Nov 3, 2010 16:00 GMT  ·  By

The Motorola DEFY rugged smartphone has just made its debut at T-Mobile, as the carrier has just announced. The device can be bought from the operator's website for $99.99 with a two-year contract and $50 mail-in rebate, or for $379.99 for those that prefer to be free of contract. The smartphone is powered by a TI OMAP3610 800MHz processor and runs on the Android 2.1 (Eclair) platform.

DEFY is one of the few rugged smartphones on the market, as it features IP67 certification, which make it resistant to both water and dust.

The handset manufacturer claims that the device can be submerged to 1m for up to 30 minutes and still be able to function correctly.

DEFY comes with an advanced MOTOBLUR UI with Live Widgets that offers users instant access to integrated social networking services. It also enables consumers to filter feeds and customize widgets for quicker access to their favorite apps and services.

The rugged smartphone sports a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus, LED flash, geo-tagging, image stabilization, as well as video recording capabilities.

The 3.7-inch TFT touchscreen with 16 million colors support and 480 x 854 pixel resolution is protected by Gorilla Glass, which is a thin but very solid sheet glass used as a protective cover.

Other features of the device include: touch sensitive controls, multi-touch input method, accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, proximity sensor for auto turn-off, active noise cancellation with dedicated mic, Stereo FM radio with RDS.

Motorola DEFY embeds 512MB RAM and 2 GB internal memory, which can be expanded through the included microSD card slot up to 32GB (2GB included).

The quad-band device (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) packs a wide range of connectivity features: HSDPA 7.2 Mbps, HSUPA 2 Mbps, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP support, microUSB2.0, as well as GPS with A-GPS support.