The Motorola Defy is a resilient smartphone that does not sacrifice on features and is reasonably priced. The phone is dust-resistant, water-proof and tough. But the phone lacks the better Android 2.2 and has a lower powered processor.
Build Quality
Phones with sleek design and glossy finish may not be that resilient to demanding everyday handling, but this the Motorola Defy can take it up. It has been built with the tough environment in mind. A drop on the pavement or in a pool is not a problem for this new phone from Motorola. The phone device is IP67 certified. It means it can defy a 10 minute dip at 1 metre deep water. It can resist sudden impact plus dust and dirt penetration. The size of Motorola Defy is compact as any smartphone, at 107x59x13.4mm. It has a 3.7 inch S-LCD screen with a sharp 480x854 pixel display which is capacitive technology enabled. It's accurate, responsive and obeys multi-touch gestures, like pinch to zoom. The screen uses Gorilla Glass. One of the toughest glasses, it is scratch resistant and toughened to withstand impact. The phone can operate in soaking wet environment but moisture does reduce touch response of the display. Rubber stoppers cover the 3.5mm headphone jack and the MicroUSB port, to seal it tight. The power button is flush along with the headphone cover and needs a hard push to activate. The 800 MHz chip in the Defy fares better than the Dext model. The battery cover is locked into the device, to keep the SIM and memory card chamber waterproof. The battery, the SIM slot and the memory card slot are in one place to access. The 1500mAh battery is good enough. It gives a day of good usage and couple of days on standby, before a recharge.
The Software
The Defy is a good functional handset with the Android 2.1 version. It has GPS, WiFi including 802.11n and 2GB of built-in storage. It can use the downloaded apps from the Android Market as usual, like TweetDeck, Angry Birds and others. The Defy comes pre-installed with Swype for text input, as default instead of the virtual keyboard.
The latest version of MotoBlur does add some features here. It has social networking capabilities and synchronisation to Microsoft Exchange. You can store your information/data on Motorola's servers or cloud. It comes with the usual widgets for live weather reports, Twitter updates , RSS Feeds, etc. More widgets can be used for personalisation.
The phone has Moto's Crystal Talk Plus to filter out background noise and amplify voice on calls. It's also got the virtual keyboard for text and messages. You can double-tap or even pinch to zoom into your web pages. A YouTube client delivers video. The Motorola Defy smartphone has a 5MP camera with LED flash to capture at 640x480 pixel. It does a reasonable job. The autofocus and triggering is by an on-screen shutter button with some filters available to work the photos. The video is just okay. There's an FM radio with 10 pre-sets or access the Shoutcast online radio over WiFi. The music player does a good job. The GPS and Google Maps are available with navigation and worked fine. This is a good choice for a tough smartphone on Android.
