Motorola has introduced the Motoluxe and Defy Mini, a pair of Android Gingerbread smartphones aimed at the budget-conscious user.
The pair are already on sale in China, and will be touching down on UK shores next month as Motorola looks to up its game in a hotly contested segment of the market.
So what qualifies as entry-level Android at the start of 2012? Well, starting with the Motoluxe, you can look forward to a spacious 4in screen running at 854 x 480, an 800MHz processor and 512MB of RAM.
There's also an 8-megapixel camera with front-facing video cam, while on-board storage is predictably quite restrictive – you only have 1GB to play with before you'll have to stick in a microSD card.
From a physical point of view, it manages to slide in under 1cm thick – just – while battery power comes in at 1400mAh, which should be sufficient given the middling spec.
The Defy Mini, as the name suggests, is a compact take on Moto's ruggedised handset line, featuring a 3.2in display, rubberised casing and Gorilla Glass fascia.
Under the surface there's not much to write home about, whether you're talking the 600MHz processor, the 480 x 320 resolution or the 3-megapixel camera.
That said, ruggedised devices inevitably come with some feature sacrifices, so while the Defy Mini will struggle performance-wise against all but the most basic of smartphone rivals, there are other touches worth mentioning, such as the front-facing camera and the impressive 1650MAh battery.
We won't know just how competitive this pair of Android Gingerbread contenders really are until we hear the all-important price – and Moto's not talking as yet – but it may be worth hanging around for a month or so if you're looking for a new low-budget Android campaigner.
