Quick Version: The Motorola Renegade V950 is a good choice for people who want a rugged phone with excellent call quality and push-to-talk capabilities. What’s more, Motorola and Sprint-Nextel manage to throw a little fun into the mix as well.
Overview and Features
- Rugged, military-grade flip phone
- Nextel Direct Connect Push-to-Talk
- GPS
- EVDO Rev. A data
- Bluetooth
- External display with dedicated music buttons
- $129.99 with two-year contract
Perfect for…
…people who want a phone first. This thing has excellent call quality and you can drop it, kick it, throw it, and try to feed it to your dog. It’s a phone for people who just want a phone – and perhaps klutzes.
It’s not just a phone, though. You also get GPS, fast EVDO data, Bluetooth, a 2.0-megapixel camera, mobile web and e-mail access, and the walkie-talkie goodness of a Nextel Direct Connect device. At the end of the day, too, you can kick up your steel-toed heels and watch Sprint TV content or download stuff from Sprint’s music store.
Not so good for…
…those of you who want a good looking, fully-featured wonder-phone. The V950 is basically like a Motorola Razr wearing a puffy winter coat – if that coat were made of tough rubber. It’s certainly not going to turn any heads. If that kind of thing is important to you, you might get teased at school for lugging this thing around. Luckily, it could probably double as a weapon if things get too intense.
Conclusion
The Motorola Renegade V950 is a great phone for simply making and taking phone calls. Plus, there’s a little added fun when you dig into the web, music, and video stuff. It’s definitely not a kid phone but put this thing on any construction site in your neighborhood and it’ll hold its own and then some.
Voice quality is excellent – kind of a Motorola hallmark (at least it used to be). Battery life felt a little bit short, as the phone needed to be recharged about every day and a half to two days. I had it set to check my e-mail every hour and I was sometimes using it to access the mobile web and stream TV, though. I’m guessing the rough-and-tumble target audience for this phone won’t be using the data as much as I did.
All in all, the V950 is a tough-as-nails phone with a little extra fun inside. It’s a good choice if you’re looking for a rugged phone with push-to-talk features.
Motorola Renegade V950 [Sprint.com]
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Has Motorola improved the interface speed at all since the V551?
I’m happy to report that the interface speed has, indeed, improved even though Motorola’s only had four short years between the V551 and the V950. The V950 also has more than the V551’s five megabytes of storage and — AND! — the external screen on the V950 is in glorious color.
Sounds good
Enough, DA! Your in-depth reviews and coherent sentence formation while at the same time attending to grammar and spelling has been exceeding this site’s standards for quite some time. Quite frankly, there’s a level here that needs to be maintained and you, my friend, are nowhere near it. Maybe you think that raising the bar will cause your peers to take notice and return this site to what it once was*. Think again, you’re on your way out, bud, out and up. And if you don’t like it I suggest you fall in line like the rest and get back to posting youtube vids, legos, and stuff G posted yesterday and it better sound like it was written by a 12 year old, too, with fewer than 50 words. Now slacken off, I don’t want to have to have this discussion again!
;)
* i wish…
Wow. That one’s going right above my monitor. I might even buy a frame for it.
http://www.crunchgear.com/images/comment.jpg
Thanks!
You DA man!
geddit…
What is the menu speed like on this phone? I thought it looked great, I wear construction boots all day. Then you said it was basically a RAZR in a cozy shell. Yikes. I hate my RAZR, it has possibly the slowest menu response time of any phone I’ve ever owned and its time to upgrade. Does this phone have nearly instant menu response even with the Sprint firmware in it?
Oops. Disregard this post, I just needed to track any responses to my above comment. Thanks.
Question: Does this phone have direct connect call waiting? The IC902 allows you to see if someone is calling via direct connect while on a voice call. It isn’t in the manual?? Also does it speak the name/# of incoming callers?? my favorite feature of the 880!!
Thanks,
Tom
Question: Does this phone have direct connect call waiting? The IC902 allows you to see if someone is calling via direct connect while on a voice call. It isn’t in the manual?? Also does it speak the name/# of incoming callers?? my favorite feature of the 880!!
Thanks,
Tom
Video was such a waste of time that I felt the need to vent by spending more waste time in responding.
Video was such a waste of time that I felt the need to vent by spending more waste time in responding.
I’M ON MY 4TH V950, IS THERE ANYONE WHO OWNS A V950 AND HAVE EXPERIENCED PHONE SHUTDOWN AND/OR PHONE HEATING UP?
I have the same piece of crap phone. On my 3rd one and Sprint nor Motorola will do anything about it but “be happy to replace it with another one”. I agree with the description; Las Vegas with no electricity!
I bought this phone 2 weeks ago. Since then Sprint has tried replacing it 3 times. The battery does not hold a charge. We’ve tried 3 different batteries (one of them the extended battery which is suppose to give you 2 hours more continuous talk time) and 3 different phones and within four hours it beeps at me that it’s dying. I may make 1 short phone call on it and that’s it. Looks like I’ll have to find another phone. Has anyone else had this problem? Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this?
Why this phone’s battery run out so quick? Can you tell me what reason.
i just bought a 950 today.. its a nice phone. it was an upgrade from my ic 902..
however has anyone experienced difficulty with the contacts list.. on my 902 i could just type (example) “h” and then type “o” and “home” would come up.. now with my new 950, if i type “h” and then “o”, then everything in my contacts list that has an “h” and/or an “o” appears.. very very frustrating.. and ive looked thru every setting to try to change ai…. anyone have this problem?? and has anyone found a solution?? please help!!