Motorola Dext Android smartphone

Few would be surprised to learn that US brand Motorola has struggled of late. Since the flush of success it enjoyed with the Razr series back in 2004, Motorola has singularly failed to set the mobile world alight, seemingly watching as other brands grasped the smartphone nettle and raced to the future. Motorola Dext Motorola …

[Jelliphiish]

lemme guess

built by htc

[Anonymous Coward]

A problem with these Web 2.0 homescreens...

...is that they're all very well if you're within range of your home LAN (or a 3G connection on an "all-you-can-eat" tariff), and yes, they tick the "useful" and "eye candy" boxes nicely.

However, the question I have about the Dext here is: can you deactivate the homescreen widgets easily? The last thing you'd want would be to go abroad, forget that the widgets are sucking down 3G data continuously, and return to a bill from your mobile provider which costs more than you paid for your trip.

Presumably there's a "deactivate but keep in place for when I get back home" option on the thing?

[Greg J Preece]

Nice looking phone

I've been desperately looking for an Android phone with a physical keyboard, nice screen, and good battery life. You said that with all that crap on the front page (which I'd never use) the battery life is little more than a day - what happens if you turn all that shite off and run it like I do my WinMobile phone, which is set to connect every so often and then immediately disconnect afterwards, giving it a 4 day battery life despite said battery being 3 years old.

That kind of info would be muchly useful, please. :-)

[PaulR79]

Sounds fairly good

I've got a G1 with, sadly, another 12 months left on my 18 month contract but I really like the Android OS. It can get a little sluggish in places but it's still relatively new and being actively worked on. Given better hardware and optimisation of the code it should become more popular.

A few things to note on the article - Cupcake is 1.5, the latest Android version is Donut or 1.6 and more importantly I think for a phone those pictures are pretty fantastic. Compared to a point and shoot camera in terms of quality although the lighting was favourable and it was only two images.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is good!

At last we're seeing the potential of Android being realised. Hopefully this will translate into strong sales for Motorola and allow them to get back in the game against Apple, Nokia etc.

A bit of competition is always good for consumers.

[Paul Hates Handles]

Surely not...

...this can't be the first Motorola phone in 6 years that doesn't suck balls, can it?

Whatever next? Samsung doing a phone which doesn't suck, too? :D

[david bates]

Can we...

...have a Smart Phone that does'nt major on 'social networking'?

Every one of them seems to have Facebook, Twitter etc nailed directly to the masthead. My eyes just galze over as soon as I read about them in a review.

Just one more waste of screen real-estate and one more thing to de-install :(

[Anonymous Coward]

chose the HTC "MyTouch" instead

I just A/B'd this phone with the "MyTouch 3G" (I'm a US, T-mobile customer) and ended up choosing the MyTouch after fiddling with each one for a while. It was a tough call what with the Motorola's exceptional physical keyboard, but the MyTouch's lighter weight, chunky physical buttons and trackball right next to the screen, and stock Android skin gave it the edge for me.

[muttley]

@ lemme guess

No, built by Motorola.

I've had one of these for a couple of weeks - it's a really very nice bit of kit indeed.

[Anonymous Coward]

@AC 13:26

Android (on my HTC Hero anyway) has a separate setting for connecting to data networks when roaming, which is off by default (as opposed to connecting at home, which is on by default). It will even play a warning sound when connecting to such networks

[Peter Bond]

@AC 13:26

indeed there is - one of the things I like about Android is the tick box that ensures it doesn't download any data while roaming unless it is doing so over the wi-fi radio.

[ngcomputing]

Considering switch from iPhone (US)

I'm a 21+ year veteran programmer, the last 11 running a web development company in the U.S.

In truth, I love my mac and I love my iPhone. The main problem, in the U.S., is that the sole iPhone carrier is AT&T, which by all accounts has the worse cellular service available.

This phone will be out in 7 days from this post, and in all honesty, if it will sync with my Mac, then I'm all in. I'll miss my iPhone, but, when I can't get a signal (and no 3G) I'm going to have to look for an alternate phone and a better cellular carrier, in my case Verizon. I love the iPhone, but the lack of good cellular service is hurting my business as I use this for all of my work.

If anyone in the UK has had this phone, and can sync your Mac information (contacts, calendars etc), I would like to hear your opinion. Also, I use IMAP, and I assume this phone supports it?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just the curtain-raiser

early reports on Moto's NEXT Android phone, the Droid, suggest it's a league further ahead of the Dext

[Ian 3]

I've had one for a week...

... and it's rather nice.

<twopenneth>

The battery life is about 4 days if you remember to turn off the WIFI but still have email/facebook synchronising on 3G. You can set it to 2G only and switch off the account synchronising. It supports IMAP email quite nicely too.

I like that I can vaguely keep up with friends on facebook without going to the website, I'm not a big fan, but quite of few of my friends (and strangely, my parents) seem to be.

I'm very pleased with it.

</twopenneth>

[Anonymous Coward]

@ AC 13:26

As well as the other comments, if you're getting this phone you might want to download Locale from the market, which allows you to turn on/off 3G, Google syncing, wifi, etc based on time of day, location, etc. For example, I have my HTC magic set to use Wifi only when I'm at home - as soon as I arrive home wifi is fired up, but when I'm more than 500 yards from my flat the wifi switches off.

This means max connectivity, with minimum battery usage. I also use it for things like having my phone auto-switch to vibrate while at work. You can also have the phone automagically control the screen brightness and timeout (e.g., I have mine longer/brighter when I'm in the office, because I'm never more than 50 yards from a blackberry charger (which my Magic can use).

Also worth looking at is the Power Manager app, which adds additional battery usage cleverness, and is <ronseal>

[boony]

@ngcomputing

Hi ngc - I have been using the DEXT for around 3 weeks now. I am also a Mac user, but alas Motorola do not have native support for it in the shape of calender syncing etc. You can plug the USB cable in and drag files to and fro, but syncing etc is currently a no no. Moto do offer windows support, which to be fair is pretty darned good.

On the other side, if you are a social media fiend (I use it to keep in touch with a whole bunch of old army buddies), then MotoBlur rocks. If you need syncing - stick with IPhone or other device that is Mac compatible, or dare I say it - buy a cheap win7 pc

Good luck with your choice of handset though.

JB posting AC

[ngcomputing]

@boony

Thanks for the info Boony. I checked today and MarkSpace, the makers of The Missing Sync, is planning to release a program that will sync the Android with a Mac. I used their program to sync a nokia n75 and a mac a couple years back, and it worked really well. I think Motorola would lure over lots of mac users, that may or may not have an iPhone, if they would develop a native mac app for syncing. Or better, if Apple would distribute the iPhone through other carriers other than AT&T here in the U.S.