Samsung Galaxy Y Duos S6102 vs. Motorola Defy Mini XT321 (review)

– dual sim (dual stand-by)

– 800MHZ processor

– 1300mAH li-ion battery

– Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)

– 240×320, 3.14in, ~127ppi

– 3.15MP camera

– comes in black/white with a plastic finish

– price range (Php): 7,000-8,000

– dual sim (dual stand-by)

– 600MHZ processor

– 1800mAH li-ion battery

– Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)

– 320×480, 3.2in, ~180ppi

– 3.15MP camera, with LED flash

– comes in black, casing is plastic with some sort of rubbery finish for the back cover. Gorilla glass, scratchproof, waterproof, dustproof. haha

– prince (Php): 9,000

putting their specs side by side….

– both are dual sim stand-by. it means that both sims are active but when there’s an active call from one sim, the other sim temporarily loses its network connection. so while you’re talking to someone from one network and you get an incoming call to the other sim, it becomes unreachable. One thing about the MDM though, if you’re actively using data services (updating software or internet browsing) using 1 sim, the other sim deactivates. Meaning, it’s totally turned off, no reception whatsoever. bugger right?

– higher MHZ is better of course (on single-cored phones at least), this means that SGYDuos is expected to run faster than MDM. And it’s true, while 800MHZ is still a pretty mediocre value for mobile gamers, playing experience with SGYDuos is notches better. I was able to play Tap Tap Revenge 4 flawlessly and Fruit Ninja (Puss in Boots, a relatively heavier version), but I’m just talking about the game proper. Loading takes a whole lot of time, so you gotta be patient with it. But at 800MHZ, i believe you’re not exactly supposed to load it bigtime. at 600MHZ, playing Tap Tap is a pain with all the lags. Fruit Ninja on the other hand works pretty decently though. And ever wondered if you could load it with Temple Run? DON’T BOTHER. it’ll break. i tried it on SGYDuos and by the time i get to the coins collection part, the screen goes berserk and i lose running off a cliff. so there, the best you could probably load your duos are small productivity apps and light games. 🙂 so there, SGYDuos wins this cat

– battery… same principle, higher mAH means longer battery life. and well, MDM wins this with a 500 point difference. that means you can talk more, play more and browse more with the MDM. 🙂 But just to give you something to imagine, at 1300MHZ, SGYDuos runs 2 days with regular use, meaning frequent texting and probably an hour worth of calls. playing apps will reduce battery life significantly. when i got hooked to playing fruit ninja, my battery didn’t last a day. and this, of course isn’t something i got to try out with MDM since i can’t even last a minute playing without complaining about its sluggishness. haha but then, the theory still holds. MDM has a longer battery life… i just hope they paired it with a more powerful CPU.

– Gingerbread… not exactly the newest out there but it’s still pretty cool. Having the same OS, MDM and SGYDuos pretty much share the same interface and set of menus. Both non upgradeable, so yeah.

– i’ll give this one to MDM. with ~180ppi, the screen is a marvelous treat. It makes SGYDuos looks cheap. It isn’t the crispiest screen to boot but it’s still notches better than SGYDuos

– for vanity freaks out there, you’re gonna have a hard time taking pictures of yourself using the SGYDuos simply because it doesn’t have a dedicated camera key. That, and you can’t tap anywhere on the screen to snap a photo too (just like other camera-button-less phones), you have to click a specific button on the screen to capture a shot. It’s pretty annoying. Plus, picture quality is way off for 3.15MP. It has panorama shooting mode though but i’m already too disappointed with the quality to even bother with it.

The MDM on the other hand has a dedicated camera key (hurray!), it has LED flash which you can also use as a flashlight using the Torchlight app on the menu, and the picture quality is great for 3.15MP. lots of effects too and another cool thing is that you can shoot videos with effects on it. >:D One thing though, the camera key is kinda hard to press. haha

i dunno the figures but MDM has a better sound quality both on the earphones and built-in speaker. It has a better volume compared to SGYDuos. hehe

Overall, here’s what I liked and hated on each phone:

– form and build

– fast processor

– you can attach contact numbers via SMS

– capable of running casual games decently! >:D

– ugly picture quality

– no dedicated camera key

– only threaded messages view. no traditional view (inbox, sentbox, outbox, drafts…)

– screen resolution

– good picture quality

– dedicated camera key

– has traditional view but still sucks cos when you open the inbox and view a message, it still shows the threaded view! only, it scrolls to the specific message. whatta cheat haha
– no 3×4 keyboard option, only QWERTY
– no option to attach contact details as part of SMS

– slow processor. it’s bearable but it’s not for casual gaming.

– i understand they’re trying to keep it water resistant but it’s quite a hassle having to cap off the covers for the major ports like the earphone jack and charger port. really, i have small nails and i’m having a hard time removing the covers specially when i’ve already turned off the lights before sleeping, i can’t just charge blindly! haha

– the back cover is already pretty hard to remove but yeah, i understand why. it just needs a lot of getting used to haha

– oh this is a major one and i’ve already consulted the service center about this: it doesn’t do well with contact numbers. if your contacts are stored in this format, 0917XXXXXXX, the phone will recognize the caller, but not the texter. meaning, if he calls you… his name will register on your phone, but if he texts you, his name won’t show and you’ll see it as +63917XXXXXXX instead. also works vice versa! if the contact is stored as +63917XXXXXXX, it will recongnize the texter, but not the caller! whew! no software fix as of date, but i’ve already warned the service center to escalate it because it’s a major concern. a temp solution would be to save all your contacts to your phone, and attach two numbers to it, a +639XXX and a 09XXXX. so much hassle specially if you’re someone who keeps her contacts on the sim card. hay

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So uhm, in the spirit of fairness, I do hope i sounded objective with each phone. I just merely highlighted my experiences with them. hahaha