hile the entire market has spent years stretching smartphones into narrow vertical strips, Coolpad decided to bring an almost square format back to our pockets. The device's body turned out squat and wide, measuring 150.3 by 94.5 by 8.95 millimeters. Buyers will get three color options: white, black, and red.
The industry already went through a phase of obsession with 16:10 formats and near-square proportions during the dawn of phablets and experiments with Android-based QWERTY keyboards. Back then, manufacturers quickly ditched those experiments in favor of cinematic elongated screens that make scrolling social media feeds with one thumb much easier. However, for working with spreadsheets, texts, and navigation, a wide display is objectively more convenient: it fits more information without endless scrolling.
Under the hood are simple, proven components without fifth-generation mobile network support: a MediaTek Helio G99 processor paired with LPDDR4X RAM and UFS 2.2 storage. The top configuration offers 12 gigabytes of RAM and 256 gigabytes of built-in storage, which can be expanded with a memory card up to 256 gigabytes.
The price of the new device and the exact sales launch date have not been announced yet, as the company has only opened pre-orders. This experiment is a great fit for anyone tired of standard toothpick-shaped smartphones, but you should not rush into pre-ordering: without a final price and an understanding of how software adapts to such unusual proportions, buying it turns into a lottery. If you are looking for a reliable workhorse for reading documents and occasional calls, you are better off waiting for the first reviews and real price tags.