Motorola CLIQ / Motorola DEXT

Discontinued
10th September 2009

Motorola today finally announced their long-awaited first Android handset (code named "Motorola Morrison"), based on a customised version of the Android operating system which is designed to provide seamless integration with social networking sites and messaging applications.

Known as the Motorola CLIQ on T-Mobile USA, and the Motorola DEXT on Orange (in France and the UK) and Telefónica (in Spain and Latin America), it integrates very closely with Motorola's brand new MOTOBLUR service which is a combination of software and services that Motorola hope will differentiate their new offering.

This is rather more than a standard handset with a vanilla version of Android, it is very clear that Motorola have put in a significant amount of work to enhance the end-user experience. For example, a MOTOBLUR "Widget" can allow you to post status updates to several different social networking sites all at one, without having to bother with typing in all the different usernames and passwords.

It's not just about social networking, the MOTOBLUR can also integrate with corporate email systems such as Microsoft Exchange, and of course it supports standard Internet protocols and SMS messaging too. The Motorola CLIQ / DEXT can pull down contacts from all the different messaging systems, with an aim to make the CLIQ / DEXT a single unified point to manage disparate services.

Of course, Motorola aren't alone in trying this unified approach. The Palm Pre and Pixi market themselves heavily on the idea of streamlining all sorts of different services into one interface, but Motorola have the advantage that they are using the open Android platform rather than Palm's proprietary webOS application.

Another innovation is the way that the Motorola CLIQ continually backs up all data to Motorola's MOTOBLUR servers. If the phone is lost, stolen or destroyed then you don't need to worry about lost data. You can also track the MOTOBLUR via GPS remotely, and initiate a remote wipe if needed.

We've talked a lot about the software and services that accompany this offering, but the hardware is important too. There's a large 3.1" 320 x 480 pixel touchscreen display on the front, a fairly conventional slide-out QWERTY keyboard along the long edge of the device, a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and geo-tagging, GPS with an embedded compass, stereo Bluetooth, WiFi and tri-band UMTS plus HSDPA download speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps.

The operating system is Android 1.5 ("Cupcake") and this can play back a very wide variety of media files through the standard 3.5mm audio socket, and it has a suite of Google applications plus YouTube support built in.

It's a big, quite heavy handset measuring 114 x 58 x 16mm and weighing 163 grams (or 4.49 x 2.28 x 0.62 inches and 5.6 ounces if you are American). The large 1420 mAh battery is quoted as giving up to 6 hours "usage time" and 13.5 days standby time, which is good.

Apple were perhaps the first major mobile manufacturer to really succeed in making a mobile phone more that just a piece of hardware, but Motorola's vision certainly seems to be as good as Apple's if not better.. on paper at least.

This is the first of many MOTOBLUR handsets. Motorola will announce another one for 2009 launch very soon, and they intend to launch several more Android devices during 2010. T-Mobile and Motorola hope to have the CLIQ (and presumably MOTOBLUR) available by the end of November 2009, in Titanium and Winter White colour schemes.

So, the question is.. can Motorola succeed? We have to say that the CLIQ (or DEXT) looks great on paper, although we would prefer a higher resolution display (such as the Nokia N900's). The integrated software and back-end services look good, and it seems to fit in with a well defined roadmap. Plus, Motorola HAVE to make this phone and the MOTOBLUR service to work if they are to survive, as the future of Motorola as a mobile phone manufacturer depends on it.

Perhaps today will be the day that Motorola finally turns around its long years of decline, we certainly hope so!