Motorola DEXT review

But in order to do anything at all on the DEXT, including call people, you’ve got to first set up a MOTO BLUR account. On switching your phone on, this is the first screen you’re greeted with. You can’t get past it until you’re signed up.

In theory this shouldn’t be a problem but in reality it can be. The service was not responding every time we tried to sign up on the handset itself, meaning after a while of frustration we had to try online. Once we were set up, it was a case of all systems go.

Users simply enter the accounts they wish to associate with their device, from a range of social networking and email options (POP3, IMAP and push email are all supported), including the usual suspects of Facebook and Twitter.

Setting this aspect up is a breeze thanks to easy to understand step-by-step guidance. The only thing that’s not so simplistic, however, is the default home screen, which surfaces the latest update (note, it only shows one update rather than several and you don’t seem to be able to control the priority or favourites order of who gets seen and who gets buried) from each of these services. These updates are complemented by the weather and your own status.

In short, it all makes the home screen way too busy. We can see what Motorola has tried to do here, but unfortunately it hasn’t quite worked out in a way that’s useful to most users.

While we’ve mentioned the home screen in the singular sense above, the DEXT actually boasts five home screens in all. Although, you get to them by sliding along, so it could be argued that they’re really just one long home screen. We’re not sure how useful business users would find these, as the whole idea of immediacy of information is to have it presented at a glance, surely?

The DEXT does make contacts management easy though, linking people by working out if the Dave Smith you follow on Twitter is the same one you have as a Facebook friend. It’s not quite Poirot, but clever nonetheless.