Motorola Brute i680 (Sprint)

Pros: The phone itself is an excellent device initially. It appears to have reasonable drop armor, a sealed battery / card bay, a nice screen setup, and great quality when new.

Cons: This phone is billed as part of their "rugged" series and appears to be built so -until it is used on a regular basis. I have a "fleet" of 8. 4 have broken hinges. There are two problems. In normal outdoor work environment conditions, sweat or humidit

Summary: The only reason the other four have not failed yet is that they are spares and are held by low-use individuals. The more use the phones see, the faster they have worn out.

I suspect that the phones will be repaired or replaced with refurbished units that have other problems. Those phones will fail and Motorola will find an excuse to not replace them again.

IMHO, Motorola has fallen far from the days of the indestructible STAR TAC series flip phones that gained them a spot as the go-to company for quality durable industrial grade cell phones. For the price, this phone is not expected to be a "throwaway" phone.

A user should expect long term durability. This phone has not delivered.

Updated on Jun 2, 2011

CNET's "cons" size is smaller than listed -it cut off part of my review. The hinge wear is a known issue - google search "i680 hinge bulletin" and look at the motorola link. I suspect that the i686 has the same problem and Motorola is trying to hide from all of the bad i680 reviews.