Motorola DEXT Review: First Look Paisley
Motorola has bitten the bullet and launched its first Google Android-powered device in the form of the DEXT. It’s also the first handset to showcase the company’s MOTOBLUR technology.
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Motorola DEXT Review: First Look
Motorola has bitten the bullet and launched its first Google Android-powered device in the form of the DEXT. It’s also the first handset to showcase the company’s MOTOBLUR technology.
We got up close and personal with the device last night to see if it really is all that.
Android is the golden child of the mobile market at present, enjoying its time in the limelight and getting love from seemingly everyone (except the obvious few) in the industry.
Looking up
Of late, everyone has been a bit worried about Motorola. It’s like when you find out that an old friend you don’t keep in touch with much is a bit unwell.
But with the arrival of DEXT, things are looking up for the US company.
In the hand, the DEXT is a little chunky (weighing in at 163g), but that’s natural when you’re packing in a full QWERTY, slide-out keyboard in addition to a 3.1in (320x480 pixels) capacitive touch screen. But the extra weight it packs in thankfully isn’t in danger of squashing either the microSD or SIM card, as you can easily gain access to both without having to evict the battery.
Looks-wise, the DEXT doesn’t do too badly. It’s not the most beautiful phone we’ve ever seen but it’s quite pleasing to the eye, even if the strange reverse Braille effect on the back of the handset and Batman-esque Moto logo that kicked in when the keyboard opened puzzled us.
That said, the keys are nicely spaced and contoured with the numeric aspect of things on the subs bench to save space – that’s where the ALT key comes in.
There’s even a mouse pad to the left, although the bit in the middle is just for pressing rather than acting as a cursor.
Although this phone is primarily targeted at consumers who’re into social networking, it’s also got a lot to offer business users.
After all, more and more companies are making use of Twitter et al to keep in contact with colleagues, partners and customers, so having one easy point of reference – the universal inbox – for all such communication could prove very useful indeed. Throw in emails and texts to the mix too and you have the Holy Grail.
All about the UI
The user interface is fully customisable, as you’d expect and users also have access to the Android Market and widgets to cater for their personal and business whims.
During our brief hands-on with the DEXT, we found the screen to be very responsive and thought the interface (Motorola has overlaid the core Android OS with its own MOTOBLUR technology) was innovative, eye-catching and very easy to use.
Things are ordered into categories dubbed: happenings (for keeping abreast of your contacts’ social networking action), messages (does what it says on the tin), social status (type once, update many), news feeds and calendar (that blends work life with your Google calendar).
Contacts are also updated automatically, taking the grunt work out of keeping track of people who appear to change their mobile numbers as often as their underwear. It will also create links between people when it works out they’re the same person from the mobile number or email address and so on, which is nice.
MOTOBLUR is certainly a time saver. Users just need to set up a BLUR account stipulating which email and social networking feeds they want the handset to catch with its virtual net and it does the rest.
It takes mere minutes. But don’t fear. If you lose you phone or someone steals it, it doesn’t take very long for you to render it useless to the bad guys – with a bit of luck before they’ve even had a chance to post nasty status updates or embarrass you.
Similarly, the big BLUR server in the sky, will also remember how you had your handset set up and restore those settings to a new handset, according to the Motorola demonstrators on hand last night.
The DEXT also boasts a five megapixel camera with autofocus and video recording at 24fps. The soft, round camera button at the top right of the frame takes a bit of getting used to, but you can always do things the traditional way and use the hard key on the top instead. Although the pictures we took at last night’s event were in quite low lighting, the resulting snaps weren’t too bad, despite the camera lacking a flash. The lack of a lens cover also niggled.
Once you’ve taken a snap, it’ll appear in thumbnail form at the bottom right of the screen, allowing you to carry on taking more pictures. Simply tap the picture to get it back on the screen in full size and then bin it, share it or set it as wallpaper.
We were at the top of a very tall, grey building so didn’t get the chance to fully try out the full HTML browser, but from what we did see it looks pretty good.
Work/life balance
The calendar also provides a single view of day job and life commitments, making scheduling much easier. Indeed, work, rest and play are blended together in a tasteful way on DEXT, meaning the idea of having just one device could actually prove to be true in this instance. Although we’ll let DEXT sales figures do the talking when they’re unveiled.
The handset will be available exclusively (for how long though we don’t know) on Orange from next month. It will be free for customers paying around £35 a month willing to sign up to a two-year contract.
