Cubot Quest
A NEWCOMER IN THE CROWDED MARKET OF AFFORDABLE RUGGED DEVICES.
CUBOT CLAIMS THAT its device is the thinnest rugged device on the market. At 8.8mm, it is certainly thin, just one millimeter thicker than the Apple iPhone X and the Samsung Galaxy S10. Measuring 157 x 73.7mm for a weight of 211g, it feels both solid and comfortably portable.
Cubot uses the same template as the King Kong 3 for the Quest and is available in red or black color scheme. It uses an aluminum and polycarbonate shell with rounded corner buffers that in our real life test, protected the screen beyond our expectations.
The latter is oleophobic and covered with a layer of Corning Gorilla 5 glass. This is an IP68-rated smartphone so its USB Type-C port is covered; there are no audio connector and no audio adaptor provided. The front screen is a 5.5-inch model with a single 8-megapixel camera on top and a LED notification light.
Inside the Quest is the 12nm Mediatek MT6762 (Helio P22) which is an 8-core processor clocked at 2GHz, with, surprise, surprise, a PowerVR GE8320 GPU rather than the usual ARM Mali part. That is backed by 4GB of RAM and 64GB onboard storage. A note on the display; Cubot is one of the many smartphone vendors to equip its smartphones with 1440 x 720 pixel displays (a 5.5-inch IPS model in this case).
The Quest also packs an FM radio (a rarity), NFC and 802.11n wireless connectivity, a 4,000mAh OTG-compatible battery (powered by a 5V2A charger), stock Android 9.0 operating system and a single rear-facing speaker. There’s hardly any bloatware or bundled toolkit as is usually the case with other vendors.
Face unlock complements the fingerprint security feature well and overall the smartphone performs as expected. It was never expected to be a roadrunner given the pedestrian CPU that equips it. The Quest performed on par or better than other smartphones equipped with the slightly older MT6763V. It scored higher than expected numbers in PCMark Work 2.0, almost as high as the much faster 6763T that powers the Unihertz Atom.
It is hard to fault this smartphone at this price. We are not really fussed by the screen’s low resolution at this price point and one may argue that it is actually a boon for the battery life. Rugged smartphones are rarely as thin as their non-rugged counterparts; yet the Cubot Quest has somehow managed the feat of getting something which is both slim and capable of taking a few bumps.
Truth be said, it doesn’t have a lot of competition under $300 especially with Android 9.0 in check, NFC and a better-thanaverage design. The battery life could have been improved but that would have impacted the sleekness of the device. Overall, Cubot managed to deliver a great smartphone at an excellent price point. The question that puzzles us though is whether the King Kong 3 could be a better choice for you.
[ DESIRE ATHOW ]