Coolpad Mega 2.5D Review

Coolpad had quite good success with the Coolpad Note 3 and Note 3 Lite which was phones which brought the fingerprint scanner in sub 10k price segment. Now Coolpad has launched their latest affordable smartphone, the Coolpad Mega 2.5D in India. Coolpad Mega 2.5D features a 5.5 inch HD display and is powered by MediaTek Quad-core processor with 3GB RAM and Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

It also has an 8MP selfie camera along with 8MP rear camera. So how does Coolpad Mega 2.5D perform and is it real value for money? Let’s find out in this detailed review.

Design and Build:

One of the highlights of the device is the design. For a phone which is priced below Rs 7k, Coolpad Mega 2.5D has an impressive design. Although the phone has metallic chassis, the rear panel is still plastic, but you never get an impression that it is made of plastic as the company has done good work with the build quality. The plastic rear panel has been finished in matte in gold color and looks similar to an all metal body smartphone.

There is slight curvature for the rear panel which adds to the usability of the phone. The rear panel houses the 8MP camera, LED flash, and Coolpad logo. On the left side, you have the volume keys while the power and the SIM tray are located on the right side. The micro USB charging slot sits at the bottom while the 3.5mm audio jack is at the top.

As the name of the phone suggests, it flaunts 2.5D curved glass on the display which adds to the beauty of the device. Overall, we feel Coolpad Mega 2.5D is one of the best-designed budget smartphones out there which is also lightweight to use even with a 5.5-inch display.

 

Display:

Coolpad Mega 2.5D comes with a 5.5 inch HD display (1280 X 720p) with a pixel density of  . Unlike Coolpad’s other budget offerings which had average display quality, the company has improved upon this aspect in Mega 2.5D. It comes with a curved glass and the colors are impressive. The overall sharpness levels are also good, so is the touch response. The outdoor visibility is also good for a budget smartphone. The viewing angles are quite good and the colors do not change when you tilt the display.

The phone skips capacitive touch buttons instead they are on screen.

 

Software:

Coolpad Mega 2.5D runs on latest Android Marshmallow 6.0.1 out of the box with Cool UI 8.0. Coolpad has done quite a lot of changes to the Cool UI in this new device. One of the major changes is the Control center, which has quick toggles implementation like in iOS. Gionee had implemented a similar feature on their phones as well. You have to swipe from bottom to access the control center. The notification panel has only notifications from apps.

The phone comes with good customization options including themes. You can download themes online and there are a handful of apps like rock wallpaper, recorder, cool manager, cleaner, memo among others included in the phone.

There is also Cool Manager app available which controls the data, call blocker, privacy and other options. There is also smart control option with floating button and wake up gestures. You can also customize the control center and toggle the icon positions.

The UI is definitely improved over the previous version of Cool UI, but it isn’t still as polished as Xiaomi’s MIUI or Honor’s EMUI.

 

Performance:

Coolpad Mega 2.5D is powered by MediaTek MT6735P quad-core SoC which isn’t the most powerful budget processor out there. While Snapdragon 410 is the most preferred one in the budget category, Coolpad has gone with the less powerful chipset while adding 3GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. The phone does come with hybrid SIM card, so there is an option to expand the storage available on the phone.

The gaming performance of the device was just average and not the best performer when playing heavy graphic rich games. The call quality of the device was quite good and it comes with 4G LTE on both SIM cards. The phone isn’t the best performer in heavy usage, but in the day to day tasks it performs quite well. Considering the budget aspect of the phone, we would say it is a decent performer, but Coolpad could have done better with a better processor.

One of the missing aspects of the phone is the lack of fingerprint scanner which is now becoming a mainstream feature. Multitasking is also implemented in a different manner on the Cool UI.

 

Camera:

The phone comes with 8MP rear camera and 8MP front camera for selfies. It is one of the few devices which features 8MP front camera in this segment. The camera interface of the phone comes with good features including beauty mode, Pro mode, night mode and video recording. But sadly, the video recording is limited to 720P. There is also Panorama, GIF animation, and Sound and shot modes available.

Now, talking about camera performance, the daylight shots had quite a decent detailing with decent colors and much better than what Coolpad Note 3 Lite offered. The sharpness levels are just average. At times the colors looked washed out. But for a camera priced Rs 7k, the camera quality was quite decent. The low light imaging abilities were also acceptable quality, but there was noise in low light images. The video quality was disappointing with no 1080p support. The front facing 8MP camera is very good for selfies and does a good job overall. Here are some of the samples taken with the device.

 

Battery Life:

Coolpad Mega 2.5D comes with a 2500mAh battery and the performance is strictly average. We tested the battery as a daily driver and we ended up with a day of battery life on moderate usage. If you push it to heavy usage, you might have to search for the charger towards the end of the day. With a large display, Coolpad could have opted for a bigger capacity battery.

 

Verdict:

Priced at Rs 6,999, the Coolpad Mega 2.5D offers quite good value for money with stylish design and looks and latest software. But the real problems for Coolpad Mega 2.5D is the average performance, camera, and not so great battery life. The Redmi 3S which is again priced Rs 6,999 definitely offers better value for money. But if you are looking for a large screen budget offering, Coolpad Mega 2.5D is definitely a good buy.

Pros:

• Good Design
• Display
• Price

Cons:

• Performance
• Camera
• Battery Life

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Let the Millennial understanding and market mastery commence. Introducing marketing for Millennials, by Millennials.