There are (as yet unconfirmed) rumours of a second Android device from Motorola too. And if it mirrors the good bits and gets rid of the not so good bits evident in DEXT, it should prove very popular indeed.
We got up close and personal with the device last night to see if it really is all that.
Android is the golden child of the mobile market at present, enjoying its time in the limelight and getting love from seemingly everyone (except the obvious few) in the industry.
Looking up
Of late, everyone has been a bit worried about Motorola. It’s like when you find out that an old friend you don’t keep in touch with much is a bit unwell.
But with the arrival of DEXT, things are looking up for the US company.
In the hand, the DEXT is a little chunky (weighing in at 163g), but that’s natural when you’re packing in a full QWERTY, slide-out keyboard in addition to a 3.1in (320x480 pixels) capacitive touch screen. But the extra weight it packs in thankfully isn’t in danger of squashing either the microSD or SIM card, as you can easily gain access to both without having to evict the battery.
Looks-wise, the DEXT doesn’t do too badly. It’s not the most beautiful phone we’ve ever seen but it’s quite pleasing to the eye, even if the strange reverse Braille effect on the back of the handset and Batman-esque Moto logo that kicked in when the keyboard opened puzzled us.
That said, the keys are nicely spaced and contoured with the numeric aspect of things on the subs bench to save space – that’s where the ALT key comes in.
There’s even a mouse pad to the left, although the bit in the middle is just for pressing rather than acting as a cursor.
Although this phone is primarily targeted at consumers who’re into social networking, it’s also got a lot to offer business users.
After all, more and more companies are making use of Twitter et al to keep in contact with colleagues, partners and customers, so having one easy point of reference – the universal inbox – for all such communication could prove very useful indeed. Throw in emails and texts to the mix too and you have the Holy Grail.
All about the UI
The user interface is fully customisable, as you’d expect and users also have access to the Android Market and widgets to cater for their personal and business whims.
During our brief hands-on with the DEXT, we found the screen to be very responsive and thought the interface (Motorola has overlaid the core Android OS with its own MOTOBLUR technology) was innovative, eye-catching and very easy to use.
Things are ordered into categories dubbed: happenings (for keeping abreast of your contacts’ social networking action), messages (does what it says on the tin), social status (type once, update many), news feeds and calendar (that blends work life with your Google calendar).
Contacts are also updated automatically, taking the grunt work out of keeping track of people who appear to change their mobile numbers as often as their underwear. It will also create links between people when it works out they’re the same person from the mobile number or email address and so on, which is nice.
MOTOBLUR is certainly a time saver. Users just need to set up a BLUR account stipulating which email and social networking feeds they want the handset to catch with its virtual net and it does the rest.
It takes mere minutes. But don’t fear. If you lose you phone or someone steals it, it doesn’t take very long for you to render it useless to the bad guys – with a bit of luck before they’ve even had a chance to post nasty status updates or embarrass you.
Similarly, the big BLUR server in the sky, will also remember how you had your handset set up and restore those settings to a new handset, according to the Motorola demonstrators on hand last night.
The DEXT also boasts a five megapixel camera with autofocus and video recording at 24fps. The soft, round camera button at the top right of the frame takes a bit of getting used to, but you can always do things the traditional way and use the hard key on the top instead. Although the pictures we took at last night’s event were in quite low lighting, the resulting snaps weren’t too bad, despite the camera lacking a flash. The lack of a lens cover also niggled.
Once you’ve taken a snap, it’ll appear in thumbnail form at the bottom right of the screen, allowing you to carry on taking more pictures. Simply tap the picture to get it back on the screen in full size and then bin it, share it or set it as wallpaper.
We were at the top of a very tall, grey building so didn’t get the chance to fully try out the full HTML browser, but from what we did see it looks pretty good.
Work/life balance
The calendar also provides a single view of day job and life commitments, making scheduling much easier. Indeed, work, rest and play are blended together in a tasteful way on DEXT, meaning the idea of having just one device could actually prove to be true in this instance. Although we’ll let DEXT sales figures do the talking when they’re unveiled.
The handset will be available exclusively (for how long though we don’t know) on Orange from next month. It will be free for customers paying around £35 a month willing to sign up to a two-year contract.
There are (as yet unconfirmed) rumours of a second Android device from Motorola too. And if it mirrors the good bits and gets rid of the not so good bits evident in DEXT, it should prove very popular indeed.
Author: Maggie Holland