There are plenty of budget android phones around which can make the decision around which one to have a little baffling at times. When I was asked to give the Motorola Defy Mini a go to review and keep, I thought it would be interesting because in the past year i’ve gone through three different phones as the kids seems to think they belong to them rather than me!
 |
| must take the screen protector off! |
Until fairly recently though budget meant cheap and cheap meant lots of corners cut and compromises in build quality. The Motorola defy comes in at £160 on PAYG and is firmly rooted in the budget end of the phone market. However the defy name has previously been used on motorolas rugged phones. Bit of a contradiction in terms you’d have thought. Indeed this phone is a contradiction made whole really. It’s splash proof, properly dust tight and reasonably shock proof. It has a scratch proof glass screen where some of its compatriots have plastic. It also has front and rear facing cameras, GPS and Bluetooth. There are a couple of compromises though. It’s not blessed with a hugely fast processor. In fact it’s about the same speed as the iPhone 3GS, which is getting a bit long in the tooth now. It is however more than adequate for pretty much anything apart from watching hi def films or playing graphically intensive games, neither of which you’d particularly want to do on such a small screen.
It’s also stuck on the gingerbread version of android, which means no ice cream sandwich or jelly bean. How much this will effect your usage is debatable.
What this phone excels at is being chucked in a bag or pocket and used hard. I found the battery life incredible for such a small phone, even using twitter a lot it just seemed to go on and on for days at a time. Although the screen is quite small, it seems very sharp and I had not trouble with seeing anything. Because I already have an android phone, when I logged in, I could access all my settings and install all my purchased apps just like that. Switching from one android phone to another is so easy, so if you’ve got something like an Orange sanfranciso or a zte blade and are looking for an upgrade, you can do it really easily.
I think for the price, it’s pretty unbeatable. Yes, it’s not as lightening quick as the latest razr or something but it does the trick and can run all the apps that I run on my swanky dual core contract phone with no problems. If you’ve got an iPad or an android tablet so don’t need something as potent in a phone this is a good choice, as it is if you’re simply cack handed and need something a bit more durable.
This is a great phone for mums the fact that this phone is KID proof makes it a winner in my books. The kids have done their best to break it, but failed. Brilliant and if you shop around you can pay well under £100 for it at the moment.
No Comments