Just a short while after the launch of the RAZR Motorola has announced that two new Android phones are due to be released very soon. The Motoluxe and Defy Mini both run on Android Gingerbread. Neither phone is quite as cutting edge as the RAZR but they are nice additions to Motorola’s burgeoning Android range.
The Motoluxe is a large 4 inch touchscreen phone that will be ideal for web based features and Android apps. The phone runs on quite a slow 800MHz processor but is fairly well endowed in 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity. It also has a pretty decent 8 megapixel camera and a VGA front facing camera.
While the specs may not be amazing the Motoluxe is certainly a stylish phone, and has a unique ‘lanyard slot’ at the bottom right of the screen that will light up when you have a missed call, new message or email. This is a bit like the light indicators that used to be included on the exterior of flip-phones, and it is a wonder why this useful feature has not been included on more touchscreen phones. The lanyard slot allows you to quickly check whether you need to read a new message or check a missed call without actually having to walk across the room to pick up your phone.
The Defy Mini is a smaller version of the earlier Defy released in 2010. The Defy was a rugged phone, a phone designed to withstand the worst that Mother Nature had to throw at it (as well as your own cack-handedness). Being able to endure high volumes of dust, being held under water for extended periods and shrugging off drops to the floor that would leave other phones weeping into a thousand pieces are just some of the reasons that rugged phones have become popular with mountain climbers, divers and fans of other outdoor pursuits.
Until the Defy though, these rugged phones were pretty basic. Probably more basic than a phone you had ten years ago, but Motorola showed it was possible to bring this durability to touchscreen smartphones. The Defy Mini is the same sort of thing, albeit quite a bit smaller, which probably makes it even more ideal for outdoor activities.
The Mini is a little bit slower than the original Defy and the camera isn’t quite as good, but it does come with a more modern version of Android (Gingerbread) and the same decent Wi-Fi and 3G connections. Most importantly though, for when you find yourself lost on a mountaintop somewhere, the Defy Mini has a far superior battery life compared to the original for talk time and standby.
Both phones will feature MotoSwitch, which evolved out of Motorola’s earlier MotoBlur system. MotoSwitch has adopted ideas used on Facebook that will display contacts and app icons more prominently on your phone the more you interact with them. So if you have one contact that you phone ten times a day and another that you sent a single message to 8 months ago, your regular contact will be easier to access from the phone’s homescreen.
The two phones are due to be released in the coming weeks in Europe, China and Latin America, although Motorola has not released any price details just yet. When these phones are finally released you will be able to get them in the UK from mobile phone comparison website Best Mobile Contracts.