It has been Motorola’s turn to revive a “classic” mobile, always in quotes, as other manufacturers have done before. In this case, the Motorola Defy was a phone that regained the path of robust mobiles and returned to its old ways accompanied by Bullit, the person in charge of CAT phones.
Like almost all phones considered robust, resistant, or with a rugged surname, the new Motorola Defy bets on a competent but restrained interior and trusts the punch of the model to its design and resistance. Undoubtedly a phone to consider for certain uses, and that is proof of almost everything, but let’s see how it has behaved in the performance tests.
Sacrificing design for durability
Motorola Defy review
The Motorola Defy is not a precisely aesthetic phone, as with rugged models or prepared to withstand extreme conditions. It is also not light, weighing 232 grams, nor is it small at almost 17 centimeters high by 7.8 centimeters wide. But it is the price to pay to obtain the resistance that the Motorola and Bullit model promise and that resistance begins with its screen.
The Defy comes prepared for anything with IP68 resistance, military certification, Gorilla Glass Victus, and textured case.
We have in front of us a 6.5-inch LCD panel protected with Gorilla Glass Victus, the latest generation of anti-scratch and anti-shock glass from the firm, and the body is certified against dust and water with IP68, in addition to offering MIL-SPEC 810H military. It is a phone that comes to the test of everything at the cost of being somewhat square in its design and sacrificing aesthetics to change it for durability.
Motorola Defy review
As for the rest, the phone has a screen divided at the top by a notch in the form of a drop of water, and it has performed within the expected. The viewing angles are not the best, but we have good color representation and tactile sensation. Some extra brightness is missing, which is sometimes insufficient outdoors, but we are generally talking about a screen that meets what is asked of it. For example, when it comes to cleaning, it stays quite far from fingerprints, just like the rest of the phone.
Motorola Defy review
The back is quite clear, with the camera module in the upper central part and the fingerprint reader below. The rest of the phone is covered by the textured back. On the right side, instead of the button panel, we find the power and volume buttons and a dedicated button for Assistant that is programmable thanks to the ‘Push Mode’ offered by the phone software.
Motorola Defy review
Finally, at the bottom, we have the USB type C port for charging next to the only speaker of the phone, and at the top, we find the headphone port. A simple phone in its proposal and that stands out, as we have already said, for a design with thick frames and ultra-resistant materials to be able to take it with us wherever we want. But without any other design detail that makes it stand out from the competition.
A mid-range processor but with 4GB of RAM by its side
Motorola Defy review
As discussed in the introduction, Motorola sacrifices its features to focus on design, although its internal equipment is quite competent. At the command, we ran into Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 662 supported by 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal space. The brain has behaved well in almost all situations, although at times it has offered us some jam or another, and tightening the nuts has made its limitations emerge, although it must be made clear that we are facing a modest middle line.
It is appreciated that the software is practically clean, but it isn’t easy to justify that it is Android 10
A special mention must be made of the software section, with an Android 10 (error to be noted) that runs almost clean through its veins and contributes to the smooth operation of the phone at all times, without recharging when it is not necessary, what’s more. It has some software aids such as the aforementioned programmable mode for its side button, making life a little easier for us. Of course, it would be required that a phone launched at this point in 2021 already arrived with Android 11, especially with Android 12 just around the corner.
We leave you below with the usual benchmarks that we submit to the phones in our tests and so you can see the scores obtained by this Motorola Defy.
Despite having only 64GB of RAM, the Motorola Defy has a tray to expand its memory thanks to a microSD. However, we have had no problems installing all kinds of apps and games with this space and even syncing some movies and series offline.
Streaming vices like HBO or Disney +. Because yes, this phone invites you to consume movies, series, and games thanks to a surprising battery despite finding ourselves with 5,000 mAh that we have already seen on other occasions.
The Motorola Defy knows how to take advantage of the 5,000 mAh battery because we face a mobile that is difficult to leave without power.
To this 5,000 mAh, we must also add a 20W fast charge that allows us to return 100% of the power to the phone in approximately one hour and twenty minutes, but where its true power lies is in the section of pure and hard autonomy. With the Motorola Defy, we have not dropped below 8 hours of the screen in any of the tests, and we have even reached almost 10 hours of screen, lowering the requirement a bit and in two days of use.
Motorola Defy review
The Motorola Defy can boast, and with good reason, its autonomy.
Finally, and before going on to talk about its cameras, it is time to comment on the behavior of its rear fingerprint reader. The only defect that we found is that it is located in a recessed area of the rear housing that shares space with the cameras, so it will be difficult not to be constantly resting your finger on the protective glass of the sensors. For the rest, it works well and has not given us any recognition errors, even when using it with wet fingers. Good fingerprint reader, although it would have been appreciated to detect its position with your finger better.
Main, macro, and depth: this is your photographic equipment
Motorola Defy review
In the Motorola Defy, we come across fairly simple photographic equipment consisting of three sensors, although we only use two of them at the moment of truth. The main one is a 48-megapixel one with an f / 1.8 lens, the secondary one is a 2-megapixel one with an f / 2.4 lens for macro photography, and finally, we find a 2-megapixel sensor with an f / 2.4 lens for depth readings. That is, for its Portrait mode with selective blur.
Main, macro, and blur, simple rear equipment, direct and at the foot
The camera app is quite simple, as it corresponds to almost clean Android phones, and it puts almost everything we need in front of us to take normal photographs. If we want something more specific, the menus with other modes are opened by scrolling to the right, and in general, everything is where it should be. We would have appreciated other dedicated modes in phones with more sensor options, but the Motorola Defy app makes it so that nothing is missed.
Motorola Defy review
In good lighting, the Motorola Defy performs flawlessly on almost all parameters, including dynamic range.
We are in a mid-range and, therefore, did not expect better results than those obtained with this Motorola model. The daytime photographs are good, higher than the average that we usually find at this power level, and also the shooting speed is fast, but not the processing speed once we have captured it. The latter makes the photograph take a couple of seconds to be available in the gallery, but nothing serious.