LeEco Coolpad Cool1 dual Review

Earlier this year, in June, LeEco bought 18% of Coolpad's shares. Afterwards, in July, it bought another 11% (from Data Dreamland) thus holding a total of 28.9% of Coolpad shares and becoming its largest shareholder. In August, Mr. Jia Yueting, founder and owner of LeEco, was appointed chairman of the board of Coolpad. With this, LeEco will probably become the largest smartphone manufacturer in China with 100 million units estimated to be sold in 2017. The company will also have access to Coolpad's product research facilities and data (7 big R&D centers around the world), over 7000 patents, many of which are overseas ones, marketing and after-sales capabilities, distribution channels (500 offline stores in China) and ultimately gain more users for its ecosystem. The latter consists of "platform + content + smartphone + application" and all Coolpad devices are expected to align with it. Actually for the previous year, 39% of Coolpad's income has arrived from overseas sales and after the deal, it is expected that this number will double each year for the next three to five years, and will reach its current domestic sales in volume. All this will ultimately help LeEco expand its global reach, which is the final goal. The first new smartphone that appears as a result of the efforts of both companies is the Coolpad Cool1 dual - powered by LeEco software and built by Coolpad, it has a number of interesting features and a very affordable price, so here it is - our review of the model, which is officially named Coolpad Cool1 dual, but is also known as LeEco Cool1 dual and LeTV Cool1.

Specifications

Coolpad Cool1 dual packs a 5.5-inch IPS display with GFF lamination, oleophobic coating and an FHD resolution. Its peak brightness is up to 450 cd/m² and the NTSC color space coverage measures 72%. Under its hood ticks a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 MSM8976 chipset with 4x 1.8GHz Cortex-A72 cores and 4x 1.4GHz Cortex-A53 cores. They are coupled with a 550MHz Adreno 510 GPU and 3/4GB of single-channel LDDR3 RAM clocked at 933MHz. The internal memory measures 32/64GB and is the eMMC 5.1 type. The model has a dual camera setup on its back. Both cameras employ one and the same sensor - a 13-megapixel Sony IMX258 one, and both lenses have 6 elements and an f/2.0 aperture. However, the first camera shoots in color, while the second - in black and white. Their work is aided by bolt focus, phase-detection AF, and a dual-tone LED flash. The front-facing camera has an 8-megapixel OmniVision OV8856 sensor with fixed focus and an 80° wide-angle lens with an f/2.2 aperture. The device features a Goodix fingerprint sensor, placed on the back, and a 4060 mAh, Li-Pol battery, with up to 700Wh/L density, which is coupled with a 5V/2A charger. The model runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow with LeEco's EUI v5.6. It supports 2G GSM, 2.5G CDMA, 3G WCDMA and TD-SCDMA, 4G FDD- and TDD-LTE Cat. 4 networks. The wireless connectivity options include dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi Hotspot, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.1 and an infrared port. There's a USB Type-C 2.0 port with OTG support. The device works with GPS/A-GPS, Glonass, and Beidou. For the full list of Coolpad Cool1 dual specifications you can check the model's page.

What's in the box

Coolpad Cool1 dual is placed inside a white rectangular box with Cool's logo on the lid and some information about the model and its specifications on the back. Inside the phone is located in the top level compartment, carefully packaged, and below it there's a standard set of accessories. The accessories include a USB Type-C to miscro-USB cable, an ejector-pin for the SIM tray, user guide in Chinese, and a 5V/2A charger. The latter has two flat pins and no grounding area - that's the US NEMA-1 plug standard used in the US, Canada and some Latin American countries. In case you live elsewhere, you'll need a plug adapter.

Design, build and controls

If you have held a LeEco smartphone before, then the Cool1 dual will look very familiar to you. Built by Coolpad, it follows LeEco's design paradigms of symmetry and balanced aesthetics. In fact, it does resemble a lot the second generation of LeEco smartphones. The body is made of magnesium alloy crafted with a full CNC process and finished with a smooth matte texture. Only the antenna bands areas are covered with plastic caps. The back flows into chamfered edges, followed by a matte frame and glossy front edges. The frame protrudes only a little to surround tightly the display glass. Like the other LeEco smartphones, Cool1 dual does not employ 2.5D curved glass, which can be found in almost every smartphone from China nowadays. From our experience with LeEco smartphones, we know that the company does provide excellent build. Coolpad does not fall behind either. Actually, it already has a very good reputation of making solid smartphones. So, yes, the Cool1 dual is very well built, indeed. The volume and power buttons are made of metal, too, and provide excellent tactile experience. All elements fit perfectly together and the overall feeling is one of a quality make. The model is available in champagne gold, rose-gold with a white front, and silver with a white front. We are reviewing a champagne gold unit. The color is very subtly gold actually and is very nice. With a width of 74.8 mm, Cool1 dual is well below the average compared to other smartphones with a 5.5-inch display. Its height of 152 mm is slightly below average, so is the thickness of 8.2 mm. If you add in the fact that it boasts a 4060 mAh battery, it turns out that it is one of the thinnest smartphones with a battery of such capacity and a 5.5-inch display. The weight of 167 grams is also below average for the class. Symmetry is LeEco's leading design concept and its most obvious in the way the company positions the controls of its smartphones. It uses the classic scheme of left dual-SIM tray and right volume and power buttons. On the top frame the 3.5 mm jack (yes, there is one!) and the infrared blaster are symmetrically positioned. At the bottom, in the center you'll see a USB Type-C 2.0 port. To the left and right of it there are grille holes. The left is for a microphone, while the right houses the single speaker on board. On the front above the display are positioned the light/proximity sensor, earpiece and front camera. Below the display unit there's a capacitive navigation bar. The buttons are backlit, but the light turns on only, if you touch the navigation bar area. By default the left button is the menu one, but the UI allows you to activate the so called "left hand mode" and switch the positions of the menu and back buttons. On the back of the smartphone vertically along the center are placed a microphone hole in the antenna cap, the dual camera module with the dual-tone LED flash unit to its right and the fingerprint sensor below the cameras. The latter has a glossy finish, called "mirror effect". Further down are printed the Cool logo, LeEco inside inscription and the Coolpad logo.

Display

Coolpad Cool1 dual has a 5.5-inch IPS display made by China-based BOE, which has recently ventured the OLED display segment as well. The display model is BOE NT35532. Actually, the same model is found on some Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 units (the others are having a Tianma display). The display has a GFF (glass-to-film-to-film) full lamination. This means it has a glass and two touch-sensitive layers, which is cost- and production-effective. At the same time GFF displays are brighter and colors fade less, when looked from an angle. The model's display panel has a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels, a peak brightness of up to 450 cd/sq.m. and covers 72% of the NTSC color space, which is very close to covering 100% of the sRGB gamut. There is no information whether there's a special protective glass, but there's an oleophobic coating on it and fingerprints are removed easily. The bezels are thick. Our Cool1 dual unit showed a peak brightness of 436 cd/sq.m., which complies with the norm and is slightly less than the top level specified. With the decrease of brightness level, the white and black luminance values proportionally decrease, which leads to a very stable level of the contrast ratio, which is a sign for a good display unit. The contrast ratio, however, is not very high and is around 955:1, the only low level being measured at 0% brightness - 863:1. At the same time, the temperature of the white point is higher than normal. It is within the 9700-9800 K range, which means that colors appear colder. On the other hand, the fact that the temperature of the white point remains stable at all brightness levels is also another indirect sign for a good display unit.

Brightness	White luminance	Black luminance	Contrast	Color temperature
100 %	436.112 cd/m2	0.458 cd/m2	952	9729 K
75 %	289.355 cd/m2	0.303 cd/m2	955	9735 K
50 %	144.349 cd/m2	0.151 cd/m2	956	9683 K
25 %	49.866 cd/m2	0.052 cd/m2	959	9827 K
0 %	5.18 cd/m2	0.006 cd/m2	863	9819 K

Unsurprisingly, the display panel of Coolpad Cool1 dual has a traditional striped sub-pixel geometry. Its CIE diagram proves our expectations that the coverage of the color space will be very close to the 100% sRGB one. There are slight deviations in the blue and red areas, while the display covers a smaller portion from the green area compared to an sRGB area. In terms of color preservation, viewing angles are good, but there's a loss in brightness more along the horizontal than the vertical ones.

