Overview of Motorola Defy Pro - a secure retro smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard
I consider it necessary to immediately warn that the hero of this post is not a novelty at all. This is a fairly old device, announced in July 2012. It is oriented primarily to the Brazilian market, but a bit later its deliveries also began to Canada. Due to the form factor, unusual for Russians and (mainly) Brazilian “registration” of sellers, domestic enthusiasts did not pay much attention to this model. But it aroused some interest from me even during the announcement, and as soon as I found someone who wanted to sell me a new Defy Pro, I bought it. For $ 80.
To begin with, a few words about Android-backgrounds with QWERTY-keyboards in general. They appeared in Russia in the fall of 2009. The first was the Highscreen Zeus in the “side slider” form factor, then Motorola Milestone began shipping. HTC still made some attempts to bring keyboard smarts to Russia (I remembered the Desire Z model), but currently there are no such devices on our market.
Highscreen zeus
It is understandable: in the same USA, the cult of email communication has been forming for many years in a row, and QWERTY smartphones were convenient for this. But the local users have long switched to models with touch screens and without any keyboards. What can we say about us ... I remember that an employee of one of the companies back in the days of Windows Mobile told me that about 10-15 copies of a model that lacks such an input tool are sold for 1 device with a keyboard in Russia.
Another thing is Latin America. There, for the most part, the local youth, who are not rich at all, still have a certain demand for keyboardists. As a rule, these are simple phones, that is, without Android. But at Motorola, they decided to make a smartphone in such a form factor, not ordinary, but also protected.
That's right: this little peanut, Motorola Defy Pro, complies with the IP67 standard, that is, it is not afraid of immersion in water, sand and dust. I emphasize that this is not some teXet X-Driver , and Motorola should not be thrown to the ground. In general, the IP67 standard (like IP68), contrary to popular belief, does not in any way imply protection from bumps and drops, we are only talking about preventing the penetration of various substances.
So, I personally am interested in Motorola Defy Pro primarily on the eve of the summer, that is, the holiday season. He takes up little space in his pocket, the screen area is small (which means it’s more difficult to break it than the display of a purely “touch” smartphone), and water protection is useful on the beach. I remember last year I carried the Samsung Galaxy S4 to the sea, so I was tormented then to pick out grains of sand from the gap between the front and side panels. (I can’t go to the beach without a smartphone at all - even on vacation there is work-s, calls-s, mail-s.) With Defy Pro, everything is much simpler - you can just rinse it under the tap. And if he does die, then he will have to regret only about the lost exotic: $ 80 is far from the 800 that they are asking today for the modern flagship smartphone of the A-brand.
However, without grumbling, of course, will not do. Here, say, a silver frame that frames the front panel. Do you think this is metal? Yes, I also thought so at first. But this is plastic, and painted, sorry, feet. Immediately after the purchase, I wanted to put the smartphone in the inside pocket of my jacket and accidentally hit a metal snake with this frame. The result is four small but noticeable scratches.
Motorola has always been meticulous in the development of such parts, but in general the company does not disdain the harsh ODM bus in the Latin American market. That is, it sells classic "Chinese" under its own brand. How do you like this miracle (see below) with two SIM-cards and a TV? Perhaps Defy Pro also did a third-party office ...
I tested the smartphone for water resistance, here it is in a mug with water. Motorola Defy Pro survived the half-hour dive without any consequences.
But we go further. Most of the case is made of a soft-touch of acceptable quality, but the back panel is rough and painted with silver paint. There is a strong suspicion that over time it will wipe to black plastic. The cover is attached to the housing with a latch. It looks impressive, although it is easy to push it away.
There is no Cyrillic on the keyboard, but this is actually not a problem. I put the keyboard Russian Keyboard, chose the layout Translit Ru and forward to the mines. It supports the quick launch of any application with the combination of [[Letter] + Search ”. It's comfortable.
