Motorola jumped into the Android smartphone market at our Mobilize Conference in San Francisco on Thursday, unveiling its first Android phone — called the Cliq — that features a new skin for Android called MotoBlur. Co-CEO Motorola Dr. Sanjay Jha called Android a platform that would enable Motorola to innovate and solve problems that cell phone users have been facing. The Cliq will be available exclusively for T-Mobile customers later this year and T-Mobile’s Chief Technology Officer, Cole Brodman, who took the stage with Jha, called the Cliq, with its MotoBlur home screen, “the first phone with social skills.”
The Cliq has a sliding QWERTY keyboard, 3G and Wi-Fi connections, 5 MP camera, 24 frames-per-second video speed and a standard headphone jack. The phone will also feature an HTML browser via Google, a number of Google mobile services such as Google Maps, built-in GPS, as well as access to Google’s mobile application store.
While the Cliq is cool, the MotoBlur shows the true power of Android. It graphically integrates all user messaging accounts via email, text message or social networks like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. It also syncs photos and uses themed widgets as a way to enable the user to access different content. Jha, who called MotoBlur “a differentiator” for his company, said that Motorola would offer it on several other phones in 2010, including the ex-U.S. version of the Cliq, the Dext, that will be offered via Orange and Telefonica.
Figures no Sholes news.
This Blur is the interface or a service after all??
I saw the Cliq this morning but we just got a chance to really play around with Motorola’s Android-based, social-networking-focused smartphone, and we have to say, we’re pretty impressed, it looks sleek and some apps come with it already that i had to download for my G1. the MOTO BLUR seems convenient if you use myspace, facebook or twitter a lot. The MOTOBLUR works for e-mails as well as socialization, where i don’t have to open and close applications to get to e-mails then i see it as a plus over the G1. But what would make me run out and get this phone besides its sleek looks and 5 mp camera, is that if this phone is not buggy, and slow as the G1.
Wow, I liked the Cliq, but I now have a Droid. Great phone.