OS, UI and software

Coolpad Cool1 dual runs LeEco's EUI 5.6.0.14S (Stable) on top of Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. From our experience with this UI we can say that it is intuitive and has some very nice features. The lock screen contains a single shortcut to the Camera app and by default shows the Notifications and Quick Settings. From the Control center you can choose to disable the Quick Settings appearing on the lock screen. A swipe up unlocks the device and you land on the home screen, where you'll see a row of docked apps - Dialer, Contacts, LeLive, Browser and Camera along with three rows of pre-installed apps. There's a second screen of apps as well with a Tools folder. The apps appear on successive screens, which are accessed by swiping back and forth. Tapping on the menu button opens the Quick Settings, which is combined with the Task Manager. This shade contains toggles for the main features and apps, brightness level, music controls, a list with active apps, which can be killed or locked thus preventing them from closing. A long touch on the menu button opens the Widgets menu, which contains a list of widgets, themes and wallpapers options, and an option for auto or manual sorting of icons. The Notifications shade is accessed by swiping down from the top of the display. A long touch on the home button opens a Search function. The Volume and Power off screens are typical for EUI. The Settings menu reflects LeEco's view on usability. Compared to a classic Android M structure, it has brought up a level or two features that are normally deeper in the settings. Others are simply placed elsewhere. Besides the System Settings, it also includes App settings for each app installed on the device. The System Settings contain four main groups, the first one being Wireless & networks. It contains all standard tools for managing your wireless connections and mobile networks. The second group is called Common and the first menu from it is the Display one. It contains tools for changing the brightness, choosing a color mode, content scale view, LED notification light. The second menu is Wallpapers & themes and does the same thing as the Themes app. Third comes the Sounds & vibrations menu, followed by the Notifications management one. The latter allows you to set up individual notifications settings for each app on the device. The Control center is the tool that customizes the Quick Settings. You can change both the app shortcuts and the standard toggles. The QR scanning function, which can be accessed from the Quick Settings and Control center, works very quickly and once it detects the code, it immediately searches for it on the internet via the default browser. The Notifications management and Control center are followed by the Do Not Disturb menu, which has several pre-set rules and allows you to add more. The Dual-app feature of EUI 5.6 lets you log into two accounts in two different versions of one and the same app installed on the device. The third major group of settings is called Personal and allows you to manage your LeCloud content and LeEco account along with all other accounts you might have on the device and even synchronize data between them. This group also contains the Fingerprint & password menu, from where you can set up your home screen lock and fingerprint IDs. The latter is very easy and unlocking from cold screen is impressively fast. You can also use the fingerprint sensor as a camera shutter for snapping photos. With an activated screen lock you get access to the Smart Lock function, too, which you can set up to leave your smartphone unlocked when it is near trusted places and devices, your voice and body. Location and Permissions (app management) are the last two menus from the Personal group of settings. It is followed by the fourth and last group called Other. It starts off with System update, which is also available as an app, and continues with Language and input, Date & time, Power on & off, App management, Battery and Storage, Factory reset, Accessibility, Printing and About phone. Besides System settings, EUI 5.6 also contains App settings. It shows a list of all main apps installed on your device and for each you get additional settings to customize its behaviour to suit your preferences better. All the standard apps you'd expect are available on Cool1 dual. The Dialer and Contacts apps are merged into one and accessed via separate tabs inside it. There's a third app for Yellow Pages, too. When you start the Dialer for the first time, it asks you to choose a preferred type of dial pad, which can be changed at any time. Contacts is present in the Tools folder as a separate app, but actually leads to the contacts tab inside. The Tools folder also contains a Calculator, Compass, Downloads, Email, SIM toolkit, Video Player, and Voice Recorder. The Messenger and Calendar are standard, too, and do not offer very extensive options. The Clock app is typical for EUI and contains four tabs - alarm, world clock, stopwatch and timer. For the alarm you have access to plenty of tunes online, which you can download and set as your wake-up melody. EUI 5.6 includes a default Browser, Gallery, Maps, System Update, and a Feedback app along with WPS Office pre-installed. The Weather app is very pretty and provides you with very detailed data. There's a Compass in the Tools folder as well. The File Manager is standard and sorts the device's files in folders according to their type - music, videos, pictures, documents, apps, archives. There's also a monitor of the internal memory capacity. Cool1 dual arrives with a Super manager app, which contains four tools for optimizing the performance and power-efficiency of the model. The first is the Clean junk tool, followed by Data usage control and Access management. The latter manages app auto launch and permissions. There's also a Power management feature, which will be discussed in detail in the Battery section of this review. The IR blaster on board the model allows you to use the smartphone as a remote control - very much like the one found on Xiaomi devices. The app is pretty straightforward and lets you choose from many brands of home appliances, of course LeEco TVs are already included. The Tools folder contains a Voice Recorder and a Video player, which supports Dolby Audio sound and provides some basic video editing tools. The Notes app is very simple and intuitive, while the Themes app is quite big and includes not only themes-related content, but also wallpapers. As usual, you have access to a plethora of online themes and wallpapers, which are grouped and sorted according to various parameters, but you can also access the offline themes and wallpapers that are already downloaded in the device. Bloatware is minimal and retained only to the Le-apps, which are an integral part of Le-Eco's ecosystem philosophy. The apps provide access to tons of free and paid online content provided by LeEco (former LeTV). The main one is the LeLive app, accessed by the central rounded icon on the home screen. If you swipe to the right from the home screen you will start the LeView app - another major source of videos available online. LeStore is in its essence an app store, while LeMall is LeEco's official website and online store for all LeEco things. LeSports and LeGames are self-explanatory, while LeMe and MyLeEco provide management tools for your LeEco account and the content you download. For all these services you need to have a LeEco account.