The buttons are quite nice, a cardinal difference with my existingBlackBerry Curve 9220 я не обнаружил. Кое-кто в Интернете пишет, что кнопки нажимаются туго. Я такого нюанса не заметил. Вообще, кстати, Motorola Defy Pro сильно напоминает клавиатурные модели BlackBerry:
Motorola Defy Pro и BlackBerry Curve 9220
Экран в смартфоне 2,7-дюймовый (ужас!!!) с разрешением 320 х 480 точек (я в шоке!!!), прикрыт он стеклом Gorilla Glass. Дисплей сенсорный емкостный, мультитач поддерживается. Если серьезно, то с такой диагональю и разрешением вполне себе можно жить. Да, не так хорошо, как в случае 5-дюймовой матрицы с Full HD, но можно.
Куда больше хлопот доставляет не разрешение и даже не диагональ, а ориентация дисплея. Она-то, блин, горизонтальная. И некоторые приложения – например, официальный клиент Instagram – отображаются вот так.
Here in the client "VKontakte" horizontal mode is provided.
And in the application CPU RAM Device Identifier is not provided ...
By the way, about the hardware. Qualcomm MSM7227a with one core and 512 MB of RAM, of which no more than 100 are available, is, of course, not super. The device is clearly not for games. Although you can fly in Angry Birds, even if it’s not very convenient to do so, holding the smartphone upright.
With integrated memory - full seam. 70 megabytes of free space, apparently, which is why they put 2 GB MicroSD in the box. It is good that my copy was already rutted, and I deleted my favorite Motorola Go2Meeting program weighing 90 MB. Thus, space was freed up for several "extra" programmins. (The fact is that not all Android programs still support porting to a USB flash drive.)
There is a front camera, but I won’t talk about it - everything is bad. The main 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, the results of her work are lower. In principle, it will.
Camera interface:
Actually pictures:
Software is also quite ancient. Defy Pro uses Android 2.3.7, thoroughly redesigned by Motorola. The interface was upgraded:
We also added a compass.
A program with a pedometer and a GPS reference for fitness.
Corporate gallery with a timeline.
Flashlight.
Two programs for working with DLNA.
Well, and something else on the little things. It turned out not bad, and, strangely enough, this old decrepit "Robot", displayed on a 2.7-inch screen, does not cause any particular rejection.
Yes, an important point: there is no Russian language in the device, but it is possible to partially Russify the system using folk methods, which was done by those from whom I bought the device.
The application for optimizing energy consumption stands apart. Probably, the word Pro in the name of the device should hint at professional users who often travel on business trips. One way or another, on the charge of a battery with a capacity of 1,700 mAh, and with the optimizer program mentioned above, Defy Pro lives with me for 3 days. And this, in my opinion, is a very worthy result. For a dialer with mail - and in my case it can’t pretend to be a larger device - excellent. And for long business trips, I recently have Highscreen Boost 2 SE , which plows up to 2 weeks.
Summing up here is difficult. It so happened that I needed a compact, secure smartphone, and the screen size, number of cores and other newfangled parameters were not important. So Motorola Defy Pro for $ 80 was almost the perfect solution. To you, the model may seem like a strange crooked junk. I will not be offended: it is possible, to some extent it is. But, nevertheless, I find this smartphone attractive. And from the point of view of solving him my problem, and from the point of view of "archeology" (not to be confused with necrophilia!) In the field of gadgets :)
Full technical specifications :
Platform: Qualcomm MSM7227A, 1 core with a frequency of up to 1 GHz, Adreno 200 graphics
RAM : 512 MB
Internal memory: 1 GB
Memory cards: MicroSD up to 32 GB
Front camera: 0.3 megapixels
Main camera: 5 megapixels, autofocus, flash
Screen: 2.7 inches, TFT, 320 x 480 pixels, capacitive, touch, multi-touch
Housing: IP67 protection, the screen is covered with Gorilla Glass
Bluetooth: Yes (3.0 )
Wi-Fi: Yes (802.11n)
GPS: Yes
Operating system: Android 2.3.7
Battery: 1,700 mAh
Dimensions / Weight: 110 x 66 x 12 mm / 115 g
To begin with, a few words about Android-backgrounds with QWERTY-keyboards in general. They appeared in Russia in the fall of 2009. The first was the Highscreen Zeus in the “side slider” form factor, then Motorola Milestone began shipping. HTC still made some attempts to bring keyboard smarts to Russia (I remembered the Desire Z model), but currently there are no such devices on our market.
