Yesterday Motorola announced its first Android-powered phone, the CLIQ. CLIQ has the many of the usual smartphone features, including a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a 3.1 inch 320×480 187 PPI capacitive touch-screen display, 5 megapixel camera with video recording and playback, A-GPS and 3G capability. Cliq runs on Android 1.5 (Cupcake), a well-regarded verion of Android. Specs are here.
The Cliq’s main claim to fame however is Motoblur, which the company says integrates and syncs various social feeds including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Gmail, e-mail and Photobucket and Picasa into one customizable home screen. Motorola describes the Cliq as “the First Phone with Social Skills”, thanks to this silo-breaking feature. On an iPhone, for example, one would be required to access each of those apps individually.
Here is Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha introducing the Cliq at a recent conference…
Motorola does great hardware – witness the huge success of the Razr and the resulting 21% share of the world phone market back in 2006. Motorola sucks at software – I recall the frustration of trying to manage my contacts list with that same Razr, so it’s good to see MOT using a proven open source operating system. The challenge then becomes how to differentiate one’s product from a sea of similar ones.
While the Cliq may not improve Motorola’s current 6% market share, it might slow the erosion. The hardware seems good, at least according to one reviewer. Software-wise, Motoblur is a clever integration of social networking apps and then there’s the access to the 10,000 apps in the Android Market, which can’t hurt. The price is expected to be a subsidized $0. Sales expected to be 750,000 – not bad.
If the Cliq doesn’t catch on, the next chance might be the Motorola Sholes running on Android 2.0 aka Eclair. Sholes might be multi-touch with an 8 megapixel camera.
Failing the above, Moto might well sell their entire Mobile Devices division, at least according to a rumor on Gizmodo, based on on interview by the CEO on CNBC. Possible, but seems unlikely as this the company that invented the cell phone back in 1983 with the DynaTac, but then again the share prices have been flat for 8 years.
Motorola has an eponymous name unfortunately evocative of the automobile industry, and whose fortunes seemed to wane with that self-same industry. Time for a name refresh?
Mobile Review has a review of the Cliq (which is called Dext elsewhere) after the jump.
Motorola DEXT – first glance, Mobile Review. Sept 11 2009
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Motorola CLIQ
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Oh, Cupcake…those were the days. I don’t really remember the CLIQ, though.
I think a lot of phones today owe a great deal to Cliq and its Motoblur.
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