Well yesterday Motorola took a giant, conceptual at least, grab at pulling themselves out of the grave the industry has dug for them.
Welcome the Motorola Cliq (known about the blogosphere as the Morrison).
First the specs:
- T-Mobile USA will release it here in the states “this fall”
- In fact it looks as if the phone will retail for $399 off contract, or FREE on a 2yr contract.
- Full Touchscreen with FULL QWERTY side slider
- 3.2″ capcitive, GLASS, 320 x 480 pixel screen
- Android 1.5 (Cupcake) with the MOTO Blur custom UI
- 5MP camera with auto-focus
- 3.5mm headset jack
- MicroSD up to 32GB support
- 1420 mAh battery
- Syncs contacts, posts, messages, photos and much more—from sources such as Facebook®, MySpace, Twitter, Gmail™, work and personal e-mail, and LastFM
- Five homescreen widgets to keep you always in-the-know: Happenings, Messages, Social Status, News Feeds, Calendar
- MOTO Blur account allows you to back up your contacts/data, find a lost phone and easily integrate your existing contact info for friends/family/business
T-Mobile already has a promotional website up for the phone. On it you’ll find information and an interactive demo of the MOTOBlur UI. Click here for the fun.
Blur is Motorola’s custom UI, similar to HTC’s Sense UI, but it is also a service that allows users to pull all their social networking sites into one account. Blur features five home screens (please take note of this Google and include this in Donut or Eclair) and custom Motorola widgets. As noted, Blur is a system to take all your contacts from social sites and the phone book and keep them in one place, similar to WebOS’s “Synergy” system but then to take that social information from inside various, different apps and place it all out on the homescreens. The ideas, in concept, are great but the execution, as always, will be key here.
Also related, engadget.com has a nice comparison of all the Android devices on the market right now, check the link for the full story. However, the guts of the story is this; there is not a lot of difference between the phones in terms of hardware. In fact they all run the same processor. The minor differences are in the RAM (with the exception of the G1 they all have the same ROM), camera resolution and the headset jack. The differences really come down to the software and keyboard solutions.
Now some videos, courtesy of phonedog.com
I will say that T-Mobile has really gone for the kill shot in terms of Android. They are pushing three android phones, two of which are viable and exciting. I peronally like the myTouch. I’m hoping that Donut and Eclair will be bringing a lot of the features popping up in sens and Blur to the stock version of android. I do really wish T-Mobile had invested in the 288MB RAM version of the Magic/myTouch. All the new phones are sporting 256MB and it really shows. The 192MB on the myTouch isn’t a death blow by any means but why start out behind the curve.
The Cliq is shaping up to be a very nice device. This is what the G1 should have been, at least in terms of form factor, and we’ll see how well it sells. But if T-Mobile really offers the device for free on a new contract they may finally have a true and relevant iPhone competitor.
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