Motorola has revealed two new phones scheduled for release within the next couple of months. The Motorola Motoluxe is due in the UK at the end of the month while the Defy Mini us due to go on sale during the last week of March.
The Motoluxe is a sleek new mid-range Android phone, aimed to appeal to consumers after a bigger screen from a cheaper phone. “What we know is that there’s a consumer demand for bigger screens” said Fraser King, Country Manager: Mobile Devices, Motorola UK. “We’ve put a full frame in a smaller handset – you’re getting the screen pushed really close to the border. From what we know, this is the best screen size versus total surface area” he continued “it’s addressing the need for big screens while being easy to use one-handed”.
Asked whether consumers had got into the habit of understanding the limited battery life of smartphones, King said “I think people are starting to understand but I don’t think people realise that the best time to charge your phone is in the morning. People don’t realise that if you plug your phone in at night, it takes 90 minutes to charge and come morning, your phone hasn’t been charged for 7 hours”.
Alongside an 8 megapixel camera and front facing webcam, there’s a ‘landyard slot’ which mimics Android alerts and flashes in blue, green or red to alert users to incoming calls, texts or updates. Importantly, even when the Motoluxe is face down, you can still see the light.
“We know that lanyards are not that common in the European market but the light mimics the Android notification beacon and we’ve put a LED inside the phone – when there’s no signal, it will flash red, when a Bluetooth accessory is attached, it will turn blue. We’ve done lots of research around light effects linked to mood and this is one of the first phones that has taken some of those ideas on board” said King.
The Defy Mini is a new edition of the original Defy (read our original Defy review) and has made an effort to maintain the rock-solid build credentials but looks less rugged for style conscious users who may want a tough phone but don’t want something that looks like a military spec walkie-talkie. This is the exact opposite of the Defy JCB Edition revealed recently.
“We’ve tried to take a lower tier of the market, it will go on sale for around £170. It looks less like a rugged phone – what we find is that a life-proof phone is a requirement for a lot of people – about 60,000 phones are damaged in pubs in the UK every year because of water damage” said King.
