Motorola Defy Yowza! I wannit!

Here's the sorta phone that I would really like to have - I'm a tough/rugged gadget enthusiast (due to all those SAS, Andy McNab books and such), a outdoorsman wannabe and a unrepentant tech geek. And the Defy would definitely go well next to my Panasonic CF-29 Toughbook.

It runs on Android! OK, so it's not like your garden variety Linux distro*... But it's a really geek-centric mobile OS. Plus its got tonnes of apps up for free at the Marketplace.

The Defy is a tough Android 2.1 phone and features elemental resistance to dust, water, impact and scratches of the harsh outdoors.

Great bod!

It has that familiar 'touch-tablet' form but with some great ruggerised features such as impact and scratch resistant Corning Gorilla Glass and built to withstand spills and dusty environments. It is also light at 118 grams.

I just love the fact they've tried to build it tough. I wish I'd have a review unit to try out to see whether it's all up to hype. I've seen some reviewer blogs plopping the Defy into a glass of water.

If I ever get one for review (my day job requires me to test out and review some models), let's see if the claims are auta or not shall we?

Display

The Defy comes with a 3.7 inch FWVGA (480 x 854 pixels) which is nothing much to shout about these days, but some concessions are necessary to allow the Defy to be made more ruggerised thanks to Gorilla Glass and overall body construction.

Processor

Defy has a 800Mhz OMAP3610 processor which is more than enough to run the Android 2.1 Eclair Operating System.

Memory

Defy has 512MB of RAM and 2GB of ROM and 1.2GB of user available memory. Adding to the memory is possible using the SD Card Slot.

Connectivity

Besides the regular phone stuff, the Defy supports HSUPA 2.0 Mbps, Corporate Sync, Bluetooth, Firmware Over the Air and USB.

Battery

The battery has been rated at 1,540 mAh, which Motorola rates up to 6 hours of talk time and 9.9 days of standby. I'd take this with a pinch of salt...

Camera

Defy has a 5MP camera with LED flash and video supports H.264 (VGA video playback at 30 frames per second) and MPEG4.

Price?
RM1,599! Which is not bad all things considered. Of course, there are others out there which can be had for less. There are Android 2.1 phones like from Alcatel and Samsung which cost between RM680 to RM860. But these are entry level ones. The Alcatel OT-980 has a cheap TFT 2.8 inch screen, which doesn't really duke it out these days...

What you pay, just like in the case of the Toughbook, is (no its not the macho, tough guy image) the premium grade materials and well thought of design to give you a bit more assurance that your gadget will survive harsh environments and rough usage...

Unlike the Toughbook though, the Defy doesn't look like that it can take a bullet. A toughbook actually stopped a 7.62mm round (the type used in the notorious AK-47). But alltogether this would be a phone that I wouldn't worry about much about for the bump and grind of daily life.

*Some folks would know that I'm a Ubuntu pusher - it's a sado-macho relationship. It stresses me out but it makes me really happy when I figure out how to fix or tweak things in Ubuntu. I like the challenge. Oh, I also have OLD hardware to up the difficulty level.

Fixed up my Toughbook

I've fixed up my Toughbook. OK. It's not really brand new. In fact it's considered to be a bit long in the tooth: Centrino 1.3Ghz, 1.2GB RAM, 160GB hard disk drive and a bit banged up in the beginning. If you're one of my pals who've seen in before I did this paint job thing, you'd know there was a huge dent and flaked off paint, right above the centre hinge part of the magnesium alloy cover...

So I've plugged the hole up with some metallic-epoxy resin putty, sanded the CF-29 (that's the Toughbook model) and painted it errrr several times. I've done some customising jobs before on some older laptops and PCs sometime ago but those weren't very good jobs....

First I took the 'repainting the original' path and attempted to spray the beast silver after (sufficient masking to prevent paint going onto the screen, keyboard and other parts). Take my advice, the silver spray paint in the can makes your custom job look cheap - it made the anondized magnesium alloy cover look like plastic painted silver...

So what did I try next? Green & black - the 'x' crevice motif on the cover filled with black. Then I realised that: great now it looks too much like Ben 10! This was confirmed by a 6 year old too.

So Army Green from Samurai paints was the last colour I tried and my wife thinks the colour suits the Toughbook - or it could be that the family can't bear breathing in the fumes for so many days.

If you count all the layers of paint, after re-sanding the rough parts and respraying - I think I've got over 10 layers of paint on this thing.

Well. It's a project. Sometimes fixing up stuff and doing this sorta thing is somewhat therapeutic for yours truly...

My guess by now would be you asking & saying: Why in hell would you want to get a Toughbook? The one you've got is old and a Netbook would have sufficed! - That will be answered in the next post.