LG's Renoir tortured in the name of science and art

We heard some impressive claims about LG's Renoir earlier this month at CES courtesy of a rather desperate spokesman, but nothing compares to the torture test the phone recently underwent and, unlike Nokia's 5800, survived. The handset was left in the freezer at -20C (-4F) for 12 hours, dropped to the floor, stepped on, thrown in a clothes drier for 15 minutes, caked in dust, dunked in wine, and run over by a Ford Focus. After all that it functioned just fine, suffering only a few scratches on the screen inflicted by the pavement -- a small price to pay if you're clumsy enough to drive over your own phone. Curiously soothing videos of the abuse after the break.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 28th 2009 7:13PM]

That's one tough phone.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 28th 2009 7:22PM]

A word of warning for anyone thinking of buying this phone for use in the USA. While many sites list this phone as being quad band it is in fact tri band with no 850 band.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 29th 2009 2:42AM]

Where did you get this information? It is Quad-Band GSM. The 3G frequencies might not work though but it does have Wi-Fi.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 29th 2009 3:01PM]

I got the info when I ordered the phone and when I got it. It listed tri band gsm on the retail box. I ordered it from importgsm.com. They had to refund my money and change the info on their website go look for yourself. Look at the reviews on the phone on newegg.com from someone who got one and had to return it as well.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 30th 2009 12:32PM]

Hello all. I work for eXpansys USA and can confirm this is tri-band GSM, 900/1800/1900. I have used one with both an AT&T and T-Mobile sim and it only worked with the T-Mobile sim as AT&T uses 850mhz in my market. You can check out the proper specs here, http://www.expansys-usa.com/d.aspx?i=174335