Hard case
A two metre drop onto a lino kitchen floor was also shrugged off. That said, I have read that a 1m drop onto concrete caused a screen to crack. As with all rugged devices, the exact angle of impact will always have a part to play in its survival.
The back panel has to be levered into place to lock it down to seal it
The Defy's semi-tough credentials are advertised by seven small Torx screws that appear to help keep the two halves of the handset together. These may be as much for show as anything else – and I can see them gathering crud over time – but it's still a good looking and solid device. As you can see from the images, the front is almost all screen apart from the four capacitive Android buttons below it. The textured, rubberised sides and back mean even sweaty palms and greasy fingers keep a firm grip, while also providing some extra impact absorption.
The version of Android in play here is the less than fresh v2.1 (Éclair) but Motorola says it has plans to upgrade the Defy to 2.2 in the admittedly slightly vague sounding "Q2". You can get that from the horse's mouth here. The disappointment of having to make do with 2.1 is lessened slightly by Motorola installing Flash Lite 3 but you still can't watch BBC's iPlayer or other video content in a web browser. A YouTube app is preloaded though, so you’re not all out of the latest moving pictures.
Motoblur accounts options and the Launcher Pro alternative
Pasted on top of Android you get Motorola's Motoblur social aggregation front end. I'm not a fan of having my phone book, Facebook and Twitter accounts tied together into a social Gordian Knot and I found the interface rather stodgy. Instead, I swapped it out for Launcher Pro, which is simpler, faster, more flexible and free. However, if you are a compulsive networker, Motoblur does a good if slow job of linking up your contacts and feeds.
Next page: Character building
COMMENTS
MotoFail
2.1?
"Motorola says it has plans to upgrade the Defy to 2.2 in the admittedly slightly vague sounding "Q2""
"Has plans" my arse.
Until the device prompts you to download the update it's all wind and piss.
Speaking from bitter experience with Android-powered Motorola devices.
Motorola 'updates' again
I'm afraid it's the same old Motorola story again, ship with an ancient version of the OS and promise an update at some unspecified time in the future which never arrives.
I'm a DEXT owner you see, and that's what they did for us.
It's a nice phone to be sure, but as a Motorola owner I'd say only buy it if you're going to be happy with the OS that'll be on it at purchase because their upgrade promises aren't worth the screen pixels that make them up.
Or make it easy for yourself and buy your Android phone from someone else.
I wouldn't hold my breath..
..for an update. Motorola builds excellent hardware, but they are either uncapable or unwilling to support their devices with software upgrades once they've sold them.
My theory is that they believe people will go and buy a new phone if they don't upgrade. Which is actually true - I will buy a new phone, just not from Motorola. Ever again.
Froyo on the Milestone
Yeah, I got bored of waiting and finally installed Cyanogenmod. There's quite f ew hoops to jump through, though, thanks to Motorola being dicks about the boot partition: but RSD lite 4.9 will allow you to install a vulnerable bootloader, followed by OpenRecovery 1.46 (installed from /sdcard/update.zip), which you then use immediately (as a reboot will cause the device to copy back the original bootloader) to install another zip of the cyanogenmod ROM.
prepared to take Motorola at its word???
The only slight disappointment is the absence of Froyo but I'm prepared to take Motorola at its word that an update will arrive before June 30th...
They've been promising to update the Motorola Milestone to 2.2 for several 'quarters' now. After repeatedly failing to deliver in 2010 they now claim 'early Q1 2011' - which we are already a third of the way through... I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for an update on any Motorola phone. If Motorola can't update the Milestone - which is vanilla Android - what hope does the Defy have with MotoBlur on top?
