Is LeEco’s Cool 1 a winner in a Xiaomi Redmi Pro comparison!?

We all saw the announcement of the first mobile made from the combination of LeEco and Coolpad knowledge. LeEco Cool1 , as it is called this mobile, has a dual camera at the back, a feature that only recently reappeared in the mobile market. Huawei and LG, where the first companies that brought dual cameras back in action, followed by Xiaomi and Meizu from what it looks.

Xiaomi showed to us its first ever dual camera smartphone, Redmi Pro, a few days back. Knowing Xiaomi, from the announced price we see a value for money mobile. Didn’t took a long for LeEco to fight back with it’s new mobile Cool 1 and now we have an even more cheaper mobile with dual camera. We know very well that both LeEco and Xiaomi are one of the best Chinese companies and they have changed the way we look at budget smartphones.

Since both mobiles are with the dual camera feature, available in the mid-range price segment, it’s quite difficult to choose what is best. With this review, we will try to find out key specs and features that makes them to differ, making the final decision a little bit easier to choose.

DESIGN

If we like or not the design of a mobile is something very relevant. One might like it and the next person to him, hate it. Both look pretty good. So the final decision to this is completely yours.

LeEco Cool1

Xiaomi Redmi Pro

Both mobiles have metal bodies with LeEco Cool1 having a smooth texture, while Redmi Pro has a brushed metal texture.

Cool1 Smartphone

Xiaomi Redmi Pro

Of course there are other differences as well. Redmi Pro has a home button up front with two capacitive buttons, when Cool1 comes with capacitive keys. Fingerprint sensor is on the front of the Redmi Pro, while Cool 1 has it at the back of the device. Both mobiles have their dual cameras arranged vertically. The difference here between the two mobiles is that the Cool1 module is integrated in one single housing, while on the Redmi Pro is in two separate sensors. Both mobiles use USB Type-C port.

LeEco Cool1

Xiaomi Redmi Pro

Cool1 – Dimensions: 152 x 74.8 x 8.2mm / Weight: 173 grams
Redmi Pro  – Dimensions: 151.5 x 76.2 x 8.15mm / Weight: 174 grams

LeEco Cool1

Xiaomi Redmi Pro

Since both mobiles are with 5.5-inch display, they have very similar dimensions. The thickness is almost the same and the weight as well.

LeEco Cool1

Xiaomi Redmi Pro

So far no winner from this comparison, since both mobiles have very similar characteristics. Lets continue our quest.

LeEco Cool1

Xiaomi Redmi Pro

DISPLAY
Here we will see the first differences, since both mobiles are using very different displays

LeEco Cool1

Xiaomi Redmi Pro

Cool1 has a 5.5-inch 1080p IPS display with 72% NTSC and 450 nit brightness. Redmi Pro comes with a 5.5-inch 1080p OLED display with 100% NTSC color gamut but with a brightness of 350 nits. Redmi’s OLED panel is richer in color but Cool1 should have a brighter screen.

HARDWARE

LeEco Cool1 Antutu Score

  Βoth smartphones have different specs as far we know. Cool1 is equipped with a Snapdragon 652 octa-core chip (4x Cortex A72 + 4 x Cortex A53) clocked at 1.8GHz. Since we want to have a fair comparison the mid-range variant of the Cool1 that includes 4GB RAM and 32GB of internal storage, costing 1499 Yuan, we will take it as equal to Redmi Pro’s standard edition.

Xiaomi Redmi Pro Antutu Score

Redmi Pro, is equipped with MediaTek’s Helio X20 chip clocked at 2.15GHz (2xA72 + 4xA53 + 4xA53) with 3GB of RAM. This variant that costs 1499 Yuan comes with just 3GB RAM and 32GB of internal storage which is equal to the variant of Cool 1 that we talked before.

I know that you might say Cool1 is a better smartphone with SD652 and 4GB RAM, but the phone does not have a MicroSD card slot, which is a big disappointment. So, for the two variants that we compare, with the 32GB ROM, you cannot expand this storage on the Cool 1, when Redmi Pro has an edge in this department, considering it comes with MicroSD card slot (to be exact is the second sim slot that can take a micro sd card and use only one sim then) expandable up to 128GB.

So you will have to choose between a faster processor (better GPU), larger RAM and better third party ROM support choosing Cool1 or you can choose Redmi Pro, with Helio X20 which is also quite good and comes with expandable storage. Both mobiles have eMMC 5.1 storages, if you want to know.

