Review: Motorola Dext (Cliq) MB220

Could the socially capable Motorola Dext be the handset to turn Moto’s fortunes around? Our review is in…

Recently Motorola has been known as a company going through a bit of a slump, with lacklustre handsets resulting in lacklustre sales and loss of market share. But after spending a few weeks with the social networking specialist Motorola Dext, we have fresh hope that the company is back on the right track, just in the nick of time.

Taking the Dext out of the box you’ll find the expected bundled charger (the kind that doubles as a USB cable as well as mains), a 2GB microSD card, user guide and 3.5mm-jack headset; we didn’t really put the headset through extensive testing but from what we heard it was functional but certainly not as good (or comfortable) as the one that comes with the Sony Ericsson Satio.

The Dext's 3.1-inch touchscreen is one of the most responsive around

Officially weighing-in at 163g and 114×58x15.6mm the phone is no dainty number. that said, even though it’s a little on the chunky side it’s not ridiculous. Finished in black and silver with a glowing batwing-esque Moto logo hidden under the back of the screen we actually like the MB220’s look, even in spite of the fact that it’s a little on the chunky side.

The sliding-Qwerty is easy to use and the keys aren’t too tightly packed in and the raised bumps on the keys help things along nicely. We weren’t as impressed by the location of some of the other hardware operations though, such as the on/off/lock button that always seemed a little tricky to reach.

A prominent 3.5mm headphone jack dominates the upper edge of the surround – and clearly we approve as we’re not fans of proprietary sockets and unlike some of the buttons – a well-placed ringer mute switch on the side of the phone makes silencing your calls easy.

The only downside to the Dext’s construction is that it probably feels a little cheaper than it really is, and this isn’t down to anything other than the loosely fitting keyboard, the mountings of which allow a little lateral movement that bugged us more than a little.

Known in the US as the Cliq, the Dext is Motorola’s first MotoBLUR equipped handset; which means it’s Motorola’s first social networking monster.

The glowing rear Moto logo hidden on the back of the display

From the second you fire the handset up, it’s clear where the handset’s raison d’etre lay – in fact, even before that, the box proudly states “The fist phone with social skills”. And despite the somewhat dubious claim, even if it isn’t the first phone to integrate popular social networking tools like Twitter, Facebook, and a slew of others; it is one of the best implemented.

On first boot you are asked to either create or log-in to a MotoBLUR account and once you’ve successfully managed this you’re asked to add your credentials for other sites, including; Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LastFM, Gmail and Yahoo Mail. Thankfully it’s a one-time task; once you’re done, all relevant statuses and updates are automatically handled by your MotoBLUR account and forwarded directly onto the Dext’s desktop.

Speaking of desktops, the Dext has five, which are all customisable and widget friendly; and navigation is as simple as a swipe of a finger across the 3.1-inch capacitive touchscreen. We’d like to note here that the screen has excellent response – truly on a par with the market leaders in the touchscreen arena.

The MotoBLUR UI sits neatly atop the Google Android OS and prominently displays live status updates from various social sites. Whilst it does a fine job of fully integrating a plethora of social media options, we’d have liked to see the tweaks extended a little further into the OS, rather than leaving an otherwise vanilla Android experience.

Perhaps one of the best parts of the integrated networking widgets is the universal inbox which allows the phone to store all messages and updates in one location. Crucially, if you find having the whole gamut in one place a bit overwhelming then you can select which widgets you display here; you also have the option of looking at the email, Googlemail, and SMS inbox individually too.

The camera is a 5-megapixel affair with auto-focus, but no flash. Naturally this limits the usefulness of the snapper in anything other than well-lit conditions. It supports HVGA video recording at 24fps and whilst functional isn’t the best and results in “classic” YouTube type footage.

YouTube is also ready to go out-of-the-box and is integrated into several functions throughout the phone, allowing you to quickly upload and share your clips. Playback of YouTube video’s works well using both the HSDPA or Wi-Fi options and whilst it’s not a totally full-fat client, it is improving.

Naturally, having too many apps running at once might tax the 528Mhz processor a little but we found it perfectly capable of handling most normal tasks like browsing the web and listening to music simultaneously.

Somewhat surprisingly we’re a bit disappointed by the 1420 mAh battery, which the company claims on standby will last 320 hours, or 6-hours of calling. In our experience this is without a doubt a ‘charge everyday’ phone, which at times left us wondering how it was draining so quickly whilst not really in use. In general we’re pretty heavy users, and we frequently make use of the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, A-GPS and other high-drain features, but even so we’d have liked to see the Dext eke a little more juice out of its pack.

The Dext keyboard has ridged buttons and a directional pad to make usage easier

From our perspective the Dext has been a long-awaited phone from Motorola. Its eminently usable Qwerty-keyboard and excellent touchscreen fuse nicely with the amazing array of fully integrated social networking options to make keeping in touch and connected, a doddle. There’s business email support too but in essence we think the Dext appeals more to the Facebook/YouTube generation, rather than the executive sect, and if you can live with the slightly ‘loose’ feeling keyboard, and generally chunky feel what you’ll get a true social networking monster.

So if you’re still sat on the fence wondering whether to dip your toe into the waters of Google Android powered phones and like the idea of a socially well-connected mobile, then you will want to pay the Dext some heed, because after spending the last few weeks living with it as our trusty workaday handset – and quite against expectations – we rather like it.

The handset is available on the Orange network from free, for more details check out the official Dext page.

SCORE:
Design – 7/10
Usability – 8/10
Features – 8/10
Value – 8/10
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TOTAL – 31/40
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SUMMARY
Pros: Excellent social network integration, highly responsive touchscreen, slick MotoBLUR UI in parts
Cons: Relatively short battery life, chunky ‘in-hand’ feel, wobbly keyboard

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