Motorola DEFY Pro Reviews

Rugged handsets are often chunky and unattractive to look at. With the Defy, Motorola has managed to avoid that, producing a good-looking handset with attractive features that are augmented by its toughness. If only it ran Android 2.2...

The phone did give me some trouble. The interface could be sluggish. Wi-Fi never properly connected to my home network, which means I was left out of the Wi-Fi calling party. But in so many ways, from messaging to music to basic calling features and sound quality, the Motorola Defy gets it right. This doesn’t top the best super phones on the market, but if you’re willing to sacrifice just a little performance for impressive durability, the Motorola Defy is the best choice for you.

We’ve always known Androids to be friendly creatures. And the Motorola DEFY gives us no reason to think otherwise. The whole rugged thing is purely for self defense – protection from the elements. And the best thing is it’s tough but doesn’t look it. Compact and friendly, young and social, this is a smartphone that’s likely to enjoy strong demand. It looks more and more a smart move from Motorola not to put too much emphasis on ruggedness. After all, why would they want to place themselves in a niche, when they can go for the whole midrange instead?

A rugged phone with a great screen and amazing battery life. The Defy has its niggles and WiFi bugs but is excellent value with a contract.

The Motorola Defy certainly isn't the most premium smartphone going however to our minds it is one of the most desirable. Its semi-rugged and waterproof casing combined with a responsive touchscreen and decent internal specs make for a very practical and easy to use phone while an Android operating system that has had some useful modifications made to it only adds to the appeal. Once you factor in the modest price, you have a truly compelling option that's easy to recommend.

A lovely screen and rugged design go hand-in-hand with a very reasonable price.

The first great rugged, waterproof smartphone, the T-Mobile Motorola Defy is the handset to get if you're rough on your stuff.

For those who are hard on their phones, the $99 Motorola Defy is quite the bargain. It can survive much more abuse than your typical Android device and delivers a good set of features, including Wi-Fi calling. The Defy is an Android phone that is almost guaranteed to last the length of that two-year contract.

However, in the end it's the music and video capability that really wowed us. The ease with which various elements link together, the cleverness of joining FM and internet radio via a single screen, easy tune lookup, lyrics provision, and the ability to look for videos of the current track while it's playing are all great stuff. Still, we'd like a better camera, and we really wanted the microSD card slot to be more accessible and for there to be more on-board storage.

The engineering feat that enables the Motorola DEFY to cram in a 3.7in display within its 59x107x13.4mm frame means you get every bit as much screen space to view web pages as you do on a fully-featured smartphone such as the Samsung Galaxy S. Clearly aimed at the less dainty smartphone owner, the Motorola DEFY is a small but solid powerhouse that isn’t afraid to take on rivals bigger than itself. A bulldog of a device, in other words.

Overall the Motorola Defy is an impressive and likable handset. Some of the Motorola Blur elements get a little lost, so we quickly found ourselves adding additional applications to serve up a more conventional social networking platter. But we do like the design and think there is a certain something about the Defy that does make it distinctive. It would be better if it offered up Android 2.2 from the off and the lack of 720p video capture sets it behind from the latest rival releases, but that said, the Motorola Defy is likely to last the length of your contract and see itself updated in the future.

After having a decent amount of time with the Motorola DEFY, it's quite apparent that it almost afflicted with some kind of personality disorder. On one hand it seems to want to be regarded as a high-end model with its detailed display, but then at another, it wants to be known more for its ruggedness. It just doesn't quite find itself in one specific category as it attempts to encompass all of them – while not fully focusing on one aspect. Granted, it might be nice to see it still withstanding under 3 feet (1 meter) of water, but it lacks push-to-talk to make it a striking option for those looking for a rugged phone. However, when you combine its $100 on-contract price and the above average performance it's able to obtain, you can't go wrong with the Motorola DEFY. And when you look at the competition, there really isn't any other Android phone out there than can live to tell the tale after being exposed and drenched in water. Indeed, it's able to defy the odds!

The Motorola Defy is a great midtier Android smartphone especially for those who need their phone to be a little more protected against life's everyday mishaps.

Our first impressions of the Motorola Defy are good. It may be a little chunkier than some of its rivals, like the HTC Legend, and it doesn't have the headline specs of the Milestone 2, the HTC Desire of the Samsung Galaxy S, but it's a fun looking and feeling phone, that won't care if it has the odd pint spilt on it.