Networks, calls and connectivity

Coolpad Cool1 dual is equipped with a dual-SIM card tray, in which you can place two nano-SIM cards. There's no slot for additional storage. The device operates in 2G GSM (850, 900, 180, 1900 MHz), 2.5G CDMA (800, 1900 MHz), 3G TD-SCDMA (1880-1920 and 2010-2025 MHz) and 3G WCDMA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz) networks along with 4G FDD-LTE (850, 900, 1800, 1900, 2100, 2600 MHz) and 4G TDD-LTE (1900, 2300, 2500, 2600 MHz) networks. Download 4G speeds are Cat. 4 ones. Our review unit provides excellent reception and call quality. The model's wireless connectivity options include dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac. Wi-Fi Hotspot, Wi-Fi Direct, and Bluetooth 4.1. We have tested all these features and they work fine. Wi-Fi reception has been excellent, even in areas where other devices struggle for the signal. In addition, the smartphone has a USB Type-C 2.0 port with OTG support. It works with all satellite systems - GPS, Glonass and BeiDou. During our test, it managed to detect a good number of satellites from all three with very good accuracy. A fully functional IR blaster is on board as well.

Performance

Coolpad Cool1 dual is based on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 MSM8976 chipset. The same one powers the LeEco Le S3, which has been announced earlier this month. This system-on-chip packs four Cortex-A72 cores clocked at 1.8GHz and four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.4GHz. Due to the slightly higher clock rate of the Cortex-A53 cores, this chipset is faster than its sibling - the Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 MSM8956 SoC, whose Cortex-53 cores are clocked at 1.2GHz. The SD 652 also features a faster GPU - Adreno 510, against the Adreno 506 found in the SD 650. This chipset also integrates an X8 LTE modem for download speeds of up to 300 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 100 Mbps (4G LTE Cat. 4) and is the first 600 series processor to support 4K video shooting and playback. Our review unit scored 81943 points in AnTuTu, which is an excellent result for this chipset. It yields only to Helio X20 and Snapdragon 820 chipsets. Other tests, like Basemark, even show results that are almost identical to those devices with a Helio X20 chipset. You can definitely play all types of games with the Cool1 dual and launch any app and only the very heavy-graphics ones would probably not run smoothly at their highest level. Cool1 dual is the first device on which we run the new PCMark Work 2.0 performance test, so currently we cannot compare it with results from other devices. The new test updates the Web Browsing, Writing, and Photo Editing tests and adds two all-new tests for Video Editing and Data Manipulation. We have also included the Computer Vision score and the result from the first version of the PCMark Work performance test. According to the latter and all 3D Mark tests, Cool1 dual scores much higher than devices with a Helio X20 chipset and outperforms those with a Snapdragon 650 chipset as well. The model has three variants in terms of RAM and storage. The first is with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage (with a 3-month free music subscription to LeEco services). The second has 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal memory (with a 6-month free music subscription) - this is the variant we're reviewing. The third one is equipped with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage (1-year free subscription to music and video). The RAM is single-channel, LPDDR3, clocked at 933MHz. The internal memory is the eMMC 5.1 type and cannot be expanded. 4 gigs of RAM are more than enough, even though it's from the previous generation. Storage reading and writing speeds are excellent. Coolpad Cool1 dual is equipped with a proximity, light, accelerometer, compass, three-axis gyroscope, gravity, Hall and other sensors. On the back, below the dual-camera module is placed a fingerprint sensor made by Goodix. Its exact model is GT915L. It provides 360-degree recognition and can store up to 5 IDs. It stores IDs and unlocks very fast, and can be used for unlocking the device from a switched-off screen, authorizing payments and as a camera shutter button.

