Sprint unleashes Motorola Renegade V950, Motorola i365

Motorola Renegade V950

(Credit: Motorola)

On Tuesday, Sprint released two, new ruggedized cell phones to satisfy the appetites of its Nextel Direct Connect and iDEN customers: the Motorola Renegade V950 and the Motorola i365.

Both handsets are available in select markets starting Tuesday for $129.99 and $89.99, respectively (with two-year contracts and after rebates and discounts, of course). The Moto Renegade is the more exciting of the two but the i365 has its own merits too. Here's a breakdown of each handset.

Motorola Renegade V950: Aside from being a QChat-capable phone, which allows for push-to-talk interoperability between CDMA and iDEN networks, the Renegade V950 is the first Nextel Direct Connect phone to support Sprint's various multimedia services, such as the Sprint Music Store, Sprint TV, NFL Mobile Live, and Sprint Radio. Other highlights include Bluetooth with A2DP support, a 2-megapixel camera with video recording, Sprint Navigation support, and mobile e-mail and instant messaging. The sleek clamshell Renegade V950 is also certified to military specifications for dust, shock, vibration and blowing rain, so it should be able to take a licking and keep on ticking.

Motorola i365: Not quite as flashy or full-featured as the Moto Renegade V950, the i365 is also certified to military standards for humidity, blowing rain, dust, shock and vibration but comes in a candy-bar design. The iDEN handset comes equipped with a speakerphone that has double the volume of regular cell phones, so you can carry on conversations in loud environments if need be. Other goodies include Bluetooth and GPS.

We should be getting both models in soon, so check back for our full reviews.

[Rawnchie14]

cell for outdoorsies, very nice!

[THE_SHADOWDRAGON]

I just recently got this phone as an upgrade from the Motorola ic902 Deluxe by Sprint-Nextel, and as a regular direct connect user, I have one word to describe this phone: "TECHLICIOUS!!!" It appears to me that a lot of the things that I'd wished that the ic902 had, the Renegade has in spades. I'm really impressed with the big screens (you can watch Sprint TV with the cover closed!), as well as the mobile e-mail interface. Live Search is like nothing I've ever seen, and the mobile+DC capability is some next-level stuff that I really had to wrap my head around. The clarity of the camera/video recorder is impressive, and I like that you can transfer pictures via Bluetooth. For someone who is a Nextel Direct Connect user who needs to be well-connected to their e-mail, web-communities and more, I HIGHLY recommend this phone. I was skeptical at first because I thought "Hmm...looks like it was built on that RAZR platform..." but this blows anything that I've seen with Direct Connect away, and did I mention the internet speeds? If I open a webpage and say, "Whoa!" that's a pretty good indication. In the world of push-to-talk phones, the Renegade stands alone!