Coolpad Cool 10A Review: A Stylish Entry Level Smartphone

Coolpad has been launching quite a few budget phones in Nepal and Cool 10A is one of the recent addition.

Cool 10A price in Nepal is Rs. 12,495 for the 2/64GB variant and it is one of the most stylish looking smartphones for the price.

I have been using it for more than a week and I think it’s a decent budget phone. Let’s see why in our Cool 10A review.

Coolpad Cool 10A Review

Cool Design

• 165 x 76 x 8.8 mm
• Dual Sim (Nano)
• 90Hz

Coolpad Cool 10A has very good aesthetics to be fair. The plastic rear has a textured finish, so it is not prone to fingerprints and smudges. And, the gradient finish makes it stand out in the entry-level segment.

On the back, there’s a fingerprint sensor and dual camera module with a flash. The power button and volume button are placed on the right. Whereas, there’s a triple-slot tray for dual nano sim and a micro-SD on the left. On the bottom, there’s a mic, a Micro-USB port, and a speaker.

Cool 10A has a very good design and it doesn’t feel like an affordable entry-level smartphone.

Overall, the plastic build feels durable and the phone can be easily used with a single hand as well.

Display

• 6.517 inches LCD Panel
• HD+ resolution

For an entry-level budget phone, Cool 12A’s display is a good one. More than anything else, the display feels sharp with good viewing angles.

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The panel has a good brightness level and I have not had any issues using it outdoors. The color profile of the panel is more or less natural. However, you can increase the contrast level from the display menu.

Camera

• Rear Camera: 13MP
  • 0.3MP
  • Video: 1080p@30fps
• Front Camera: 5MP
  • Video: 1080p@30fps

Cool 10A is packing dual cameras on the rear with a 13MP main sensor and a 0.3MP main sensor.

NORMAL DAYLIGHT PHOTOS

For a budget phone, the Cool 10A has average image quality. Images do not have a good dynamic range and they look flat. Photos lack detail as well.

Some images also have that oversaturated and oversharpened look. Moreover, you can see that some of the images look out of focus and the contrast is totally off.

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The additional 0.3MP sensor doesn’t have a designation as it is apparently an AI sensor. So, it could be helping the main sensor by providing extra information.

NIGHT MODE AND PORTRAIT MODE

I was not expecting good low-light performance and I was right. The low-light images have a lot of noise and the detail is very low. The included Night mode helps to bring more detail but the noise level is still high. Night mode brightnes the images but some images look overexposed.

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As for the portrait mode, 2 out of 3 photos I took did not have a good focus on the subject. The edge detection looks below par and the background blur is also not impressive. Well, the portrait photos are not impressive.

FRONT CAMERA

Now on to the front camera, the 5MP sensor takes decent selfies under good lighting. And, the Auto HDR also does a good job of controlling background highlights.

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There’s no portrait mode for the front camera but surprisingly it does have Night mode.

Video

Coolpad Cool 10A can capture up to 1080p 30fps videos from the rear camera and 720p videos from the front camera. As you would expect, the video quality is poor with low detail and low contrast.

Performance

• Unisoc SC9863A chipset
• Octa-core (4×1.6 GHz Cortex-A55 & 4×1.2 GHz Cortex-A55) CPU
• IMG8322 GPU
• 64GB 2GB RAM, expandable up to 128GB

Cool 10A is equipped with a Unisoc SC9863A chipset paired with 2GB of RAM and 64GB internal storage.

SC9863A is an octa-core chipset with 8 cortex-A55 cores in two clusters. The performance cores are clocked up to 1.6GHz and the efficiency cores are clocked up to 1.2GHz. It also uses IMG8322 GPU.

On paper, the CPU and GPU are equivalent to that of the MediaTek G25 but it is not an efficient chip as it is made in a 28nm process.

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The phone feels smooth and snappy for an entry-level phone and it can run games like Altos Odyssey without any difficulties. I did play PUBG Mobile as well and the performance is not good. If you want to play, you can play it on low graphics and medium fps with some lags. But, the phone will start getting warm after 10 mins of gameplay.

Battery and Charging

• Non-removable Li-Po 4900mAh battery
• 10W charging
• Micro USB

It’s strange but the company has been promoting Cool 10A’s battery capacity as 4000mAh when it has a 4900mAh battery.

Battery life is pretty good for a budget phone.

In normal usage, Cool 10A has been providing a day of usage but it doesn’t have fast charging support.

Software

• Android 11
• Stock OS

One of the good things about Cool 10A is the stock OS. Well, it runs on  Android 11 with slight modifications and it looks like Cool 10A is using Android Go skin.

Some Android Go apps like Google Go, Gallery Go, and Assistant Go are pre-installed. Furthermore, it does not have an app drawer and there are only 6 themes to customize your experience.

Though the UI is barebone stock Android, the optimization is really good.

Should You Buy Coolpad Cool 10A?

For Rs. 12,495, Coolpad Cool 10A is a decent entry-level phone.

I like its design and the display is surprisingly good. The Unisoc chipset is able to keep things running without major lags. However, you won’t be able to do much gaming on this smartphone.

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Compared to some of the competitions, Cool 10A is way behind in terms of camera. The image processing is not good and I would choose some other option over Cool 10A just because of the camera.

I hope you like our Coolpad Cool 10A review. If you have any questions regarding this device, then drop them in the comments below.

Also, watch our review of the Coolpad Cool 10.