Motorola DEFY MINI deals & review

The Motorola Defy Mini comes with a tiny 3.2-inch HVGA touchscreen, and has been marketed by Motorola as the paddling pool of smartphones. If you’ve felt overwhelmed and completely befuddled by the sheer volume of functions that the market’s biggest sellers can offer then the Defy Mini might be for you. Though you’d better have the long and slender fingers of a concert pianist, as typing on the screen may prove somewhat challenging otherwise.

Obviously this phone has been designed with an active, busy lifestyle in mind. The proud owners of dogs and small children will find in this phone a spill and dust-resistant model. Its screen is made with Gorilla Glass meaning it’s unlikely to break or shatter, and is also more resistant to scuffmarks. It is light and comfortable to hold in your hand, with a pleasing ergonomic shape in the slightly curved back. This phone will most likely be held in landscape to enable a wider keyboard, and in this sense its slimmed down appearance really helps matters, enabling you to easily switch and flip backwards and forwards to landscape/portrait.

Android’s tastily tempting Gingerbread runs the Motorola Defy Mini, and it's overlaid with Motorola's Motoblur. It also uses MotoSwitch which means that your smartphone, much like Nightider’s KITT, remembers the apps you use, your favourite sites, your most frequently texted contacts, and keeps that information up front and ready to access. The Motorola Defy Mini comes with voice memo, touch sensitive controls, WiFi, a 3-megapixel camera with an LED flash, A-GPS support, Google search, maps, Document Viewer and threaded view SMS. It can store up to 32GB.

This phone is the burly wood-cutter of your dreams... in mini. The extra protections offered by the handset’s design allow you to throw your phone into your bag and get going; there’ll be no careful, bubble-wrapped treatment for this model, leading to its reputation as ‘life proof’. The smaller screen sucks less of the juice from your battery, and with an impressive 1650mAh this means you could be texting and surfing for 24 hours without needing to charge (or 21 days of standby, say Motorola). The phone’s navigation is simple and straightforward, like most of Motorola’s creations.

Although less sophisticated than others in the market, the kit is impressive enough for the Motorola Defy Mini’s modest price tag, and should please all but the most dedicated of Android fans. The touchscreen is responsive, with very little lagging, and in general this phone performs well.

The JCB Sitemaster Toughphone TP802 is a similarly durable and well-protected smartphone, with a slightly better kit, and (naturally) a higher price tag. Aesthetically, this phone looks every bit as sturdy as it is, so the fashion-conscious smartphone lovers out there may wish to check out Motorola’s DENY+ as a classier alternative.