CAMERA

Now that many of you are interested to see who could be the winner here. Once again, both companies use different technologies on their smartphones. Both have dual cameras and both are aligned vertically, however, the technology is different.

Xiaomi Redmi Pro

Redmi Pro as we know has two camera sensors. A primary Sony 13MP sensor along with a secondary sensor of 5MP sensor from Samsung that acts for depth information. The setup is said to take amazing Bokeh images, replicating similar quality as a DSLR.

Other features of the Redmi Pro’s camera module includes 5P lens, f/2.0 aperture, PDAF, and color temperature flash. The phone can capture 1080p and 720p videos at 30fps. Slow motion videos are captured at 720p @ 120fps. From the facial camera you get a 5MP shooter with f/2.0 and 85-degree wide angle lens.

LeEco Cool1

Cool1 has a slightly different setup. The sensors here are both 13MP, one is a RGB sensor the other is a monochrome sensor. Both sensors combine information to create images, which should technically feature less noise and better clarity, especially in low light conditions.

Other features of this module include 4K and 1080p video support at 30fps, Slow motion videos at 720@120fps, f/2.0 aperture, PDAF, 6P lens and color temperature flash. From the front camera you get an 8MP f/2.2 aperture sensor with 80-degree wide angle lens.

From the specs of the cameras, Cool1 Dual seems to have an edge over Redmi Pro. To be more exact, during the announcement, LeEco had mentioned that its phone uses dual camera 2.0 technology (RGB + Monochrome setup) as compared to Dual Camera 1.0 tech used by Redmi Pro (Primary cam + Depth sensor). An other advantage is that Cool 1 can capture 4K videos, which Redmi Pro cannot.

So, at least on paper, Cool1 seems to be a winner. Now in real life, images taken from both the phones will confirm this.

BATTERY

In real test, Redmi Pro takes 115 minutes to charge from 0% to 100%, it charges faster first, but until 90%, it has slowed down. As you know, Redmi Pro has 4050mAh battery.

LeEco Cool1 Battery Life Test

We use PCmark to test Cool1 about its battery life, it takes 7 hours 17 minutes to consume the power from 100% to 20%, during the test, we adjust the brightness to the highest. In theory, Cool1 can support one day to use under heavy use, but it can be charged once per two days in light use.

cool1 Charging Voltage

Cool1 uses 4060mAh battery without quick charge and it adopts 5V/2A power adapter specs,  we can see Cool has good charging efficiency. First, it keeps 5V/1.9A charging, which is higher than the common phones. Due to power voltage has been up to 5.2V, Cool1 can reach 10w power which has faster charging speed.

LeEco Cool1 Charging Speed

We uses the professional device to test charging speed about Cool1. We can see Cool1 has 5V voltage, 1.9A current, after it keeps 60%, it starts to charge slower. So it takes 2 hours 57 minutes to charge Cool1 full. It’s pity that it doesn’t have quick charge.

Therefore, Redmi Pro wins in power charging speed. But they have similar battery life.

CONNECTIVITY

Both have Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi Direct and Wi-Fi display, Infrared sensor, GPS, AGPS, GLONASS, Beidou, USB Type-C. However, Cool1 comes with 5GHz Wi-Fi ac standard which is faster from the Wi-Fi n standard on the Redmi Pro.

Both have fingerprint sensors, with the only difference here is where they are placed. Redmi Pro having it on the front, embedded into the home button, while the Cool1 having it at the back of the phone.

Both the models come with Android Marshmallow running out of the box. Cool1 Dual features EUI 5.6 while Redmi Pro with MIUI 8.

Cool1 comes out in Silver and Gold, while Redmi Pro comes out in three colors, Gray, Silver, and Gold.

PRICING

Cool1 Dual is priced cheaper than the Redmi Pro in China. It starts at 1099 Yuan ($167). There are two other variants, retailing at $226 and $257. On the other hand, Redmi Pro starts at 1499 Yuan ($226) and goes on till $300.

VERDICT

LeEco Cool1 seems to be a winner. The phone is cheaper, probably with a slightly better camera, 4K video support and Wi-Fi ac.

On the other hand, the luck of a micro SD slot for many is much more important, since they want a lot of space to save their images and video. Also a richer OLED display and people that love MIUI, could be the cause to be Redmi Pro winner.

So what do you think? What is your choice here?