Coolpad Quattro 4G review

The Coolpad Quattro 4G is like an aging party animal. It tries hard to stay cool and keep up with a hipper 4G crowd, but everyone can see it lagging behind the times.

Compared to a more expensive phones, the Coolpad Quattro is slow and bulky. At $129 (a $50 mail-in rebate brings the price down to $79) it's a budget device. Like any cool party guy, the Quattro likes to keep things casual. With MetroPCS's no contract deal, subscribers can drop the service at any time without fear of incurring extra fees. Just beware of paying more for extra data service.

The Quattro 4G has big screen with a decent resolution and case that isn't tacky, but consumers can do better, and still stay off contract. Phones like the LG Motion 4G and the Samsung Exhibit II give the Quattro a run for its money, and it doesn't keep up.

Design

The Coolpad Quattro 4G stands 4.95-inches tall and 2.6-inches wide. At half an inch thick it's rather bulky, especially since phones this size often have a slide-out keyboard. The weight is nice though; at 3.32 oz it's light but not insubstantial and cheap feeling.

It has a very bubbly design with rounded ends and a back that curves into the bottom of the phone. This shape helps it settle nicely in the pocket.

The back cover features a textured design that dominates two-thirds of the area. It gives the phone a nice differentiated feel and extra grip where users are most likely to hold the phone.

There is a standard headphone jack at the top left of the body, next to the power button on the right. On the left side of the phone is the volume rocker and on the bottom-right side is the camera button. All the buttons are pretty standard and work just as one would expect.

Display

The Quattro features a 4-inch, 800 x 480 pixel touchscreen. It's a run-of-the-mill LCD panel that does its duty with a little bit of flair. It's a pretty good display for this price point.

The screen does a fine job of displaying the most vibrant colors of games and apps. More subtle color contrasts, like in movies or videos, get washed out.

The display jumps the gun when it comes to dimming. Though it says it will turn off the display in 15 seconds, it dims the screen after about 5 seconds, making it basically useless to get information off of. The problem can be fixed with a quick trip into Settings, but it's pretty annoying out of the box.