Motorola introduced the Cliq, its first smartphone running the Google mobile operating system, Android, on Sept. 10. Motorola, which has a comfort zone in the middle of a market that's currently seeing growth at its extremes, could use a big win, and analysts believe Android could help provide it.
"Carriers are looking for an answer to Apple and the iPhone. What Google can bring to [Motorola] is not only a good OS and good mobile environment but also a tremendous number of developers who are going to want to develop for them," said Broadpoint AmTech Mark McKechnie.
The Cliq, which will be exclusive to the T-Mobile network in the United States, features a 3.1-inch touch-screen, a slide-out four-row QWERTY keyboard, a full HTML browser, and 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity. It's also Motorola's first device to feature MotoBlur, a syncing feature that makes the Cliq, according to Motorola, the "first phone with social skills."
By Michelle Maisto
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Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha and T-Mobile Chief Technology and Innovation Officer Cole Brodman introduced the Cliq smartphone at the GigaOM Mobilize Conference in San Francisco on Sept. 10. It will be exclusive to the T-Mobile network and arrive this fall.
The Cliq measures 4.49 by 2.28 by 0.61 inches and features a 3.1-inch display that's 320 by 480 pixels. It runs the Android 1.5 operating system and features MotoBlur, which, among its assets, offers customizable widgets for the homescreen that show streaming content such as social status updates, news feeds and messages.
MotoBlur also updates and syncs all contact information from sources including e-mail, Facebook and MySpace. Friends' data is threaded throughout the device, and their status updates and photos pop up when they call or are called.
The Cliq—which also comes in white—includes A-GPS, enabling users to locate a lost or stolen device from the online owner's portal, as well as wipe the data from a missing device. All contact information is backed up to a Motorola server.
The Cliq features a 5-megapixel camera with auto-focus and instant video playback in DVD quality. A removable 2GB microSD card is included, but the Cliq supports up to 32GB of extra memory.
A back view of the Cliq with its keyboard tucked away. According to Motorola, when the Cliq - called the Dext elsewhere in the world - arrives in the fall, it will have access to thousands of apps from MotoBlur and Google's app store, the Android Market.
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Motorola introduced the Cliq, its first smartphone running the Google mobile operating system, Android, on Sept. 10. Motorola, which has a comfort zone in the middle of a market that's currently seeing growth at its extremes, could use a big win, and analysts believe Android could help provide it.
"Carriers are looking for an answer to Apple and the iPhone. What Google can bring to [Motorola] is not only a good OS and good mobile environment but also a tremendous number of developers who are going to want to develop for them," said Broadpoint AmTech Mark McKechnie.
The Cliq, which will be exclusive to the T-Mobile network in the United States, features a 3.1-inch touch-screen, a slide-out four-row QWERTY keyboard, a full HTML browser, and 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity. It's also Motorola's first device to feature MotoBlur, a syncing feature that makes the Cliq, according to Motorola, the "first phone with social skills."
By Michelle Maisto