Motorola Defy review

Motorola's latest Android smartphone is comparatively inexpensive, but is it still worth buying an Android 2.1 handset when 2.2 models are available for around the same price? Read on to find out.

IT Pro Verdict

There's plenty to like about Motorola's Defy – the screen is fantastic, it's compact and light and the unobtrusive toughened exterior should help it last. Even if you don't need the MotoBlur social networking aggregation, Motorola's other software tweaks, such as the improved keyboard, help make Android 2.1 feel more up to date. The phone can feel slightly sluggish though and the WiFi problems are worrying.Nevertheless, the Defy is still good value on a contract. Our favourite budget Android handset is still the Acer Liquid Metal. Although its customised Android interface is arguably more convoluted, it feels more responsive due to its faster processor and it comes with Android 2.2. It's not currently available on contract though and costs around £50 more than the Defy when purchased SIM-free.

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If it's too much hassle to organise your contacts on your PC, you can use Motorola's web interface, which is accessible when you plug your phone into your Windows PC. You just have to enter the IP address shown on the phone's screen into your browser, and you can then view and edit your contacts, show call and text message history for each contact and compose texts. We could only get it to work properly in Firefox, though, and it wouldn't let us send texts to multiple recipients. The interface also contains a photo browser.

Motorola has made some usability upgrades to the standard Android interface, too. It's simple to resize Moto's homescreen widgets, and it will reshuffle widgets automatically when there isn't room, or even move a widget onto another screen entirely.

There's also a new keyboard. The keys are farther apart than on the standard Android 2.1/2.2 version, which we found made single-press typing easier, and by default the phone uses the Swype input method. Instead of tapping each letter in turn, you leave your finger on the screen, and swipe it to each letter in turn. The phone then guesses the word you wanted, and is normally right but you can also select alternatives from a list. It wasn't so hot with punctuation - "I'll" was fine, but we had no luck spelling "you're" automatically. As with HTC's Sense interface and the new keyboard in Android 2.3, you can hold down keys to get punctuation marks and numbers.

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