Motorola Defy (2021) review

48MP camera and a basic camera app

The Motorola Defy (2021) has a total of three cameras on the back, with arguably just one truly functional unit, while on the front it has a single 8MP cam. Nothing fancy or special, but solid in the context of rugged smartphones.

The main 48MP snapper uses a Samsung ISOCELL GM1 (S5KGM1) sensor of 1/2" size with 0.8um pixels. It is a fairly popular and widely used part, which is known to offer decent performance in the mid-range last year. However, it is a bit dated at this point with Samsung already having a GM2, with improvements to autofocus, among other things. Anyway, the Motorola Defy (2021) also has an f/1.8 lens and basic PDAF setup to work with and no OIS.

There is no ultrawide camera on the Motorola Defy (2021), which is something virtually every mid-range has these days, even if their quality is usually less than stellar.

There are two 2MP, f/2.4 supplementary cameras alongside the main 48MP one. Both come courtesy of OmniVision and are part of the same OV02B family. The fixed-focus macro cam uses the color OV02B10 sensor, whereas the depth sensor has the OV02B1B monochrome variant. Those will barely contrbute anything to your photography with the Defy and are mostly there for marketing reasons.

The 8MP selfie camera uses a Samsung S5K4H7 sensor - 1/4", 1.12um with fixed focus - about as basic an imager as you can find on a phone these days.

You have a selector in settings that lets you choose between the 12MP recommended option (that much we get), the "high resolution" 48MP mode and space-saving 8MP images. Switch from the default 4:3 aspect ratio to 16:9 or 20:9 yields a similar menu with the according lower resolutions.

Resolution options

It should be noted that the available settings options change if you open then with the selfie camera active. Some of these changes make more sense than others.

Camera settings menu

Other than that, the main camera UI is well laid-out and functional. Most of the settings you are likely to change on the fly are on one side. We would have preferred to get a quick resolution or at least 48MP toggle her instead of say one for Active Photo, but that's a bit nitpicky.

Main camera UI and modes

There is a mode selector next to the shutter. Unlike on the Moto G30, here it is not below the shutter key, which means less misclicks. The quick mode selection keeps track of the last additional mode you used and keeps that shortcut handy, which is neat.

There is a Pro mode on the Motorola Defy (2021) which can be used on both the main and the selfie cams and is surprisingly full-featured. You get manual focus (no peaking), white balance (2300 - 7500K), shutter speed (1/6000 - 32 seconds), ISO (100 - 3200) and exposure compensation (-2 - +2). There is also a real-time histogram, as well as the ability to capture RAW files, with or without an additional JPG.

Pro mode

Daylight image quality

Shots from the main camera in good lighting at the default 12MP resolution come out looking very decent. Obviously, this is a budget camera setup, with a slightly outdated sensor and we have to set our expectations accordingly. Once more, while the Motorola Defy (2021) comes short of similarly priced phones in terms of hardware, at least it makes good use of what it has.

Resolved detail is good and noise is kept well under control. Colors are a bit muted, but not too bad and while sharpening does cause a few halos it's okay overall.

There are noticeable moire defects in finer patterns as would often happen in a Quad-Bayer sensors, although some have admitedly become better at handling it lately.

Motorola Defy (2021): 12MP main camera samples

Automatic HDR on the Motorola Defy works great weight, as evidenced by these shots with it forced off. The algorithm also did a great job kicking in at the right time.

Motorola Defy (2021): 12MP main camera samples, HDR OFF

You can shoot in the full 48MP unbinned resolution if you really wanted to, but we'd advise against it. The shots you get don't really have enough extra detail over the 12MP ones to make it worth the larger size. And color fringing is even more prominent here. At least capture time is quite quick for 48MP shots, so there's that.

Motorola Defy (2021): 48MP main camera samples

We did also try shooting in 8MP mode, since it was a prominent suggestion within the resolution settings. However the resulting files aren't that much smaller in size, while sacrificing some fine detail, so we'd really suggest sticking with the recommended resolution.

Motorola Defy (2021): 8MP main camera samples

While there is no dedicated zoom camera on the Motorola Defy (2021), you can still pinch to zoom in digitally. We took at 2x, 5x and the maximum 8x, but obviously the results are rather poor with little detail and pretty bad oversharpening artefacts.

Motorola Defy (2021): 12MP main camera zoom samples: 2x • 5x • 8x • 2x • 5x • 8x

You can do portrait shots with the main camera, which actually look decent. You might need a few shots to get one with an adequate subject separation and the blur application isn't the smoothest around, but you can get a shot that looks good on social media.

Motorola Defy (2021): 12MP main camera portrait mode samples

Even without a face in the frame portraits still work out. In fact, we feel like the subject detection is even a bit more consistent when there is no discernable face. However, subject separation for non-human subjects seems to be a bit worse, especially if your model has particularly long fur.