Cameras

Coolpad Cool1 dual is a budget device with an advanced dual-camera setup on its back and Coolpad has its own BFC patent algorithm for smart photo capturing. The Camera app is quite simple without lacking advanced features. The home screen of the app contains the shutter button, a shortcut to the list with photos/videos to its left and a shortcut to the filter list to its right. At the top of the screen there are toggles for the flash and HDR settings, the switch between the front and rear camera, a watermask (stamp) shortcut, and a link to additional options - long exposure, GIF, panorama and a link to the camera settings. The primary camera has several modes. The SLR one is created for those of you who want to get more creative as it creates that beautiful bokeh effect, typical for DSLR cameras. There are Night and Beauty modes as well as a Pro mode, which equals a Manual one as it provides options for adjustment of the white balance, ISO, exposure, manual focus, contrast and saturation. The video settings are limited to the video resolution. The front-facing camera has a Video and Beauty mode. It offers natural skin toning and beautification features because it automatically determines the person's gender, skin quality, and environmental brightness using different strategies. After you take a photo you can view more information about its parameters, upload or share it, delete or edit it. The edit mode offers cropping, rotation, and application of various filters.

Primary camera

The dual camera setup of Cool1 dual is very often compared to the one of Xiaomi Redmi Pro because the two smartphones are in one and the same specifications/price class. However, in terms of function, the Cool1's camera is similar to that of Huawei P9, instead of the Redmi Pro, because the first camera shoots in color and the second - in black and white. This helps achieve better depth of field, contrast, clarity and better photo quality in low light conditions. Both Redmi Pro's cameras shoot in color and have different sensors, the second one being used for changing the focus are and creating an artificial bokeh effect. At the same time Cool1's cameras have one and the same hardware. Each of the two is equipped with a 13-megapixel Sony IMX258 sensor and a 6-element lens with an f/2.0 aperture. They are coupled with a dual-tone LED flash and phase-detection autofocus. The photos are with output resolution of 4160 x 3120 pixels. The cameras can also shoot 720p videos at 120 fps, 1080p videos at 30 fps, and 4K videos (3840 x 2160) at 24 fps. Other smartphones, which we have reviewed and are provided with the same Sony IMX258 sensor for their primary camera are the Vernee Mars, Xiaomi Redmi Pro, and Elephone P9000. We rarely allow ourselves to share subjective thoughts, but the dual rear cameras of Cool1 do a great job.

Secondary camera

The front-facing camera of Coolpad Cool1 dual features an 8-megapixel front-facing camera, equipped with an OmniVision OV8856 CMOS BSI-2 sensor and an 80° wide-angle lens with an f/2.2 aperture. It produces photos with a resolution of 3264 x 2448 pixels and can shoot 1080p videos at 30 fps. Other smartphones, which we have reviewed and are equipped with the same sensor for their front camera are the Asus ZenFone 3 ZE552KL, ZTE Axon 7 and Zopo Speed 8. Similar to the Asus, the front facing camera of Cool1 dual makes very good photos for a selfie shooter and is one of the best around.

