Motorola is bringing to Europe market its new Defy, a rugged Android smartphone that is waterproof, dustproof and scratch resistant meeting the IP67 standard. Motorola DEFY is a slim, pocketable Android™ smartphone that comes equipped with advanced Web-browsing capabilities and a 3.7″ high-resolution touch screen display that provides edge to edge views of your favorite photos, videos and websites.

Display and Design:

A 94mm (3.7-inch) capacitive touchscreen means the Defy looks and acts like a typical smart phone. Only its rubbery case and headphone and USB ports, which are plugged with rubber stoppers, give the nod to its strong history.

The Motorola Defy, as the name suggests, is not afraid to be dropped, scratched (Gorilla Glass), used in a sand storm, or submersed in water up to 3 feet (1 meter). Really not bad, considering it stays light at 4.16 ounces (118gr), and has a 3.7 inches capacitive touchscreen that carries 480×854 pixels of resolution.

Its body is hardly smooth, featuring bumps a plenty where the Defy’s ports are located, which won’t be to everyone’s tastes  but if this is the cost of being able to leave a mobile phone under water for 30 minutes, then so be it.

Performance and User Interface:

It runs Android 2.1, which isn’t quite the latest version of Android, but it’s got plenty of brains. The chipset is TI’s OMAP 3610 running at 800MHz, which should be enough for most purposes. To downloading apps from the Android Market, and surfing the Web in the excellent Android browser, at first glance it seems the Defy isn’t missing any key features.

Defy features Motorola’s own-brand user interface, MotoBlur. So what you get is customizable homescreens, resizable widgets, Android Market support, a unified social networking client and a pretty impressive media player built on TuneWiki and Sound Hound. There is support for IMAP/POP and Exchange email as well as Gmail, and many different social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, can be easily integrated and imported as contacts. Users should appreciate the built-in Swype text input system since there is no hardware keyboard on the DEFY.

Camera and Multimedia:

In Defy you’ll find a 5-megapixel camera, auto-focus, flash and digital zoom but no touch-to-focus. It is not specified if the video capture is HD, but the frame rate is listed as 26-30fps, which should deliver smooth video, even if not 720p. The tough handset sports dual microphones for noise cancellation, which should make recorded videos clear sounding as well.

A music player is also available, and it can be used with both wired 3.5mm headphones as well as with wireless Bluetooth headphones and headsets, and media can also be accessed through the phone’s DLNA (INFO) support. A full suite of Google apps are also available on the phone, including Calendar, Latitude, Google Maps Navigation with Street View, and Google Search by Voice.

Key Features:

OS: Android 2.1

Display: 3.7 inch Corning Gorilla Glass display with 480 x 854 pixels, Accelerometer

Network: HSDPA (900 / 2100 MHZ), GSM/EDGE (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz)

Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, A-GPS, Stereo Bluetooth

Sound: 3.5mm headset jack

Camera: 5MP autofocus camera with image stabilization, video recording and LED flash

Memory: 512MB RAM, 2GB ROM

Expansion slot: MicroSD card support (up to 32GB)

Battery: 1540 mAh battery

Dimensions: 107 x 59 x 13.4 mm

Weight: 118 grams