The Latest Budget Smartphones

CoolPad & Fly handsets

Continuing the recent trend we take a quick look at three of the newest budget smartphones on the market, all three of these devices are included in this week's data update which is available for download now.

CoolPad 5263

We're going to take a look at the latest smartphone to come from the Chinese manufacturer CoolPad. Although CoolPad is more likely to be known for their tablet ranges, in recent times we've seen a concentrated push to expand their business portfolio further into smartphone territory. This is perhaps as a result of the prediction that tablet usage would eclipse other formats, which never really materialised, or maybe it was always part of the plan to spread its wings.

Generally the CoolPad 5263 errs on the higher side of the current budget range smartphone market. Screen wise it carries a 5.0 inch TFT panel with an 854 x 480 resolution and 24 bits per pixel. Looking at the internal hardware we get Qualcomm's most recent budget tailored chipset, the Snapdragon 210. This chipset is equipped with a quad-core 1.1GHz Cortex-A7 CPU and Qualcomm's Adreno 304 GPU. On top of that we have 512MB RAM, 4GB internal storage and a microSD expansion slot.

There is a 5MP rear camera with digital zoom and LED flash but unfortunately no image stabiliser. Rounding out the feature list is GPS, Bluetooth 3.0 and a 2000mAh removable battery. There is support for dual micro SIM cards and connectivity wise you get GSM, CDMA and LTE networks. The CoolPad 5263 ships with Android 4.4.4 and is available now for less than $150. If it wasn't for the dismally low 512MB of memory then this could have been an excellent contender.

Fly Nimbus 3

Fly was originally founded in the UK in 2003 and since then has been operating in the mobile phone markets of Russia, Ukraine, India, Southern Europe and the CIS. Although relatively unheard of outside their primary markets their 2012 smartphone series 4 propelled Fly into second place, in terms of Android smartphones sold in Russia. The Fly Nimbus 3 is geared up towards the budget market and on the face of things is not too dissimilar to the CoolPad 5263.

There is a 5.0 inch 854 x 480 resolution TN-LCD display with 18 bits per pixel and the unit is 9.9mm thick and weighs 177g, so it feels pretty hefty in the hand. Internally Fly have opted to go with a Spreadtrum SC7731 chipset with a quad-core Cortex-A7 running at 1.2GHz and a Mali-400 MP2 GPU from ARM Holdings. Like the CoolPad there is only 512MB RAM and 4GB internal storage but at least there's also a microSD expansion slot.

A 5MP rear camera with digital zoom and LED flash is paired with a 0.3MP front selfie camera. The Nimbus 3 also comes with GPS and A-GPS, Bluetooth 2.1+A2DP and a 2000mAh battery. The dual SIM card slots support both mini and micro formats and network availability includes HSDPA+ and HSUPA but no LTE support. The Fly Nimbus 3 is a full $50 cheaper than the CoolPad 5263 at around $100 retail, with the biggest difference being the lack of LTE support.

Fly Nimbus 1

The Fly Nimbus 1 is essentially a 'mini' version of the previously discussed Nimbus 3. Chief among the differences are a smaller battery, 1800mAh vs 2000mAh, a lower Bluetooth version, 2.0 vs 2.1 and a smaller screen, 4.5 inches vs 5.0 inches. The Fly Nimbus 1 has the model number FS451 whilst the Nimbus 3 is labelled as the FS501. The Nimbus 1 also comes with Android 4.4 and will set you back about $90, approximately $10 less than the Nimbus 3.

Profiles and Combinations Update

Last week we added 202 new devices to our database.
The current number of Premium profile combinations in our database is 260,074.
The current number of Enterprise profile combinations in our database is 318,482.