Motorola's military grade handset can resist a Barrage of abuse

by Stevie Smith - Oct 1 2009, 16:15

If you’re perhaps not a member of the armed forces but plan on chatting on the blower in the middle of a war zone, then American handset manufacturer Motorola has just the phone to scream into while avoiding sniper fire, leaping over exploding landmines, and dodging white-hot shrapnel.

So, strap on your Kevlar body armour and meet the Motorola Barrage, which is a flip phone that boasts military-grade specifications (810F certified) and has been designed to withstand extreme temperatures, solar radiation, blowing dusts, salt fog, altitude, shock, vibration, and transit drop.

The Motorola Barrage is also supposedly waterproof to a depth of one metre for as long as 30 minutes – although, unless you’re blessed with gills, we’d strongly advise against anything but a reliance on text messaging should wet usage be attempted.

Beyond the robust construction attributed to the Barrage, Motorola’s rugged little handset isn’t without mainstream appeal, thanks to a 2.2-inch QCIF Plus screen (176 x 220), a 2.0 mega pixel camera and camcorder, up to 16GBs of memory expansion via microSD, and integrated GPS capabilities.

Other contributing aspects and services include an onboard music player with support for MP3, WMA, unprotected AAC and unprotected AAC+, Bluetooth connectivity, VZ Navigator, V CAST Music with Rhapsody, V CAST Videos, push-to-talk support, and a rechargeable 1170 battery.

The Motorola Barrage is available now through Verizon Wireless for a thoroughly accessible $130 USD with a two-year service contract and after a mail-in rebate of $50 USD.

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