Audio

Coolpad Cool1 dual has a single speaker placed behind the right speaker grille at the bottom frame. There is no special audio hardware inside the device, at least no such thing has been mentioned officially. The model supports Dolby Audio while playing videos. The Music app is a traditional EUI one. It provides you with access to offline and online content as well as various tools for managing it. The music player offers two viewing modes - one for the song that is currently playing and the second is the list with audio files. The additional settings include a Night Mode, which turns the player screen into all-black one with a white font. In our audio test the model has an overall result of Very good. We perform all audio tests by using the TASCAM US-2x2 audio interface and the RightMark Audio Analyzer software. Cool1 dual excels in Frequency response and IMD+Noise, while the THD+Noise is rated as Good. The total harmonic distortion (THD) by itself is evaluated as being Very good and so are all other audio parameters. The sound from the speaker is not impressive and is typical for any average smartphone.

Test	Value	RMAA rating
Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB	+0.01, -0.13	Excellent
Noise level, dB (A)	-90.6	Very good
Dynamic range, dB (A)	91.7	Very good
THD, %	0.0031	Very good
THD + Noise, dB (A)	-83.6	Good
IMD + Noise, %	0.0078	Excellent
Stereo crosstalk, dB	-81.2	Very good
IMD at 10 kHz, %	0.014	Very good
General performance		Very good

Battery

Coolpad Cool1 has a special software tool for optimizing its battery performance. It can be accessed either from the Batter menu in the Settings, or from the Super Manager app. It is called Power saving management and has an Ultra-long standby power saving mode during sleep, which is switched on by default. There's a toggle for Lock screen cleanup as well. The App protection feature allows you to manage, which apps should be protected from cleaning/closing, while the Align Wakeup feature reduces the number of screen wakeups. The Battery Assistant is the well-known Battery saver, which is switched off by default. A Schedule power on & off feature is on board as well, and is also included as a separate menu in the Settings. Another feature that is duplicated there is the Battery usage status, which is a monitor for the current status of the battery at any given moment. The battery that powers Coolpad Cool1 dual is a 3.85V, 4060 mAh one with a density of up to 700Wh/L density. Its model name is CPLD-403. It is widely used in aerospace and military industries as it provides high-precision dispensing process, good heat dissipation, and long service life. It has a three-core protection - chips, circuits, and an isolation membrane. The battery is bundled with a 5V/2A charger. The graph below shows the charging rate (yellow) and battery temperature during charging (red). Right from the start the charging maintained a steady rate, which was not very fast, till it reached 80% of the capacity. This happened after 1 hour and 52 minutes. Then the charging speed slowed down a bit and 90% of the capacity were reached after another 20 minutes. An additional half an hour was needed till the battery reached 100% of its capacity, so the total charging time is 2 hours and 38 minutes. Due to the steady and not very fast charging speed, the battery temperature remained below 40°C during the whole process. At the beginning, it was 26°C, but in 20 minutes increased to 33°C and for the following 50 minutes reach 36°C. For the next half an hour it maintained a top temperature of around 39°C, which started lowering down soon after the battery reached 70% of its capacity. At the end of the process, the battery temperature was 29°C. Just like with the PCMark Work 2.0 performance test, Cool1 dual is our first device, on which we run the PCMArk Work 2.0 battery life test. It showed a result of 7 hours and 23 minutes. Having in mind that the new version of the test is stricter than the previous one, this is an excellent result for a smartphone with a 4060 mAh battery. As usual, the test has been performed with the display's brightness calibrated at 200 nits as per Futuremark's recommendations.

Final thoughts

LeEco Coolpad Cool1 dual is definitely worth having. Currently, the smartphone is one of the best on the market offering mid- to high-range specs for a price lower than USD 200. In this regard, the model is a direct competitor to Xiaomi Redmi Pro and the Redmi Note 4, surpassing both in terms of performance and camera quality, and actually many other smartphones in that price class. The model's display and audio are average ones, but its battery life is very serious and highly competitive. The design is elegant and the build is excellent, so if you're looking for a fast smartphone that takes great photos and lasts longer than expected, you should definitely consider the LeEco Coolpad Cool1 dual.