Republic Wireless is a bit of an oddball prepaid wireless carrier. It takes a Henry Ford approach to your smartphone: You can have any kind you want, so long as it’s the Motorola Defy XT. And at $249 a pop, with preorders open now and phones that “begin shipping in mid-December,” that’s a lot to commit to a contract-free smartphone purchase, especially when there’s no guarantee it’ll actually arrive by the holidays.
Fortunately, I was given a Defy XT as a free upgrade, for being part of Republic’s first “beta wave” when it opened its doors last year. So is it worth the $249 price tag?
Short answer: No
Not when you can get an unlocked, ultra-modern Google Nexus 4 for just $50 more from the Google Play store.(Once it’s back in stock, anyway.) If all you’re buying is the phone, $249 for a gadget with last year’s hardware and 2010’s Android 2.3 “Gingerbread” OS is a rip-off.
You’re not just buying the phone, though. The Defy XT is the only way to get in on Republic Wireless’ exclusive $19/month unlimited everything plan. That’s about $10 cheaper than Virgin Mobile and T-Mobile’s cheapest prepaid unlimited data plans, and it comes with unlimited voice minutes as well. Plus, Republic won’t throttle your bandwidth (making web pages slow to load and streaming video basically out of the question) after the first few GB of data, the way its competitors do.
Performance
With 512 MB of RAM and a 1 GHz, single-core processor, the Defy XT isn’t going to handle most of the latest games, although I’m pleased to report that it handles Minecraft Pocket Edition just fine. Its 3.7-inch screen is extremely sharp, but it lags when swiping between home screens if you have a lot of apps or widgets. I switched to the free ADW Launcher replacement home screen, since it seemed to perform better than Motorola’s.
On the plus side, the Defy XT is ostensibly dustproof and waterproof, although this does mean each port has a fiddly rubber bumper covering it.
Software
I hope you like Facebook, because the Defy XT comes with a Facebook app whether you like it or not. Like the Google apps and preinstalled junk on most Android smartphones, you can’t uninstall it; it’s required by Motorola’s MotoBLUR UI (which you can’t uninstall either). And you may wish you could, since there’s not very much room for games or apps. At least if you’re like me and enjoy trying new stuff.
Going to Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications, then tapping on an app and tapping “Move to SD Card,” does help with the problem some. You have to do this for each app individually, though, it only moves part of the app, and the preinstalled apps can’t be moved. Plus, the Defy XT only comes with a 2 GB SD Card, so you may want to upgrade before you start putting half of each of your apps on it.
These problems were largely solved in Google’s new wave of Android 4 “Ice Cream Sandwich” devices, if only because they come with a decent amount of internal storage. You won’t be seeing an Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade on the Defy XT, though, or at least Republic hasn’t announced one.
The Upshot
Republic Wireless offers a savings of about $240 over Virgin Mobile or T-Mobile’s unlimited prepaid wireless service, spread out over two years; much more if you make a lot of voice calls. That about covers the up-front cost of the Motorola Defy XT. But is it the kind of phone that you’d want to keep for two years?
Maybe if you’re a techie who knows how to push your phone’s limits. Android enthusiasts will be dismayed that you can’t install custom ROMs on the Defy XT, however; Republic’s $19/month unlimited service relies on its Hybrid Calling feature, which is built in to the stock OS and routes your calls and texts over Wi-Fi while you’re connected. (It uses Sprint’s nationwide network otherwise, and you can turn off the Wi-Fi at any time.)
Is that sweet $19/month service worth getting an overpriced, outdated smartphone? You’ll have to decide for yourself. Either way, have fun with what you end up getting!
