Monday 15 August 2011

Motorola Announces Defy+

Motorola today announced the Defy+, an Android 2.3 Gingerbread-based successor to the Defy from 2010. This will probably go under the radar for two reasons; first is that Google today acquired Motorola Mobility, a massive move in the smartphone market which will dominate news/analysis for some time, with huge implications not only for Google's competitor mobile platforms but also for other manufacturers producing Android devices, and second because in truth the Defy+ is only a minor upgrade to the original Defy.


When the first Defy came out in towards the end of 2010, it was no more than a midfield player with its 800MHz CPU, 512MB RAM, 5MP camera, VGA video capture and poor screen viewing outdoors. What it did have was a unique selling point which Motorola called "life proof", being dust proof, scratch resistant and water resistant (to a point of course!). At the time it narrowly had the largest battery capacity on the market at 1540mAh. However, other devices were shortly released with 1GHz CPUs; Samsung's Nexus S, Moto's own Milestone 2, the Incredible S. HTC also starting pushing towards 1GB of RAM with the Incredible S and Desire S as well.  I bought a Defy very shortly after it was released in the UK, and despite buying other devices in the meantime I've kept coming back to it as my primary device, particularly after the upgrade from Android 2.1 Eclair to 2.2 Froyo.


The Defy+ only slightly bumps its older sibling's specs: the CPU goes up to 1GHz, the OS to Android 2.3, and the battery to 1700mAh. That's it! Then it's the same 3.7" Gorilla Glass screen, 5MP camera, 2GB internal storage and 2GB SD card included in the box, and presumably the same 512MB RAM although this was not stated in the press release. Although it will share it's brother's chassis with a pleasingly small bezel, making the feel in the hand seem smaller than in should for the 3.7" screen it contains, it's not really worth getting out of bed for!


With the "life proof" unique selling point Motorola have clearly never gone for the top end of the market in terms of specifications and performance, however the Defy+ is due to ship in "early fall", and we already have 5 dual-core 1GHz+ Android phones out in the UK today market versus its 1GHz single core in a month or two's time. Smartphone cameras are significantly better than late 2010 with Sony Ericsson pushing the Android boundaries on the Arc, and everyone else trying to catch up to that, the iPhone 4, and even higher Nokia N8, yet here we have the same 5MP unit from last October! A competitor to this will be Sony Ericsson's Xperia active, which will also have a 1Ghz CPU, but a smaller 3.3" QVGA (and app-choice limiting) screen. It's 5MP camera unit will take 720p video, and on the "life proof" front it sports "wet finger tracking".


The original Defy must have sold well otherwise Motorola wouldn't be bothering with this, but its nowhere near enough of an upgrade for existing Defy owners to consider. Which is a shame, as when this phone was first rumoured I was excited at the prospect of a dual-core, life proof Defy+ with a nice new 8MP camera and a beefy 1GB RAM, and now I'm on the lookout for my next phone. Again. I hope that other manufacturers will think about this type of phone though, because what Motorola and Sony Ericsson have proved is that rugged phones don't have to be ugly phones any more.


Source: Motorola Mobility

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