Motorola Defy XT (U.S. Cellular)

Are you a U.S. Cellular subscriber that lives on the beach? If so, the Motorola Defy XT might be just the?phone?for you. If not, you may want to keep looking. The $79.99 Defy XT?is a dustproof and water-resistant Android smartphone, which makes it a good companion for the sand and surf. But it's running an old version of Android, doesn't have 4G, has an unpleasant paneling effect on the display, and is a mediocre media player, which makes it just average almost everywhere else.

Design, Call Quality, and Network
The Motorola Defy XT?is pleasantly small and pocketable compared to mammoth new smartphones like the Motorola Electrify 2 and Samsung Galaxy S III. At 4.5 by 2.3 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and just 4.06 ounces, it's lightweight and comfortable to hold. It's a fairly generic black slab with a rubberized back panel, rubber plugs to shield the headphone jack and power port, and a locking mechanism on the back panel to keep everything in check. It feels sturdy.

The Defy XT's display features 854-by-480-pixel resolution. Given the relatively tiny 3.7-inch screen, it makes for a sharp 265-pixel-per-inch density. At a glance, it looks great. But look closer and you'll see a strange vertical paneling effect across the Defy XT's display?it's the phone's touch sensor, which you shouldn't be able to see. There are seven visible seams running down the screen. They aren't terribly noticeable at first, but once you lock in that's all you can see. There are four capacitive function keys beneath the display, and typing feels fine on the phone's onscreen keyboard.

The phone is water-resistant and dustproof, and the screen is scratch-resistant, which makes it much more durable than the average smartphone. Keep in mind this isn't a rugged phone, though, so if you drop it on the floor, you're out of luck. But water is a different story. With its rubber ports latched, the Defy XT survived a number of dunks into a container of water. You can't use it in the water, but it was totally fine after being taken out and dried. It also held up fine in a container of sand, and when I took a key to its display, it didn't scratch. So if you spend a lot of time roughing it outdoors, this phone may work for you.

The Defy XT is a dual-band EV-DO Rev. A (850/1900 MHz) device with 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi. Call quality is average. Voices sound a little fuzzy in the earpiece, and maximum volume is still somewhat low. The speakerphone sound fine but isn't loud enough to hear outdoors. And calls made with the phone sound a little muffled, though background noise cancellation is pretty good.

Calls sounded fine through a?Jawbone Era?Bluetooth headset??and Motorola's voice dialing app worked well over Bluetooth. Battery life was disappointing at just 4 hours and 40 minutes of talk time.

There's no 4G LTE support on the Defy XT. While U.S. Cellular's LTE network is still in its infancy, and we haven't yet had a chance to test it, we expect it to offer much faster speeds than 3G. So if you want to make sure your phone is future-proof, you should look for a handset that supports LTE, like the Galaxy S III.

Processor, Android, and Apps
The Defy XT is powered by a single-core 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 MSM7227A processor, which is pretty dated at this point. It's still better than what you'll find in other budget phones on U.S. Cellular, like the Huawei Ascend II, but it isn't good for gaming, and you'll encounter some all-around sluggishness.

Unfortunately, the phone is still running Android 2.3.7 (Gingerbread), which is rather long in the tooth nowadays. There's no word on an update to Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) or even Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). For the most part, though, if you're buying a new phone, you should make sure it runs at least Android 4.0, because it comes with a host of major improvements over past versions like the one we see here.

As it stands, you're getting an old version of Android that's been moderately customized by Motorola. There are seven customizable home screens to swipe between, which come preloaded with some apps and widgets from Motorola. There's also a fair share of bloatware, but luckily most of it can be deleted. You should be able to run most of the 500,000+ apps in the Google Play store, though not all of them may run smoothly.

Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
There's a microSD card slot underneath the phone's back cover, which is covered by an additional rubber toggle. Motorola includes a 2GB card, and my 32GB and 64GB SanDisk cards worked fine as well. There's also 263MB of free internal storage.

The Defy XT was able to play all of our music test files except for FLAC. Music sounded good through?Altec Lansing Backbeat?Bluetooth headphones as well as wired earphones, but there's an audible hiss whenever something isn't playing. The phone was able to play back all of our video files except for DivX, but only at resolutions up to 800-by-480.

The 5-megapixel auto-focus camera has an LED flash. Shutter delay is rather long, at 1.3 seconds to take a shot. Pictures show average detail for a 5MP sensor, but colors look a little washed out. The camera also records 800-by-480 video at 30 frames per second indoors and out. It plays back smoothly, but that resolution is pretty low. There's also a VGA front-facing camera for video chat.

If you're always outside, add a star to the Defy XT's rating. If you're not, you may want to consider a different phone. The HTC One V shares a similar size and price tag with the Defy XT, but you get a better display and a new version of Android (4.0). If you want 4G, the Galaxy S III supports U.S. Cellular's 4G LTE network, has a much faster dual-core processor, more internal storage, a better camera, and a massive 4.8-inch display, though it's a lot more expensive. The Samsung Galaxy S II and Motorola Electrify 2 are also much more powerful than the Defy XT, though neither supports 4G.

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