Motorola Quantico – Strong handset, good call quality

For:

Motorola Quantico is designed to be tough. The phone can survive in water, dust, high/low pressure and temperature. Quantico has 1.3-mega pixels camera, A-GPS, music player, Bluetooth, roomy keypad and microSD card slot. It delivers good call quality.

Against:

Motorola Quantico handset isn’t attractive. The camera doesn’t provide good image quality. The handset is a bit bulky and its screen needs to be improved.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

Motorola Quantico is based on CDMA2000 1X technology. The Quantico handset has folder-type design and supports CDMA2000 1X 1900/800 / AWS 1700/2100 band. The handset is capable for conference calling. The additional features are GPS, internal antenna, Bluetooth 2.0 wireless interface and USB 2.0 compatibility.

There is 1.6-inch color external display on the front lid. In addition, 2.2-inch internal display has 176×220 pixels resolution that supports 16-bit (65,000) colors. The messaging features include WAP, e-mail, Instant messages, Multimedia Messages (MMS) and Text Messages (SMS). Motorola Quantico supports BREW platform and has inbuilt browser.

Motorola Quantico has 1.3-megapixels camera to capture images in four resolutions: PictureID, 320×240, 640×480 and 1280×1024. The inbuilt music player supports the format of eAAC+, AAC+, AAC, MIDI, WMA, WAV, MPE and AMR. The digital video playback formats are WMV, H.263 video and AMR audio, and MPEG-4.

Motorola Quantico is military-specified for weatherproof, shockproof and dustproof. 1140 mAH lithium ion battery has a life of 348 minutes talk time and 446 hours idle standby time. The Quantico has one connector for 1×2.5mm headset-jack and one microSD card slot for up to 8GB cards.

Razzle Dazzle:

The design of Motorola Quantico is made to be tough but the handset compromises on looks. The hard plastic for housing is a proof for the same. The Quantico measures 3.7-inch tall, 2.2-inch wide and 1-inch deep and it weighs 4.2 ounces. It feels solid while taking in the hand. The Quantico handset has a bit pear-shaped chassis of gunmetal gray color.

Inside Dope:

Motorola is not new in cell phone market and it has made a lot of rugged handsets too like Motorola Tundra (for AT&T) and Motorola Brute i680 (for Nextel). Now, the company is here with Motorola Quantico for U.S. Cellular. The Quantico is military-specified to withstand extreme and harsh conditions. The design is not attractive, however, the Quantico handset has midrange feature set, which include 1.3-megapixels camera and GPS. The battery cover at the back and sides of the phone are clad in textured rubber. In addition, both charger and headset jacks have tight rubber-plugs to prevent the water from seeping in. The battery cover is secure with rotating lock-mechanism. Motorola claims that its Quantico is durable and it can resist rain, shock, extreme temperatures and pressures, dust, and vibration. We did throw the Quantico on ground and dipped it in water few times, but there was no effect on the phone. Let us have a look what Motorola has provided in its Quantico handset.

Display

Motorola Quantico has 1.6-inch (color) external display on the front lid that shows date/time, signal strength, battery life and caller ID. You can also use this external display as self-portrait viewfinder for the camera. You can only customize the clock format and wallpaper on the external display.

2.2-inch color LCD internal display has 176×220-pixel resolution that supports 65,000 colors. The graphics is sharp and text is crispy. You can change the menu layout, clock format, brightness and backlight time; however, you cannot change font.

Design

The camera lens, Motorola logo and external speaker are located on the top of the external display at front lid. The charger jack, Smart key and volume rocker are located on the left side, whereas speakerphone key, 2.5mm headset jack and voice command key are on right side. The microSD card slot is located behind the battery cover.

Navigation Array and Keyboard

The navigation array is located beneath the internal display. It has two soft keys, round toggle button with a center OK key, Talk button, dedicated camera key, Send button, End/Power key and Back key. You can map the toggle with four shortcuts. The numeric keypad is located beneath the navigation array. All the keys are rubberized except round toggle. The keypad is spacious and roomy. The keys are raised above surface that makes easy to dial and text.

Phonebook and Features

Motorola Quantico can store 1000-contacts in its phone book. Each contact can contain five-numbers, one Web address, two email addresses, a birthday, one street address and notes. The contacts can organize in caller groups with a photo and one of 17 ring tones or alert tones.

The basic feature set include stopwatch, notepad, calculator and tip calculator, world clock, alarm clock, date-book, multimedia and text messaging, speakerphone and vibrate mode. The advanced features include wireless web browser, voice commands, Bluetooth and A-GPS support for turn-by-turn directions. The PTT (Push-To-Talk) feature is only available in MetroPCS version.

Camera

Motorola Quantico has 1.3-megapixels camera that can capture images in four resolutions: PictureID, 320×240, 640×480 and 1280×1024. The camera has four-color effects and six white balance presets. The camera settings include brightness, picture frames, self-timer, and choice of four-shutter sounds with a silent option. The photo quality is good for such simple camera.  However, the pictures look little washed out.
Overall, the color is good and photos don’t look too blurry.

Motorola Quantico has a camcorder that can record video of 176×144 pixels resolution in four different lengths – fit to MMS, fit to memory, 5 minutes and 2 minutes. The camcorder settings are similar to still camera.

Music Player

Motorola Quantico has inbuilt music player that requires micro-SD card to function. The basic music player has the feature to create/edit play lists. It also has both shuffle and repeat modes. The supported music formats include WMA v9, WAV, MP3, MIDI, AMR NB, eAAC+, AAC+ and AAC. The microSD card slot supports up to 8GB cads.

Games and Personalization

You can change wallpaper, background color of menu interface, clock format, brightness, and date/time to personalize the Motorola Quantico. You can also change the wallpaper and clock format on external display. Moreover, you can add your own alert tones and sounds. The Quantico has only one game that is demo version of Namco’s PacMan. You can buy graphics, sounds and games through U.S. Cellular’s Easyedge store.

Call Quality

To test the Motorola Quantico, we made some calls through U.S. Cellular. The call quality was good and impressive. We heard the callers clearly without distortion. The voices sounded natural with good volume on our end. The callers received same good call-quality with a bit static at their end. They reported that we sounded clear, loud and natural.

While using speakerphone, we received loud sound at our end. However, some callers received little scratchy and harsh sound on their end. We will recommend you for using stereo headset to receive best quality sound for music.

Battery life

Motorola Quantico has a battery life of 5.8 hours of talk time and 18.6 days idle standby time.

Verdict:

The Motorola Quantico is a mid-range phone that does not have many features, but its basic feature set, tough design and good call quality makes it a good buy.