T-Mobile Picks up Motorola’s Sporty W450

Built for users who don hiking boots as often as loafers, the W450 gets a rugged-looking rubberized shell and built-in first-aid information.

Giving T-Mobile customers yet another phone catered to “active lifestyles,” Motorola on Wednesday brought its new W450 Motoactv handset to the network. Sporting a ruggedized rubber exterior and preinstalled first-aid information, Motorola has aimed the phone squarely at users who fancy themselves outdoorsy types.

Unlike the new Casio Boulder and a handful of other outdoors phones with beefed up shells that allow them to go swimming or even fall to pavement without damage, the W450’s features are primarily aesthetic. It comes in either “alpine white” or “slate black” with yellow or mandarin accents, and has a chin bar for clipping it on to belts or packs. Short of the look, its most outdoorsy feature would be the Mayo Clinic In Software installed, which has tips for dealing with common trail hazards like poison ivy.

The rest of the features resemble its more sedate RAZR-inspired brethren, including a 1.3-megapixel camera with 8x digital zoom, CrystalTalk technology for trimming out background noise (like waterfalls and cawing birds, no doubt) and an MP3 player that can be expanded up to 2GB via a microSD slot.

T-Mobile will begin offering the Active W450 immediately for $30 with a two-year contract.