Sony Ericsson Xperia pro Review

Voice quality in the earpiece is very good, with strong volume and clear sound, and the noise-canceling mics do a good job filtering the background noise out of our conversations for the receiving end.

Talk time is quoted as 7 hours in 3G mode, which is slightly below average, but the handset held itself pretty well while we were perusing it for the review, and you should be able to get your full day out of the battery with normal usage.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia pro is the rare sight of a good-looking Android 2.3 Gingerbread phone with a side-sliding physical keyboard, which is on top of that very comfortable to type on. 

It pays to optimize your handsets for a specific chipset, too, and the 1GHz Snapdragon S2 processor that runs the Xperia line proves again that it is more than enough to run the pretty Timescape UI flawlessly. We also have a very snappy browser navigation that is usually reserved for dual-core chipsets, and a potent loudspeaker.

Out of the smaller gripes we have with the phone, we’d point out the tiny and uncomfortable buttons all around the handset – the power/lock key, the volume rocker and the shutter key are too small and fidgety to press. Another small issue is the subpar viewing angles of the screen. Still, the more important parameters like outside visibility and pixel density are above average for the mid-range category. 

There are many physical keyboard aficionados out there, and the Sony Ericsson Xperia pro seems poised to fill a gaping hole in their heart, having one of the most comfortable and beautifully backlit keyboards on an Android device. It is also very capable in most other characteristics, and its price fits right into the mid-range category, not aspiring for something it is not.

PROS

• Comfortable and well-backlit physical keyboard
• Good call quality
• Strong and clear loudspeaker

CONS

• Mediocre 8-megapixel camera and 720p video
• Too small and fidgety power/lock button, volume rocker and camera shutter key

Motorola DEFY+ Review

Thankfully, the Motorola DEFY+ proved to be a good performer in terms of call quality. We were pleased to hear some sweet tones through the earpiece, which also had a pretty decent loudness associated to them. The microphone could be a bit better though. While it does capture your voice strongly enough, it also makes it a bit unclear, so if you have a habit of talking very fast, the person on the other end of the line might have a bit of trouble understanding you at times.

Carrying a 1700mAh battery in its backpack, the DEFY+ will provide you with an average battery life of 7.1 hours of talk-time and 16 days of stand-by, in exchange for a full charge.

Overall, the Motorola DEFY+ is not a bad smartphone by any means. What makes it a valuable offering though, is the fact that it's an IP67-certified device, designed to withstand some harsher conditions than what your typical handset is used to. Aside from the obvious advantage of being able to submerge it under water and throw it in the dust, without a single particle entering its shell, the DEFY+ is also quite usable and well-packed in terms of features. The MOTOBLUR interface looks good, brings some additional goodies for social networking freaks, and runs relatively smoothly. What more can you want from a mid-end smartphone? It even has Flash Player support in the browser, although that leads to a visible drop in frame-rate.

As you can imagine, there aren't that many alternatives to a rugged Android smartphone on the market. The offerings that we advise you to check out are the Samsung Xcover and the Sony Ericsson Xperia active, which also come with their own personalized software experiences.

PROS

• Rugged design
• Very compact

CONS

• Could be a bit faster
• Below average camera