Motorola Barrage Review

Motorola has quite the history of making rugged and durable cell phones.  We’re happy to see they’ve released a phone, the Motorola Barrage, for Verizon Wireless.  Properly named as it can handle a barrage of elements, even supposedly a full submersion in water, which is quite impressive.  The Barrage is a flipphone designed encased in hard plastic with grippy rubber sidings.  It comes with all the basic features you need without a bunch of extra features that you don’t need if you’re just looking for a phone that has great quality calls and can handle some abuse.  It can be bought for $129 with a two year contract (plus a $50 mail in rebate) or it can be bought for $179 contract free.

Design

The barrage is clearly designed with durability in mind.  Many phones will break in several places if dropped to the floor even once but it’s clear from its appearance (and it’s guaranteed durability) that it can take some damage.  It’s larger than most phones and  has a over-sized and sturdy hinge to prevent breakage from over extension or awkward torque.  There are rubber patches in different areas that could take a shock when dropped.  Its a comfortable fit in the hand.  There are some strong springs in the hinge as well as it shuts and opens with force.  No fuss and no muss here.

The display is no smart phone display but it does support 65,000 colors and allows you to easily access and navigate all the things you wish.  The main display has all the common displays such as date and time.  One accessory we thought was nifty was the Barrage’s ability to access the music player and scan through you songs without actually opening the phone.

Your typical adjustment controls are along the left and right spine of the phone such as volume control and camera operation and the antenna is a small loop on the top of the phone.

We could go into much more detail but if you’ve seen a flip phone there’s nothing you haven’t seen here.  We’re not bashing this of course as this isn’t supposed to be a Lexus of cell phones, but this is the Hummer and it’s made for the durability.

Conclusion

The Motorola Barrage will do everything you need it to do on the job site and wont let you down if you squeeze through some tight spaces or drop it if your hands are full.  The photo and call quality are satisfactory
Although the 3G speed is relatively slow and the video and music quality aren’t the best we’ve decided not to dock too many points as this phone wasn’t meant to be a media device and we’re happy they included these features at all.
To get to the point this phone will offer a rugged and sturdy construction with all the basic features working properly.