 

BLKBOX calls NYC home. Learn more about their work and services by visiting their website, wearblkbox.com, and their Instagram.

 

Photo Credits

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A Better Method for Embedding YouTube Videos on your Website

It is easy to embed a YouTube video but you’ll be surprised to know how much extra weight that embedded YouTube video can add to your web pages. The browser has to download about half a Mb of extra JavaScript files (see screenshot) for rendering the YouTube video player alone. And these files are downloaded even if the visitor never plays the embedded video.

The embedded video not only increases the byte size of your web pages but the browser has to make multiple HTTP requests to render the video player. This increases the overall loading time of your page thus affecting the page speed score. The other drawback with the default YouTube embed code is that it isn’t responsive. If people view your website on a mobile phone, the video player may not resize properly for the small screen.

Embed YouTube Videos without Increasing Page Size

Google+ uses a clever technique for embedding YouTube videos – it just embeds the thumbnail image of a YouTube video and the actual video player is loaded only when the user manually clicks the thumbnail.

YouTube thumbnail images are about 15 kB in size so we are able to reduce the byte size of web pages by 500+ kb. That’s huge!

The video above is embedded using the same on-demand technique (demo).

When a visitor clicks the play button, the thumbnail image is replaced with the standard YouTube video player with autoplay set to 1 so the plays the video instantly. The advantage is that the extra YouTube JavaScript gets loaded only when someone decides to watch the embedded video and not otherwise.

Light and Responsive YouTube Embeds

The standard embed code for YouTube uses the IFRAME tag and the width and height of the video player are hard-coded thus making the player non-responsive.

The new on-demand embed code for YouTube is slightly different. You need not specify the player size as we are now embedding the video responsively. Also, the IFRAME is replaced with a DIV tag and the IFRAME is added to the page only when the visitor clicks the play button.

Embed YouTube Videos Responsively – Tutorial

Copy-paste the following snippet anywhere in your web page where you would like the YouTube video to appear. Remember to replace VIDEO_ID with the actual ID of the YouTube video.

<div class="youtube-player" data-id="VIDEO_ID"></div>

We will not assign height and width since the video player will automatically occupy the width of the parent while the height is auto-calculated. You can paste multiple DIV blocks with different video IDs if you need to embed multiple videos on the same page.

Next, place the JavaScript anywhere in your web template. It finds all embedded videos on a web page and then replaces the DIV elements with the video thumbnails.

<script>

    /* Light YouTube Embeds by @labnol */
    /* Web: http://ift.tt/2bGFoam */

    document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",
        function() {
            var div, n,
                v = document.getElementsByClassName("youtube-player");
            for (n = 0; n < v.length; n++) {
                div = document.createElement("div");
                div.setAttribute("data-id", v[n].dataset.id);
                div.innerHTML = labnolThumb(v[n].dataset.id);
                div.onclick = labnolIframe;
                v[n].appendChild(div);
            }
        });

    function labnolThumb(id) {
        var thumb = '<img src="http://ift.tt/2bGFpex;,
            play = '<div class="play"></div>';
        return thumb.replace("ID", id) + play;
    }

    function labnolIframe() {
        var iframe = document.createElement("iframe");
        var embed = "https://www.youtube.com/embed/ID?autoplay=1";
        iframe.setAttribute("src", embed.replace("ID", this.dataset.id);
        iframe.setAttribute("frameborder", "0");
        iframe.setAttribute("allowfullscreen", "1");
        this.parentNode.replaceChild(iframe, this);
    }

</script>

Finally, paste the CSS before the closing head tag of your web template.

This method will reduce the size of your web pages by 500 KB while making your site mobile friendly. You may refer to the annotated code to understanding how on-demand embedding works.

<style>
    .youtube-player {
        position: relative;
        padding-bottom: 56.23%;
        /* Use 75% for 4:3 videos */
        height: 0;
        overflow: hidden;
        max-width: 100%;
        background: #000;
        margin: 5px;
    }
    
    .youtube-player iframe {
        position: absolute;
        top: 0;
        left: 0;
        width: 100%;
        height: 100%;
        z-index: 100;
        background: transparent;
    }
    
    .youtube-player img {
        bottom: 0;
        display: block;
        left: 0;
        margin: auto;
        max-width: 100%;
        width: 100%;
        position: absolute;
        right: 0;
        top: 0;
        border: none;
        height: auto;
        cursor: pointer;
        -webkit-transition: .4s all;
        -moz-transition: .4s all;
        transition: .4s all;
    }
    
    .youtube-player img:hover {
        -webkit-filter: brightness(75%);
    }
    
    .youtube-player .play {
        height: 72px;
        width: 72px;
        left: 50%;
        top: 50%;
        margin-left: -36px;
        margin-top: -36px;
        position: absolute;
        background: url("//i.imgur.com/TxzC70f.png") no-repeat;
        cursor: pointer;
    }

</style>

Please do note that Chrome and Safari browsers on iPhone and Android only allow playback of HTML5 video when initiated by a user interaction. They block embedded media from automatic playback to prevent unsolicited downloads over cellular networks.

YouTube Embed Tutorials

1. Embed a YouTube Video with Sound Muted
2. Place YouTube Video as your Webpage Background
3. Embed Just a Portion of a YouTube Video

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The story, A Better Method for Embedding YouTube Videos on your Website, was originally published at Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal on 31/08/2016 under Embed, YouTube, Internet.

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