Despite their recent successful forays into smartphones, Motorola remains a regular source of rugged handsets. The latest to come out of the company is the Motorola Quantico, a clamshell boasting compliance with full military specifications.
Physically, it shares the same form factor as the recently-released Motorola Brute. The resemblance ends there, though, as much of the design is evidently different. Being a rugged phone, looks take a backseat to durability - hard plastic housing, textured rubber sides and back, securely-plugged jacks and a very bulky frame.
It sports two screens, a 1.6-inch external panel and 2.2-inch display (176x220 resolution) inside. Both are colored. While they obviously won't dole out the sharpest graphics, both have sufficient brightness and good usability. Both the keypad and navigation array are easy to use, unlike other rugged phones we've seen.
As a phone, it makes for impressive calls - conversations were clear with no discernible distortion. Voices came through sounding natural with plenty of volume. On the other end, users reported the same positive experience. Speakerphone feature worked well, although those we were talking to reported some notable harshness in the sound. Battery life is rated at 5.8 hours, which should be good for up to 2 or 3 days of normal use.
The Motorola Quantico comes with largely basic features. There's the standard phone stuff, such as a 1,000-entry phone book, PIM tools, messaging (SMS, MMS, web email), stereo Bluetooth and microSD card expansion (up to 8GB). More advanced capabilities include a wireless web browser, aGPS and push-to-talk (depending on carriers).
Music player is decent, with support for a wide variety of file formats and playlists. They also threw in a 1.3 megapixel camera with a good amount of options and surprisingly usable photo quality. Of course, we also tried dropping and dunking it in shallow water a few times - it's good enough to withstand basic durability tests.
Overall, the Motorola Quantico doesn't bring much in terms of looks, but does make up for it with solid rugged capabilities and strong execution of its core features. US Cellular currently has it for $99.95 ( no PTT, though) on a two-year service agreement.
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I got mine on Saturday, 11-14-2009 from US Cellular. Definitely feels like a rugged phone. The hinge has ZERO side-to-side play (which is a good thing).