Motorola DEFY+

When the original Motorola DEFY was released last year, it was one that won the hearts of many mainly for its rugged design and good specs. In case you need some reminding, the phone sported a dust- and water-proof body, reinforced Gorilla Glass plus a decent processing unit to top it off. Now we have in our hands the Motorola DEFY+ which is essentially the same amazing phone with even better specs. So will these upgrades be enough to get more people interested in the phone? Read on to see if it interests you.

Design
4.21 x 2.32 x 0.53 inches is the measurements for the Motorola DEFY+ and these numbers definitely do not point to a thin phone by any means. However, you have to pick up this phone in your own hands to actually feel how comfortable it is. Motorola DEFY+ is also a very compact phone as its screen takes up most of the space on the front giving it a neat and uncluttered look. The back of the phone has a soft-touch plastic finish. Motorola DEFY+ proves that it’s a phone that’s meant to take a few beatings now and then with its tight cover for the audio jack and microUSB port as well as the special lock for the back cover. The screen on this phone is a 3.7 inch one and it sports a resolution of 480 x 854 pixels. The four capacitive buttons that we have come accustomed to with Android phones is also found here under the screen. Although the buttons are pretty close to the edge of the screen, we are impressed that there were no accidental presses to blotch our experience.

The phone is an IP 67-certified one. What this means is that it is completely protected from dust and other particles. Besides it can also be submerged under water as deep as 1 meter for up to 30 minutes and still come out unscathed. So this is a truly rugged phone that may be the solution to those who can be a little careless with their phones. Moving on to the buttons around the phone, we find the volume rocker on the right while the microUSB port sits on the left. On the top of the Motorola DEFY+ is the standard audio jack and power keys. These buttons give a good tactile feeling when pressed and could be easily distinguished from the chassis. Flip the phone to reveal a 5MP camera that comes ready with an LED flash.

Features
One of the key differences between the Motorola DEFY+ and the original Motorola DEFY is the central processing unit. The CPU has been bumped up to a TI OMAP 3620 which runs at 1GHz from the TI OMAP 3610 800MHz. The difference is apparent as the phone runs pretty smooth when you are trying to navigate around it. However we must let you know that lag is sometimes visible but definitely not a very serious issue.

The Motorola DEFY+ has also got an update in the OS department as it now runs on the Android v2.3 Gingerbread right out of the box. The UI experience you get from this phone is from the MOTOBLUR UI. There are quite a few personalization options that are to be found on this UI. For instance you can now create app groups in the main menu and then you can separate all your apps in their groups accordingly. You also find that most of the icons have got a new design and there are many new widgets as well as graphical elements you will like. There are also some elements of Motorola’s UI in some of the more common apps like Contacts and Gallery. These improvements are mainly in terms of looks and do not affect the functionality. The Social Networking app is also one of the apps that we liked as it gives you all the updates from your favorite social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and also other websites like Picasa and Flickr. You can also update your status on these networks all at once thanks to this app. There is also a widget that has been specially designed for the Social Networking app, and it sits on the homescreen to give you the entire scoop from around your social networking world. You can also bring up a 3D view of the updates by clicking on the widget. The Motorola DEFY+ has a portrait on-screen keyboard that seems to be a tat bit cramped mainly due to the fact that there are too many keys on the screen at once. The smaller screen size might also be one of the factors for that.

Motorola DEFY+ sports a 3.7 inch screen that has a resolution of 480 x 854 pixels. It is not the biggest screen out there but it does give us some high quality images.  The resolution seems ok since the screen is small and the reason we say this is because we can still get good details and crisp looking text from the screen. You also get good colors from the screen but those colors won’t look very nice under direct sunlight though.

MOTOBLUR also comes with a new camera interface. The app uses the visual approach and one of the examples would be how you get a live preview of what each effect or scene has to offer. Moving on to the pictures taken with the 5MP camera, we really loved how the colors turned out natural. Sadly, pictures are quite blurry as it was unable to capture details. Also, overexposed pictures are a common fixture in brighter areas. Video recording isn’t impressive at a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels at a rate of 24fps.

Internet surfing on the Motorola DEFY+ is an interesting experience. If you forget about Flash content for a while by only loading it on demand, your internet browsing experience would be a great one with pages loading quickly with good navigational controls as well. However, when you load all the Flash content on a page, it’s a whole different story. The navigational tools are not as smooth.

Call quality is where the Motorola DEFY+ did great. Our friends voices could be heard quite clearly and they were loud too. They were also not much complains on how our voice was on the other end. The phone comes with a 1700mAh battery onboard that is a really huge battery for a phone with only a small screen such as this one. The battery should keep your phone good for more than a day without any problems.

Pros and Cons
The Motorola DEFY+ is definitely a very rugged design and will take a few beats now and then. It is also a very compact phone.

It doesn’t have the best CPU in terms of speed and also sports a less than average camera.

Conclusion
If you are a clumsy person who has failed to keep your smartphone from breaking into pieces after a few months, then Motorola DEFY+ is your best bet plus it is a decent smartphone too.

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