REVIEW Motorola Dext, who could want more?

By Gary Wright

From Mobile Phone Review

Motorola Dext

This phone has much to recommend it. They don't come much smarter and the Dext will Facebook and Tweet with the best of them.

Its touchscreen is slightly smaller than the iPhone but its quality colour and touch sensitivity are up there with the best.

Its has the Android operating system – the Google backed, open-source answer to the Apple iPhone – and it is brilliant. If you want apps, it has them and the system is already outselling the benchmark iPhone.

The Dext is one of the few Android OS phones with a slide-out keypad. It's easy to use, with slightly domed keys that make it easier to hit keys accurately and will win a lot of text message fans who don't like typing on a screen.

It feels solid too - well, heavy in fact. It's compact but feels pretty substantial despite a very slight wobble between screen and fully open keyboard. Mine was finished in what I like to think of as a gunmetal blue. Quite cool really.

From Mobile Phone Review

Most reviews forget to mention what a smartphone's like to make calls. Well, the Motorola holds a signal well and the incoming call is clear (it did get a little warm though). But its party trick is sensing when you take the phone away from your ear (to check a contact or enter a number) and the screen lights up.

I mentioned the apps earlier and no smartphone can survive these days without tens of thousands of dedicated programmes to make it fit your lifestyle.

The Dext does the apps thing well. It comes with Motorola's Motoblur, which blends all your Facebook, Twitter and MySpace updates as well as your email accounts and messages. At first this can be a bit too much, but you soon become used to it.

You can of course run separate apps for any of your social networks and the Dext surfs the internet smoothly and pretty quick. We loaded the latest Opera browser, free from the Android market store, which ran quickly and easily (no flash support though).

There were separate, ready installed apps, for YouTube and the brilliant Google Maps, which backed by the phones GPS, can give you directions, either on foot or by car. Free of course.

On top of that the Dext has a cracking little music player and, while it's no iPod, it is decent and the headphones that come with the phone were surprisingly good.

The five meg camera is adequate rather than stunning but its unprotected lens takes a pretty decent picture with only the tiniest of lag. It's far better than the norm (and superior to to the iPhone).

But there is a huge warning to all of you moving over to smartphones for the first time, that is worth repeating: Data costs money.

We've been a bit spoiled by mobile packages which you pay once a month and forget. Any decent smartphone could end up costing you a fortune, so pay attention when you set it up and make sure you understand what your apps are going to use.

If you are going to make the most of the excellent multimedia capabilities, check your data plan and make sure the mini-computer (for that is really what the Dext offers) can use your home or office Wi-Fi whenever there's some big downloading needed.

Without getting technical, a lot of mobile plans will give you 500mb a month and many people seem to think that's plenty. I don't.

From Mobile Phone Review

We set the phone up to watch kentnews.co.uk, the Guardian, through an independent app and the BBC's World app. It was General Election time and I wanted to keep in touch. The little Dext never missed a story but I used £7 worth of data in just 12 hours.

After that I was a little more careful and dumped the BBC app.

As an aside for gamers, the Dext has been named as second only to the iPhone in the mobile games market by one leading website. Reason: its neat control pad to left of the qwerty keyboard which gives it the edge for mobile gamiing. Not a deal breaker, but a pretty useful extra if you like mobile fun.

And here's the real good news: the Dext can be bought for just £149 from its only UK operator Orange. And that is a bargain, it was more than £300 when launched just six months ago.

Choose carefully on pay as you go and I reckon you could get away with £20 a month for reasonable data usage (Dolphin £10 monthly top up, free 100 meg, plus two £5 extra bundles of £250meg) but Orange does have a plan for everyone, just spend some time checking.

Or you can have the phone for free if you sign up for 24 months at £22.50 (online), so it’s pretty cheap.

Overall 8.5/10

Good
Solid build, Android OS (1.5) with loads of apps, good though small touchscreen and slide out keyboard. Bargain price really.

Bad
You'll be recharging every day, though my model came with a second battery. Not as stylish as some of the Android competition. You do need to be a little bit of a geek to get the best from it.

Conclusion
A deserved success for Motorola which has followed it up with the Milestone which we'll be testing soon.