Highscreen zeus
It is understandable: in the same USA, the cult of email communication has been forming for many years in a row, and QWERTY smartphones were convenient for this. But the local users have long switched to models with touch screens and without any keyboards. What can we say about us ... I remember that an employee of one of the companies back in the days of Windows Mobile told me that about 10-15 copies of a model that lacks such an input tool are sold for 1 device with a keyboard in Russia.
Another thing is Latin America. There, for the most part, the local youth, who are not rich at all, still have a certain demand for keyboardists. As a rule, these are simple phones, that is, without Android. But at Motorola, they decided to make a smartphone in such a form factor, not ordinary, but also protected.
That's right: this little peanut, Motorola Defy Pro, complies with the IP67 standard, that is, it is not afraid of immersion in water, sand and dust. I emphasize that this is not some teXet X-Driver , and Motorola should not be thrown to the ground. In general, the IP67 standard (like IP68), contrary to popular belief, does not in any way imply protection from bumps and drops, we are only talking about preventing the penetration of various substances.
So, I personally am interested in Motorola Defy Pro primarily on the eve of the summer, that is, the holiday season. He takes up little space in his pocket, the screen area is small (which means it’s more difficult to break it than the display of a purely “touch” smartphone), and water protection is useful on the beach. I remember last year I carried the Samsung Galaxy S4 to the sea, so I was tormented then to pick out grains of sand from the gap between the front and side panels. (I can’t go to the beach without a smartphone at all - even on vacation there is work-s, calls-s, mail-s.) With Defy Pro, everything is much simpler - you can just rinse it under the tap. And if he does die, then he will have to regret only about the lost exotic: $ 80 is far from the 800 that they are asking today for the modern flagship smartphone of the A-brand.
However, without grumbling, of course, will not do. Here, say, a silver frame that frames the front panel. Do you think this is metal? Yes, I also thought so at first. But this is plastic, and painted, sorry, feet. Immediately after the purchase, I wanted to put the smartphone in the inside pocket of my jacket and accidentally hit a metal snake with this frame. The result is four small but noticeable scratches.
Motorola has always been meticulous in the development of such parts, but in general the company does not disdain the harsh ODM bus in the Latin American market. That is, it sells classic "Chinese" under its own brand. How do you like this miracle (see below) with two SIM-cards and a TV? Perhaps Defy Pro also did a third-party office ...
I tested the smartphone for water resistance, here it is in a mug with water. Motorola Defy Pro survived the half-hour dive without any consequences.
But we go further. Most of the case is made of a soft-touch of acceptable quality, but the back panel is rough and painted with silver paint. There is a strong suspicion that over time it will wipe to black plastic. The cover is attached to the housing with a latch. It looks impressive, although it is easy to push it away.
There is no Cyrillic on the keyboard, but this is actually not a problem. I put the keyboard Russian Keyboard, chose the layout Translit Ru and forward to the mines. It supports the quick launch of any application with the combination of [[Letter] + Search ”. It's comfortable.
