First, the basics: The Tundra may be a big, bulky flip phone—the 4.9-ounce handset measures 3.9 by 2.1 by 1.0 inches (HWD) when closed—but it's beautifully made. You can have it in any color you want as long as it's black—but here, that's a good thing, given the Tundra's classy carbon-fiber-like textured rubber grip and charcoal-gray accents. An olive-green line follows the curve on the lid. Big rubber buttons on the left side of the handset control volume and AT&T's Push-to-Talk feature. The top panel sports two buttons that double as media and menu controls, while the right side contains a Camera button. The bottom is clean save for a covered mini USB port. One gripe: The hard rubber external antenna gives the Tundra a decidedly low-tech look—sort of like a circa-2004 phone.
On the front panel, a tiny 1-inch external screen displays the time, date, battery life, signal strength, and any current message alerts. Flip open the handset and you'll find a bright, crisp, 2.2-inch, 240-by-320-pixel LCD. The numeric keypad is one of the best I've used, with just the right amount of resistance and positive key engagement. The recessed five-way circular control pad is a little harder to press, but I got used to it pretty quickly. Send, End, Browser, and Cingular Video shortcut buttons flank the control pad, along with two programmable keys at the top that change functions depending on the screen mode.
The Tundra is a quad-band GSM (850/900/1,800/1,900) and dual-band HSDPA 3.6 (850/1,900 phone. AT&T's newish Push-To-Talk service doesn't boast many users, but that could change with the Tundra. The star of the show for the Tundra is call quality: Thanks to its integrated CrystalTalk 2 noise-reduction technology, this is one stellar voice phone. Callers sounded warm, punchy, and clear in both directions in a variety of test environments. Reception never wavered, showing a full five bars and solid 3G connectivity, even in rural areas that have given other AT&T phones trouble on my tests in the past. (Apparently, that external antenna is there for a reason.) The thundering speakerphone on the Tundra, which didn't distort even at maximum volume, means you can actually hear people outdoors at a construction site. The Tundra also paired well with an Aliph New Jawbone Bluetooth headset. Battery life was 4 hours 28 minutes, an average showing for a 3G phone on AT&T.
The menu system is straightforward and easy to decipher. The Tundra's media options are so-so, however. Despite the handset's 3G radio, its Web browser felt sluggish in operation, though WAP sites like m.cnn.com looked fine. Cingular Video offers highlight clips from ESPN, CNN, American Idol, and other outlets; an ESPN talk show clip looked sharp and played back smoothly, though the video filled only the top half of the screen. The handset's built-in A-GPS radio supports the optional AT&T Navigator service ($9.99 per month; $2.99 a day) for voice-enabled, turn-by-turn directions. The Tundra also works with mobile resource management apps like TeleNav Track and Xora mobile workforce management tools. The handset did well in our JBenchmark testing, and the included game demos played smoothly.
Motorola claims that the microSD slot, located underneath the battery cover, works with cards up to 4GB in size; my 8GB SanDisk microSDHC card worked fine, however. There's also 100MB of built-in user memory. The music player reads AAC, MP3, AAC+, and eAAC+ files, but not WMA tracks; you can also use eAAC+, MIDI, MP3, and MPEG-4 files as ringtones. On my tests, the Tundra displayed album art from a Kanye West track in a small thumbnail on screen. Music sounded surprisingly loud and clear through the tiny stereo speakers below the numeric keypad, but there was no discernible bass response. I heard a lot more low-end and a warmer overall tone over a paired set of Cardo S-2 Bluetooth headphones. There's no standard-size headphone jack, so you'll need to find compatible mini USB earbuds. Over-the-air music shoppers can buy tracks from AT&T Mobile Music, which also includes entertainment news, as well as support for Music ID and satellite radio.
The Tundra's camera has a 2.0-megapixel sensor but lacks an LED flash and autofocus. It can also record CIF videos at 15 frames per second. Although the Tundra snapped photos quickly, they were overexposed, with seared white areas in bright light. The camera blurred details and couldn't resolve individual leaves on trees, even when I changed the camera's default quality setting from "better" to "best." The Tundra also recorded the usual, semi-useless 176-by-144-pixel thumbnail videos at 15 fps.
With a rugged phone, you need to do some serious endurance tests. First, I took it outside and buried the phone face up in the snow and left it there for awhile. Next, I closed the handset and threw it down with force on the concrete driveway several times. I also tossed it about 9 feet into the air, just above my garage roof, and let it land on the ground. At this point, the phone looked fine, though covered with a little mud and dirt, so I thought I'd run over it with my car a few times while it was still flipped open and face up. The first time, the right-side hinge snapped and broke off a bit (see the slideshow ). The second time I did it, the battery cover came off, and the screen looked pretty bad. I ran it over once more just to be sure.
I then checked the phone and found it turned off. It wouldn't turn back on, either. So I washed it thoroughly in the sink, with the battery and SIM card still inside, and then dried it off. I tried powering up the Tundra again—this time with success! Unfortunately, I could see only the top portion of the screen, since the internal LCD was cracked. The handset was also fixed in a quasi-permanent L-shape and wouldn't close properly. The phone did still work, however, and a test call sounded just as loud and clear as before. The keypad also looked and felt as good as new, despite the fact that I had run over it several times with a 2,500-pound car. Granted, the hinge and LCD didn't hold up. But in real life, it's rare to drop a handset, let alone subject it to this kind of abuse, while it's still open. And as my various "throw" tests demonstrated, when the Tundra is closed, it's virtually impervious.
Overall, the Tundra gives work-minded AT&T subscribers out in the field all the cell phone they need, and there are few alternatives on AT&T, since the carrier doesn't offer any other phones with the same tough construction. The major competitors are over in the Sprint-Nextel camp—including rugged models like the Sanyo PRO 700, which offers a loud speakerphone, push-to-talk capability, and solid voice quality. Verizon, for its part, has the Casio-built G'zOne Boulder. It offers ruggedness similar to the Tundra's, but it doesn't sound nearly as good on voice calls. Either way, those are options only if you're in a position to switch carriers.
Spec Data* Price as Tested: $199.00 - $399.00 List
* Service Provider: AT&T
* Operating System: Other
* Screen Size: 2.2 inches
* Screen Details: 240x320-pixel TFT, 262K colors
* Camera: Yes
* Megapixels: 2 MP
* 802.11x: No
* Bluetooth: Yes
* Web Browser: Yes
* Network: GSM
* Bands: 850, 900, 1800, 1900
* High-Speed Data: GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA
* Special Features: Music
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