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Review Of The Casio GzOne Brigade

by Jerry1973 on May 30, 2010

The Casio G’zOne Brigade is a rugged little messaging phone available from Verizon Wireless at the whopping cost of $249.99 after $50.00 rebate and with a two year contract. This ruggedness makes the phone very heavy and bulky, but those are about its only drawbacks. The Brigade has the standard features like GPS, 3.2 megapixel camera, EV-DO Rev A, and Bluetooth. It also has some great extras such as push-to-talk capability.

Casio’s G’zOne line of phones are characterized by their rugged military-certified handsets. The Brigade is a tough phone built for messaging, courtesy of its full QWERTY keyboard and multimedia features. This device is huge and weighs six ounces, all of which are contained within a shell made of hard plastic. The back of the phone is textured for easy gripping and a rubber stopper covers each port. The Brigade is certified to handle just about any condition one can imagine, from immersion in water to solar radiation.

The 1.2 inch external monochrome display shows the standard items like caller ID, time, and date. A push-to-talk button is included on the left spine of the phone. Inside are a full, spacious QWERTY keyboard with raised buttons, including a number row, and 2.9 inch 65,000 color display. Advanced features include email, wireless Web browser, stereo Bluetooth, and GPS with VZ Navigator support.

The Brigade’s Field Force Manager is a work-friendly feature that allows employers to keep in contact with workers in the field. A Microsoft Office document viewer is on board, as are a range of multimedia features like a music player complete with the ability to upload songs. The 3.2-megapixel camera includes various editing features and can snap shots in five resolutions and six modes. The camera quality is good and the flash doubles as a flashlight. The built-in video camera is also high quality.

The Casio G’zOne Brigade seems to have everything going for it except a heavy, chunky design and a high price tag. This phone comes stocked with GPS, stereo Bluetooth, QWERTY keyboard, good 3.2 megapixel camera, and a Web browser. All of this and other unexpected features, like push to talk, in a rugged housing that could probably survive the apocalypse make this a great choice for those who are hard on their phones.