When Android first emerged, Chinese phone maker Coolpad was one of the first companies to feature the OS in its smartphones. Unfortunately, the brand couldn’t make much of a name for itself due to the relentless competition in the smartphone market.
However, despite the downturn, the company celebrated its 26th-anniversary last year and has now announced the Coolpad 26 Zhen Tibetan Edition, which is currently one of the cheapest mid-range smartphones on the market.
Here are the details.
Design and Display
The Coolpad 26 Tibetan Edition has a 6.3-inch LCD with FHD+ resolution and a waterdrop notch at the top housing the front-facing camera. The surrounding bezels are thin with the exception of the relatively thicker chin at the bottom.
At the back, there is a triple camera setup in a vertical layout in the top left corner on top of an LED flash, while the fingerprint sensor in the middle.
Internals and Storage
The handset is powered by a Snapdragon 710 SoC, the first in the Snapdragon 700 series meant to power upper mid-range smartphones. It has a 2.2GHz octa-core CPU coupled with up to 6GB RAM and 128GB UFS 2.1. There is also a microSD card slot for storage expansion.
The device boots Android 10 out of the box with the latest version of the company’s Cool UI.
Cameras
There is not much detail available on the camera setup yet, but what is known is that the primary camera has a 16MP main shooter alongside an ultrawide lens and a depth sensor for portrait shots. It can capture 1080p videos at 30 FPS. This is one area where most budget smartphones stumble, lets see how Coolpad manages it.
The front camera housed inside the waterdrop notch is also a 16MP shooter. It likely has a plethora of AI-enabled features such as beauty modes, filters, and more.
Battery and Pricing
The battery on the device is 4,000 mAh unit and it supports 15W fast charging for quick top-ups. With that much battery capacity, the phone should be able to last 2 days of moderate use.
The Coolpad 26 Zhen Tibetan Edition has been launched for $183. There is no word on international availability yet.