The buttons are quite nice, a cardinal difference with my existingBlackBerry Curve 9220 я не обнаружил. Кое-кто в Интернете пишет, что кнопки нажимаются туго. Я такого нюанса не заметил. Вообще, кстати, Motorola Defy Pro сильно напоминает клавиатурные модели BlackBerry:
Motorola Defy Pro и BlackBerry Curve 9220
Экран в смартфоне 2,7-дюймовый (ужас!!!) с разрешением 320 х 480 точек (я в шоке!!!), прикрыт он стеклом Gorilla Glass. Дисплей сенсорный емкостный, мультитач поддерживается. Если серьезно, то с такой диагональю и разрешением вполне себе можно жить. Да, не так хорошо, как в случае 5-дюймовой матрицы с Full HD, но можно.
Куда больше хлопот доставляет не разрешение и даже не диагональ, а ориентация дисплея. Она-то, блин, горизонтальная. И некоторые приложения – например, официальный клиент Instagram – отображаются вот так.
Here in the client "VKontakte" horizontal mode is provided.
And in the application CPU RAM Device Identifier is not provided ...
By the way, about the hardware. Qualcomm MSM7227a with one core and 512 MB of RAM, of which no more than 100 are available, is, of course, not super. The device is clearly not for games. Although you can fly in Angry Birds, even if it’s not very convenient to do so, holding the smartphone upright.
With integrated memory - full seam. 70 megabytes of free space, apparently, which is why they put 2 GB MicroSD in the box. It is good that my copy was already rutted, and I deleted my favorite Motorola Go2Meeting program weighing 90 MB. Thus, space was freed up for several "extra" programmins. (The fact is that not all Android programs still support porting to a USB flash drive.)
There is a front camera, but I won’t talk about it - everything is bad. The main 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, the results of her work are lower. In principle, it will.
Camera interface:
Actually pictures:
Software is also quite ancient. Defy Pro uses Android 2.3.7, thoroughly redesigned by Motorola. The interface was upgraded:
We also added a compass.
A program with a pedometer and a GPS reference for fitness.
Corporate gallery with a timeline.
Flashlight.
Two programs for working with DLNA.
Well, and something else on the little things. It turned out not bad, and, strangely enough, this old decrepit "Robot", displayed on a 2.7-inch screen, does not cause any particular rejection.
Yes, an important point: there is no Russian language in the device, but it is possible to partially Russify the system using folk methods, which was done by those from whom I bought the device.
The application for optimizing energy consumption stands apart. Probably, the word Pro in the name of the device should hint at professional users who often travel on business trips. One way or another, on the charge of a battery with a capacity of 1,700 mAh, and with the optimizer program mentioned above, Defy Pro lives with me for 3 days. And this, in my opinion, is a very worthy result. For a dialer with mail - and in my case it can’t pretend to be a larger device - excellent. And for long business trips, I recently have Highscreen Boost 2 SE , which plows up to 2 weeks.
Summing up here is difficult. It so happened that I needed a compact, secure smartphone, and the screen size, number of cores and other newfangled parameters were not important. So Motorola Defy Pro for $ 80 was almost the perfect solution. To you, the model may seem like a strange crooked junk. I will not be offended: it is possible, to some extent it is. But, nevertheless, I find this smartphone attractive. And from the point of view of solving him my problem, and from the point of view of "archeology" (not to be confused with necrophilia!) In the field of gadgets :)
Full technical specifications :
Platform: Qualcomm MSM7227A, 1 core with a frequency of up to 1 GHz, Adreno 200 graphics
RAM : 512 MB
Internal memory: 1 GB
Memory cards: MicroSD up to 32 GB
Front camera: 0.3 megapixels
Main camera: 5 megapixels, autofocus, flash
Screen: 2.7 inches, TFT, 320 x 480 pixels, capacitive, touch, multi-touch
Housing: IP67 protection, the screen is covered with Gorilla Glass
Bluetooth: Yes (3.0 )
Wi-Fi: Yes (802.11n)
GPS: Yes
Operating system: Android 2.3.7
Battery: 1,700 mAh
Dimensions / Weight: 110 x 66 x 12 mm / 115 g
