Telus releases the rugged Motorola DEFY Android phone
Already available on T-Mobile in the US since November 2010, Motorola has decided to bring the rugged DEFY to Canada. This mid-range Android smartphone stands out from the competition in one major way – its durability. It has a scratch proof Gorilla Glass screen, is water-resistant, dust-proof, and can take a few more drops than your average smartphone. However keep in mind water-resistant doesn’t mean water-proof, so I wouldn’t suggest trying to duplicate the conditions of the image above!
While the DEFY is certainly not a cutting edge Android phone, it is still well equipped, and runs Android 2.2 (Wi-Fi hotspot yay!) using an updated, much improved, version of Motorola’s MOTOBLUR UI. It has a 3.7 inch 480 x 854 LCD screen, 800 MHz CPU, 512 MB RAM, 8 GB Micro SD card & a 5 MP camera with an LED flash. It has a 1540 mAh battery, which should give this phone great battery life, the Achilles heel of many an Android phone. It also comes pre-loaded with the excellent SWYPE keyboard.
One caveat when looking at any Motorola Android phone is that they lock down the bootloader pretty tight – which means it’s much harder to put any custom ROMs on their phones. So if you are looking for an upgrade to Android 2.3 you’ll probably have to wait until Motorola releases an official one – hopefully the wait won’t be too long.
We should have a review unit soon, so check back for our hands-on impressions of the phone.
The DEFY is available now on Telus for $79.99 on a 3-year term, $379.99 outright.
You can also find more info about the DEFY on Motorola Canada’s site here.
Here are some picture of the phone:
