal storage on-board. Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon octa-core 653 processor, the Cool Play 6 relies on Adreno 510 GPU for graphic performance. We didn’t get to play a lot of games for longer durations on the phone and therefore we’ll have more details of Cool Play 6’s performance in our review. The fingerprint scanner was quick to unlock the device on most occasions.
Coolpad Cool Play 6 gets a 4,060mAh battery, which should easily last for more than a day in heavy usage. So far, I mainly used Cool Play 6 for calling, taking pictures, making videos, and browsing my social media accounts. There’s a USB Type- C port for charging.
Coolpad Cool Play 6 runs Android 7.1.1 Nougat with company’s Cool UI 7 skin on top. Android Nougat lets people use features like opening two apps in two different windows simultaneously. Coolpad generally customises its smartphones pretty heavily. However, it is less complicated this time with the new Cool UI 7. Notifications window at the bottom is gone, and there’s less bloatware, which is good to see.
Coolpad Cool Play 6 Final Thoughts
Coolpad Cool play 6 is a good phone for Rs 14,999, and is packed with features for a phone in this price range
Coolpad Cool Play 6 looks like a great deal at Rs 14,999 especially when you look at specifications on paper. The closest competitor to Cool Play 6 right now is Lenovo’s K8 Note, 4GB RAM version of which costs Rs 13,999 and has a dual rear camera. There’s also the Honor 6X. So far the Lenovo K8 Note has performed great, especially in the camera department. Based on my first impressions, Cool Play 6 is matching up in this department, but of course, we can only know more once we are done with the full review.
Disclaimer: The reporter is in Dubai attending the launch event at the invite of Coolpad India.