Motorola Defy (2021): 12MP main camera portrait mode samples

That covers the 2MP depth sensor and its functions, its other 2MP sibling is meant for macro shots. Much to our surprise, these can look decent, if you put enough time and work into them. Sure, at just 2MP, detail is always going to be limited. However, there is still a decent amount of it captured and colors don't look half bad either.

Despite its small size and limited pixel count, the OV02B10-based macro camera has autofocus, which is quite the rarity to see on such a macro shooter. Its range is limited and it that takes a lot of trial and error to get a proper shot out of, but it is possible. Still, this little 2MP cam is not a throwaway one, which is more than we can normally say for similar snappers.

Motorola Defy (2021): 2MP macro camera samples

The 8MP selfie cam captures okay photos, with one major flaw - narrow focal depth and poorly selected focal distance, which results in blurry shots more often than not. Other than that, there is a good amount of detail and colors look nice. Dynamic range is a bit limited, but that is to be expected from such a small sensor.

Motorola Defy (2021): 8MP selfie camera samples

You can do portrait selfies, but results will range from poor to mediocre.

Motorola Defy (2021): 8MP selfie camera portrait mode samples

Before we move on to video, we captured out standard set of posters with the Motorola Defy (2021) at both its default 12MP resolution, as well as 48MP. Feel free to pixel-peep away and compare to any other device in our vast photo compare database.

Motorola Defy (2021) against the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro and the Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro in our Photo compare tool

48MP: Motorola Defy (2021) against the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 and the Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro in our Photo compare tool

Video recording

The Motorola Defy (2021) can capture up to 1080p videos with both the main and selfie cameras. 16:9 is the default aspect ratio, but a "full-screen" 20:9 is also available. The selfie cam is limited to 30fps, whereas the main one can do 60fps. These videos, however, end up with the same bitrate (a bit over 20 Mbps) and size as 30fps ones, meaning that you get lower quality overall.

You don't get a choice for video codecs, it's just the standard AVC, plus stereo AAC streams inside a h.264 MP4 container. No issues with smoothness or frame dropping, just like you would expect from a decently modern chipset and its hardware video encoder and decoder.

Video quality from the main cam is decent for a budget phone, but largely unimpressive overall. Detail is on the lower side for 1080p, though hardly the biggest issue. That would probably be the limited dynamic range. You get both severely clipped highlights and crushed shadows. Colors are quite a bit more vibrant than with stills. Even a bit exaggerated. The sharpening algorithm also seems to be a bit heavy-handed.

To be fair, videos are not a total disaster, but just like many other aspects of the Motorola Defy, would be much more excusable and easier to swallow on a sub-EUR 200 device and seem a bit outrageous on an over EUR 300 one. That's just the reality of rugged phones.

EIS is available on the Motorola Defy (2021) at the full 1080p resolution, but just for the main camera and not the selfie one. It does a decent job of smoothing out bigger shakes and bumps and doesn't narrow the field of view too much. We did, however, notice a bit of focus-hunting when EIS is on, which is sometimes the case on budget phones.

Selfie videos look pretty good in terms of details. Colors are again a bit too saturated. The biggest issue here, however, is the limited dynamic range. Still, these clips are perfectly serviceable for video calling purposes.

Lastly, here is the Motorola Defy (2021) at 1080p in our extensive video compare database.

Motorola Defy (2021) against the Xiaomi Poco M3 Pro 5G and the Samsung Galaxy A22 5G in our Video compare tool

Low-light camera quality

The Motorola Defy (2021) struggles quite a bit in low-light conditions. In the default 12MP mode shots come out looking soft and often outright out of focus. The camera seems to have some trouble focusing in low light. Dynamic range is also poor and light sources are often blown out quite spectacularly.

Motorola Defy (2021): 12MP main camera low-light samples

Shooting in 48MP mode can help a bit with detail, but you still have to battle with the inconsistent focus.

Motorola Defy (2021): 48MP main camera low-light samples

The thing that really has the potential to save many of your shots is Night mode, which Motorola calls "Night Vision". It has a profound effect on shots, brightening them up massively and also fixing both clipped highlights and crushed shadows in a noticeable way. It is still not perfect, but a whole lot better than shooting without it. Plus, it doesn't take too long to capture a Night Vision still. Not too shabby, considering the processor inside the Motorola Defy (2021). Most of the processing tends to happen behind the scenes, after you have finished capturing, which is only even an issue if you want to immediately view the photo after. We definitely recommend using it.

Motorola Defy (2021): 12MP main camera Night Vision samples

Selfies look pretty bad in low-light. The 8MP camera is really struggling on multiple fronts. It is lacking in terms of dynamic range, and its images are generally a noisy mess. There's no night mode for that one to lean on either.

Motorola Defy (2021): 8MP selfie camera low-light samples

Ending off on a slightly more-positive note, there is low-light video capture, which is serviceable. Not impressive in any way, but arguably better than low-light still in terms of overall quality.